I’m not educated enough to give you a fulfilling answer, but from what I understand:
These are two similar economic ideologies. They’re not interchangeable per se, but they share a lot of characteristics that make them seem identical from some perspectives.
Now, unless someone else comments who’s more familiar with this than I am, I do recommend looking this up for more information!
Socialism - any system of government where the workers own the means of production. This has nothing to do with welfare or healthcare or any of that, just that the working class owns the factories and other private property. (The marxist and original definition of private property is property that generates capital, not your toothbrush, which is personal property. Same with your home.)
communism - a post socialist system where the workers own the means of production, currency has been abolished, there are no class divisions or state (note the marxist concept of the state is probably not what you’re thinking if this is new to you.)
Socialism is a mode of production and distribution where the working classes control the state, and public ownership is the principal (rising and dominant) aspect of the economy. Communism is a post-socialist mode of production and distribution where the entire economy is collectivized and planned, and there is no longer a state, class, or money. See Cheng Enfu’s diagram:
Itt: countless people who have never read a single work by a communist or socialist philosopher.
Socialism - any system of government where the workers own the means of production. This has nothing to do with welfare or healthcare or any of that, just that the working class owns the factories and other private property. (The marxist and original definition of private property is property that generates capital, not your toothbrush, which is personal property. Same with your home.)
communism - a post socialist system where the workers own the means of production, currency has been abolished, there are no class divisions or state (note the marxist concept of the state is probably not what you’re thinking if this is new to you.)
One is a socioeconomic philosophy, while the other is a political structure. One might involve the other, but that’s not necessarily always the case.
Socialism is a wider umbrella term.
Man I actually read Lenin and now this thread is making me question what I know. I guess theres what Marxist philosophers say and what is considered in the modern usage.
Marxists say that communism is the ultimate end point. A stateless classless moneyless society. Something so different from our understanding of society as it is currently conceived. I think Ursula K Le Guin probably best imagined what this might look like in “The Dispossessed” (she calls herself an anarchist, but I think this what Marx himself envisioned). Where the way labor roles are divided up by the needs of the group and the choices of individuals. Socialism is said to be the transition state from capitalist society into a communist one. Where the machinery of capitalism is no longer used for the benefit of individuals and is used for the benefit of all. Marx imagines that a society that uses it’s tools for the good of all will naturally evolve into a communist society.
Then there is the modern usage of the terms which seem to vary based on who invokes the them. For example, Republican politicians will use the term socialism to mean communism and vice versa. Some politicians like Mamdani or Bernie will describe socialism to mean a more humane type of capitalism that has other priorities other than pure profit seeking. Some people use communism to describe an authoritarian system that has no regard for human agency. I’m not an expert on this particular topic, but I think this thread is proof that multiple people will have multiple definitions that most often don’t align with how Marxists describe communism and socialism.
I think part of the problem is the history of the Soviet Union. It billed itself as a communist society, even tho it never really achieved anything described as a stateless classless moneyless society. I think at best it probably achieved a form of socialism(by the Marxist definition). Guy Debord(who is a Marxist philosopher) criticized the Soviet Union for creating a new type of class without intending to do so. So a lot of people today hear the Soviet Union call itself a communist country, and so that’s the popular misconception of communism.
I personally think the lack of consensus around these is an intentional bit of propaganda that makes it easy to demonize these terms because most people who grew up in capitalist centers of power have been fed a steady diet of red scare propaganda for decades. It’s easy to throw these terms around to scare people into not even exploring the academic thought that devised them.
Then there is the modern usage of the terms which seem to vary based on who invokes the[m]
I think the thing to keep in mind is: 1) words evolve over time, and 2) the people using those words might be abbreviating what they actually mean, because they don’t know that there’s another related concept that is named similarly. The best example of the first is how “truck” in the 1910s meant what we now call a “hand truck”, and “car” from that era meant traincar. Whereas in the 2020s, “truck” and “car” both refer to automobiles, and we had to create the backronyns of “hand truck” and “rail car” to avoid confusion.
I don’t think your theoretical understanding of Marxism is wrong – though I’ve not read enough to confirm – but I would hazard against using other people’s wrong definitions and usage guide your own understanding. If you understand the ideology, then it’s a matter of rendering it using the right words; that is, it becomes a communications problem.
For example, Republican politicians will use the term socialism to mean communism and vice versa
I would especially not suggest relying on right-wingers to properly use – let alone understand – left-wing ideology, since their objective is to denigrate leftists through FUD and infantile repetition. Basically, the maxim of “if enough people are ‘talking’ about something, it must be controversial” or “I’m just asking questions bro”, neither of which are anywhere approaching a good-faith discussion on the merits.
