Communism Vs. Socialism

Socialism is a synonym for Communism, right? Wrong, although communism and socialism share some ideas they are distinctly different. Historically they are different, economically, they are different. Before we look at the economic differences we must look at the past differences.

Socialism encapsulates a range of philosophical views and its roots can be traced back to ancient times. One of the earliest proponents of socialist ideas was a Persian priest named Mazdak, who advocated a system of communal possessions and social welfare, gaining a respectable following and influence with the king, before he was ostracized and hunted down by the nobles and killed. The term Socialism is often attributed to a French aristocrat and social thinker of

the late 18th century, Henri de Saint-Simon, who along with early socialist thinkers such as Robert Owen and Pierre Leroux were firmly against the philosophy of individualism, blaming it for the evils of poverty and inequality of income pervading society (“Communism Vs Socialism”).

In 1516, Thomas More wrote in "Utopia" about a society based around common ownership of property. In 1776, Adam Smith advocated the labor theory of value, ignoring the previous Cantillonian view that prices are derived from supply and demand ("Communism vs Socialism"). The word communism derives its roots from the Latin word communis, which means common, and its meaning in the modern context of socioeconomic ideology is also just that, a common, classless society, without the need of restrictive institutions like money, private ownership, nation-states and is based on a common ownership of the factors of production. It can be said to be a form of revolutionary socialism, in that it takes the worker-owned, worker-driven societies evolved from capitalism to the next level, where the traditional machinery of government and economic planning are pulled down and replaced by a new system of thought, that of the common good. It is an economic, political as well as philosophical catharsis among the populace, who rise up against the bourgeois in charge of running things and replace them with

the class of workers, the majority who are the logical end to the process of production. The development of communism as a socioeconomic theory in the 19th and 20th centuries can be chiefly attributed to the work of two pioneering German philosophers, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Karl Marx studied the development of society and economics and the ways by which men produce the necessities of life, in the context of history, he analyzed the progression of human civilization from the hunter-gatherer, nomadic states of its existence, right up to the industrial revolution and the establishment of nation-states and the economic theories that govern the production and distribution of goods today. Now that we know the past we can look at the present (“Communism Vs Socialism”).

In a Socialist economy, the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

The Soviet economy was probably the greatest example of a planned economy, a task that was undertaken by the Soviet high command, in a centralized fashion. The policies and measures radiated outwards from the politburo and were implemented in the various parts of the economy according to an established command structure. Socialism in its essence requires the production of goods which could be directly distributed to the population in proportion to their efforts, a system that calculates resources in terms of physical units, rather than financial quantities. In a pure Socialist economy this would lead to an eventual end of economic entities such as money, rent, interest and profit. Socialism advocates the cooperative ownership of the factors of production, rather than the capitalist practice of individual or corporate ownership.Since the factors of production are owned in a cooperative manner or even by society as a whole, its management can be relegated to the workers who operate the machinery. Thus, self-regulation can be practiced in a socialist economy without the need of a governing body, which may hold undue power over the greater majority. However, political thinkers like Leon Trotsky were not in favor of a centralized economy, as a central command structure would find it near impossible to understand

economic conditions at the regional levels (“Communism Vs Socialism”). On the other hand, in a communist society, there is no centralized government - there is a collective ownership of property and the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members. Under communism, none of the "means of production" - factories, land, etc. - are owned by individuals. Instead, the government controls the means of production, and all of the people work together. The wealth produced is shared out among the people based on their needs, rather than on their contribution to the work. The result, in theory, is a classless society where everything is public, rather than private, property. In order to achieve this communist workers' paradise, the capitalist system must be destroyed through violent revolution. Industrial workers would rise up around the world and overthrow the middle class. Once the communist system was established, even government would cease to be necessary, as everyone toiled together for the common good (Szczepanski).

Countries that implemented one or another version of communism in the 20th century include Russia (as the Soviet Union), China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea. In every case, communist dictators rose to power in order to enforce the reordering of the political and economic structure. Today, Russia and Cambodia are no longer communist, China and Vietnam are politically communist but economically capitalist, and Cuba and North Korea continue to practice communism. Countries with socialist policies, in combination with a capitalist economy and democratic political system, include Sweden, Norway, France, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. In each of these cases, socialism has achieved the moderation of capitalistic drives for profit at any human expense, without disincentivizing work or brutalizing the populace. Socialist policies provide for worker benefits such as vacation time, universal health care, subsidized child-care, etc. without demanding central control of industry. In short, the practical difference between communism and socialism can be summed up this way: Would you prefer to live in Norway, or in North Korea?