Compare And Contrast Capitalism And Socialism

Although pure capitalism and pure socialism don’t exist in the real world, those two economic systems are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. The basic philosophy of capitalism is that capital is owned, operated, and traded for generating profits for private owners or shareholders. There’s a particular emphasis put on individual profit rather than society as a whole; socialism is essentially the opposite. According to socialism, each person must contribute something to society according to their ability, and profit is distributed among the society or workforce to complement individual wages/salaries.

Pure capitalism promotes a laissez-faire kind of free market, because it was believed that government intervention would cause inefficiencies and unfairness. However, nowadays it is more

In a socialist society, all class distinctions are vanquished, while with capitalism, economic classes exist based on the relation of the person with production (and therefore profit). Both economic systems can coexist with various political systems; capitalism can survive in a dictatorship, democratic republic, and even anarchy, while most socialists prefers participatory democracy but can also exist in a parliamentary democracy. Even the types of property owned by the people differ within each economic system. Private property in the form of capital goods is dominant in capitalism, with public and state property taking second. In a socialist society, only personal property, such as a house and clothing, is owned by an individual, while public property, such as factories, are technically owned by the state but still controlled by workers. Elements such as religion come into play, although they aren’t nearly as important as other factors when regarding economic systems. Both tolerate freedom of religion, except socialism promotes secularism as