Some politicians like Mamdani or Bernie will describe socialism to mean a more humane type of capitalism that has other priorities other than pure profit seeking
How the two use the word “socialism” is almost always understood as a shorthand for what Europeans would call “social democracy”. So it’s definitely on the list of valid implementations of socialism, but is specifically about reforming an openly capitalist system into something more egalitarian. That said, “social democracy” still leaves out a lot of details which need clarification: do Mamdani or Bernie support (re)building the social safety net? Does the state need to also own railroads the same way that they own highways? For the former, there’s the standalone word “welfare state”, but I’m not aware of a compound phrase that means “social democratic welfare state”, if that even describes Bernie or Mamdani at all. I’d certainly love a word that means “social democratic welfare railway state” but nothing has caught on.
I think that should underscore my point: even after resolving exactly which word they might be abbreviating, there aren’t enough short words to succinctly describe any particular ideology. Rather, the words are useful to get a rough idea of a person’s views, but ultimately, every one and every candidate is going to have a slightly different take on certain questions.
Some people use communism to describe an authoritarian system that has no regard for human agency
I personally refer to this definition as “Stalinist communism”, because it does accurately describe how the USSR was operating under Stalin. Essentially, it wrapped a cult-of-personality in the trappings of communist thought, though people like Trotsky pointed out how communism could be done much differently. Obviously, history is quite clear that the Stalinist approach was not adopted as-is by any other country, nor retained in the USSR after Stalin’s death. Indeed, I’ve never come across anyone who genuinely refers to themselves as a Stalinist or who seriously proposes to the adoption of Stalin-style, top-down authoritarian communism. Maybe some right-wing Russians do, but idk. My point is that, like the Republican examples above, Stalin and authoritarian communism is usually only brought up as a “thought terminating answer” rather than to seriously debate the merits of communism, either theoretically or practically.
multiple people will have multiple definitions that most often don’t align with how Marxists describe communism and socialism
Yes, because they’re usually talking past each other about different things. Being able to detect which definition someone means to use is a skill that you can develop for yourself, to have a clearer picture than they do.
I’m primarily writing this comment because I abhor the idea that an idea – it could be anything, from rocket science to theorrtical mathematics – is perceived as being an arena where everyone is just making up stuff, and if that should lead to people becoming turned off the idea of studying it for themselves, that’s a net-negative. No doubt, some countries, politicians, and agencies want to denigrate or prop up their own definitions, but that just makes it easier to identify fake socialists and “communists in name only”.
The merits and failures of socialism and communism deserve to be comprehensively hashed out in the public mind, and it only serves the status quo that this not happen. And the longer the conversation is delayed, the more that the indisputable ails of the status quo take more victims.
so strictly speaking socialism is a central planned economy with various ideals deciding who makes the plans. Thats what most people think of with communism. Many folks now a days though will use the term to mean a social democracy which generally looks for the state to run important things that everyone needs or if more individual choice is needed then maybe subsidises it. It collects taxes and regulates but otherwise lets unimportant things be run by private groups. It looks to have a floor to peoples quality of life that it does not go below and to encourage an overall high quality of life for the populace.
That’s not true at all, socialism is just worker ownership of the means of production and not related to centrally planned economies. Lookup market socialism for a counterexample.
Socialism - any system of government where the workers own the means of production. This has nothing to do with welfare or healthcare or any of that, just that the working class owns the factories and other private property. (The marxist and original definition of private property is property that generates capital, not your toothbrush, which is personal property. Same with your home.)
communism - a post socialist system where the workers own the means of production, currency has been abolished, there are no class divisions or state (note the marxist concept of the state is probably not what you’re thinking if this is new to you.)
marx was not the first just the most well defined but his things came from philosophers before him. This is why the time period and who are talking to is important.
yes, but none of them use your definitions, those are colloquial ones not used by any communist philosophers.
Apart from the specific definitions and history of practice there are people who help people and people who help themselves. All systems have been derived from this.
Best not to ask .world and piefed users for obvious reasons. Socialism is the transitionary stage towards communism. Examples are Cuba, China, the former Warsaw Pact and USSR. Communism is the goal.
The inane screeching of .world (et. al.) users attempting to describe historical materialism — or even what the fuck mode of production is generally — could one day, technology permitting, be distilled and turned into a weapon that does psychic damage to anyone who has ever read a book.
