OP, if you take nothing else away from this conversation, it is that different people have different notions of what exactly the word “socialism” refers to, which in practice makes it a useless word to use in the context of discussing public policy because you just end up with groups talking past each other. In the most extreme case, if someone thinks you are proposing “socialism”, then they might abruptly stop listening to what you are actually saying and assume that what you are actually proposing is to turn over the entire country to a corrupt authoritarian government because that is what the word “socialism” means to them. For this reason, should you find yourself in a discussion about public policy, it is generally better to be very specific about exactly what policies you are saying are good or bad and why you think they are good or bad without resorting to using what are in practice ambiguous and loaded terms like these. (Just to be clear, I am not saying that this state of affairs is reasonable, just that this is how it is at the moment.)
What's the difference between communism and socialism?
Submitted 1 year ago by lime_glowworm@geddit.social to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
bitcrafter@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
Ethalis@jlai.lu 1 year ago
It depends a lot on what you actually mean by socialism and communism because these words can have very different meanings to different people and ideology.
As a very broad baseline, socialism is the socialization of the means of production, as opposed to the current privatization of those means. Now there are a lot of ways this could be done, and thus a lot of ways to define socialism. Some socialists want a strong State that can enforce strict rules of ownership, others want no State at all and a free cooperation between individuals, with a lot of variations in between. An anarchist, a communist, a social-democrat would all consider themselves socialists, even when they actually have very distinct ideologies.
Now communism, at least in its most recognizable form, is basically the end state of socialism in the Marxist ideology specifically. It designates a stateless, classless society in which each person contributes according to their ability and receives according to their needs. It’s basically the end goal theorized by Marx that has never been achieved yet in History.
ehrenschwan@feddit.de 1 year ago
nalyd@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Socialism is a system where individuals do not own corporations. A lot of the other posters here are emphasizing the state ownership aspect where the government owns everything. But really socialism is about collections of people owning things without an elitist class (like modern billionaires). Who those collections of people are that owns things is where the interpretation and ambiguity begins though.
Imagine if Microsoft instead of having a board of directors and being on a stock exchange, instead was owned and operated by it’s employees and selected the CEO of their company by an internal election process, where the workers could select leaders that they thought would best represent their interests in the company. That would be another example of socialism that can exist without government involvement at all. The collection of owners here is simply the employees of Microsoft.
baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 1 year ago
Lots of people has great answers here. I would love to explain a bit of the reasoning behind these production relations in very crude and hand-wavy terms.
At the time of Marx, people see the economy consists of two major inputs, labour and means of production (land, machinary, tools, etc), with machinary and tools (things that can be produced and enables production) called capitial.
In a capitalistic society, like its name suggest, capital is a valuable resource. That means people owning these capital, aka capitalist, can make money just by renting these capitals without contributing labor.
However with the productivity increase, Marx theorise that capitals will lose its value, hence enabling workers to collectively own the means of production. At that stage, only labour will be valuable resource, hence the compensation will be directly tied to the value of labour a worker can provide.
Finally, when the productivity is way over the capacity of consumption, communism is achieved. Human will no longer fight for resource, since the amount of resource can fullfill the need of any individual. Thus the society will be able to distribute resource simply by need.
walnutwalrus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
in my understanding, relying on wiki for definitions:
communism is stateless moneyless propertyless religionless classless society where there is the common ownership or non-ownership of the means of production
socialism in theory wants to prioritize the value of labor and seeks to have the common social democratic ownership of the means of production
allywilson@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Please explain any reearch you have performed before posting such a short and grossly generalised qustion.
hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Nope.
Short-sighted questions is the exact reason for this community. Let the ppl answering it define their assumptions.
bitcrafter@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
You make an excellent point, sir! It’s not like this is a community geared towards answering stupid… umm… nevermind.
wason@lemmy.ninja 1 year ago
Hi. I’m definitely not an expert on the subject but I had a teacher in highschool who taught us about this and this is what I remember.
Communism is an utopia, is a system that goes against human nature therefore it’ll never work. It has never worked, the so called communist countries are actually socialist.
First, in communism there’s no government. You as an individual who is aware that lives in a community you do everything for the “greater good” of the community. So if you’re very good at singing and dancing but the community needs let’s say potatoes then you, by your own choice you go to the farm and produce potatoes. Now once you have all your potatoes you say:
Ok, I have a wife and a kid, that’s a family of 3 so I’ll take only 3 potatoes. My buddy Rick who has a wife and 4 children, that’s a family of 6 so he takes 6 potatoes.
Again it goes against human nature, since when we plant something we consider everything we harvested ours.
Now socialism is just one step back but a huuuuge step back where a government exists.
So a random guy comes in and say:
Hey people of the community since we are not ready just yet to give to the community from our hearts, I’ll act as a government and dictate what you do and how to distribute what you produce.
Billy I know you are very good at singing and dancing but we don’t need entertainment, we need potatoes so get your lazy ass up and go to the farm!
Billy since you have a family of 3 then you get 3 potatoes.
My cousin Rick, I know he has a family of 6 but give him 20 potatoes because I’m the government, I decide how much everyone gets.
So socialism is very prone to corruption.
There you have it. Again I’m not an expert here, everyone is welcome to correct me. I’m just regurgitating what a highschool teacher taught us.
lieuwex@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Eh your teacher does not know what they’re talking about in the slightest.
Socialism does not have to be centrally planned. For example, you could have market socialism by just making every company a worker cooperative.
chicagohuman@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I think this video helps
pacology@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In real general terms, communism is about people/state’s ownership of the means of production. Under this system, most private property is nationalized.
Socialism allows for private property and sees the role of the state to redistribute power and wealth among its citizens through some sort of state program.
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Also for additional information, Countries/Economies don’t have to be entirely one or the other.
The US has both socialist and capitalist components. The post office system is socialist, so are functions like public roads, and fire and police services. There are also overtly socialist programs in place in things like food stamps, medicare, etc.
Other countries like Canada are the same, but generally have more socialist organizations and programs in comparison (like our healthcare system and electric grids)
Yendor@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I’d argue that having the government provide a service isn’t enough to call something socialist. In “The Wealth of Nations”, Adam Smith said that in a free-market economy, the governments role was to provide defence, law and order, and public works (eg. roads and education). If we’re using Marx’s definitions for communism, then surely we have to use Smith’s definitions for Capitalism.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Food stamps etc are not socialism. I wish people would stop that trope.
As a republic, we can vote for social programs and not be a socialism. Socialism is the workers controlling the means of production. Capitalism is people inject capital to create a business.
Social welfare programs are not socialism. The workers do not own the means of production.
The United States, Sweden l, etc are all capitalist countries. Sweden has elected to use taxes to fund more robust social programs but that is funded by captialism.
In America we could do the same thing and we’d still be a republic based on capitalism.
grte@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
You are mistaken. Socialism is worker owned means of production. Communism is a theoretical stateless, classless, moneyless society that Marx theorized would eventually form from the conditions of socialism (AKA dictatorship of the proletariat).
Little8Lost@feddit.de 1 year ago
Does communism really only have this one meaning defined by marx? At least to me that sounds stoopid to let one guy define something that could be a spectrum
Milan@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Your definition of socialism is false. Socialism is when the means of production are owned by the workers. This is incompatible with capitalism, where the means of production are held by those who own capital. In simpler terms, under socialism workers have agency over how their workplace whereas under capitalism that is decided by a CEO/board of directors.
What you’re describing is a social democracy, which is a more socialised version of capitalism.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
What do they mean by means of production?
4am@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Probably important to also include that personal property is not private property. Private property would be means of production such as farms or factories - they are owned by the workers collectively. You still can have a house, a bed, a refrigerator, a TV, etc.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Socialism would be a country like USSR. What you are on about could easily be a capitalist country like Denmark. I’m a big time capitalist because I think socialism is inherently unstable and prone to have huge huge inefficiencies as seen in the USSR. You need the market to correct itself. But like capitalist countries like Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland I think the capitalist state should correct the market with externalities and via taxes pay for education, healthcare etc. As time goes on I support UBI and we should start that now. Economists are beginning to push cash transfers as the best means of improvement the welfare of citizens. But this is absolutely capitalism, the free market and capital expenditure by individuals is the foundation of the system.
I have no idea why, at times, Americans do not understand the word socialism. Plenty of people in European capitalist countries died to try get out of a socialist system or to avoid it. Yet some Americans say they are socialist. It’s crazy and disrespectful.