The way I recently heard it explained is that socialism is when the workers own the means of production and communism is when the government owns the means of production
That’s not true at all
Socialism - any system of government where the workers own the means of production. This has nothing to do with welfare or healthcare or any of that, just that the working class owns the factories and other private property. (The marxist and original definition of private property is property that generates capital, not your toothbrush, which is personal property. Same with your home.)
communism - a post socialist system where the workers own the means of production, currency has been abolished, there are no class divisions or state (note the marxist concept of the state is probably not what you’re thinking if this is new to you.)
Communism, in the broadest definition, is the goal of achieving a stateless and classless society where everybody is equal with no hierarchy of any kind. In this umbrella, you have all sorts of different groups, you might have heard of “Marxists” or “Marxist-Leninists”, but this goal is also shared by non-Marxist socialists and some forms of anarchism too! Indeed, the first Communist International included the anarchists as they shared similar goals, but future “Internationals” did not as their methodology of achieving this utopia differed significantly.
Socialism is another broad term thrown around to describe a lot of things, but in a nutshell, a socialist advocates for reforms that move closer to a communist utopia (though that might not be the goalpost). It is sometimes also used to refer to “social democrats”, who uphold capitalism while pushing for social reforms that results in a more equal and less divided society. This is not to be conflated with “democratic socialists”, who are anti-capitalist and pro-democracy.
Not all communists are socialists, and not all socialists are communists.
As small tidbit, not all communists are Marxists, that term specifically refers to those who believe in the ideas of Karl Marx. They are not necessarily authoritarian, but many of Marx’s ideas can be interpreted as such. Marxist-Leninism / Bolshevism is an extension of Marxism that focuses more on a violent revolution and a strong authoritarian state. There are also other forms that revolve around various different people, like Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc., but most of those are pretty cult-like.
Personally, I support democracy and believe that a transparent government that lets the people decide on issues creates a fairer, more equal society. I guess you could also say I’m a socialist, as I like the idea of a more egalitarian society and I support the social reforms that try to achieve that
Small note, I’m not an economist, but I do know that socialism aims to give more economic control to the working class over the owning class (businessmen and that sort). Things like unions, minimum wages, paid maternity leave, etc. stemmed from socialists and generally improved the lives of workers!
Businesses (capital), labor (society), and the government are the three main components of a functioning state.
“Capitalism”, “socialism”, and “communism” are terms used to describe who is given the most control over the means of production in the economic system of a state.
“Capitalism” describes an economic system that places most of the control in the hands of capital (businesses). “Socialism” describes an economic system that places most of the control with workers (society), and communism describes an economic system that places most of the control with the government.
It should be noted that, even though these terms are VERY often conflated and even used interchangeably with terms that describe political systems, such as “authoritarian” or “democratic”, the fact is that these terms have nothing to do with each other and no combination of terms from either set are mutually exclusive.
To say it more simply, any capitalist, socialist, or communist society can also be democratic or authoritarian. The idea that socialism is the same thing as authoritarianism is propaganda created by capitalists who are scared to death of livong in a society that places the needs of the common working man above the needs of the biggest businesses in the country.
communism describes an economic system that places most of the control with the government.
I know you’re simplifying things for brevity but this is misleading at best. You can’t gloss over the goal of a classless, stateless society when defining communism, and it is explicitly a left-wing philosophy. Contrast with fascism, a right-wing political philosophy that places most of the control with the government by reinforcing control over capital and creating a clear national identity.
Communism in the strictest sense is the means of production are owned by the state.
The classless doctrine was proposed by Marx and is often inferred when talking about communism.
You can absolutely have a communist society with a caste system.
Communism in the strictest sense is the means of production are owned by the state.
Not off to a great start. “Common ownership” is not synonymous with “owned by the state.” There’s lots of ways to set up a government such that the means of production are owned by the state and almost none of them are communism.
The classless doctrine was proposed by Marx and is often inferred when talking about communism.
Yes, Marx was the political philosopher who described a possible outcome of the inevitable collapse of capitalism and is the de facto reference point for discussion about communism. Many subsequent people have built off those ideas or arrived at similar conclusions from another angle but it’s good practice to specify which when it’s important. Marxism-Leninism, anarchist communism, Luxemburgism, whatever. Marxist communism is indeed inferred without other context.
You can absolutely have a communist society with a caste system.
You can have a communist movement with a caste system but a communist society is classless by definition. It is post-scarcity and utopian. It might be literally impossible for humans to organize in such a way in significant numbers but moving toward that ideal is the unifying philosophy of all communist movements.
You can gloss over that goal if you don’t consider Marxism the only form of communism.
There are other types of communism possible, some that even already exist in smaller groupings of humans than at the state level.
The different types of Socialists disagree on how to achieve the classless society called Communism (including Anarchists, by the way), but the end goal of a classless society is the same. There is no seperate “Marxist” definition of communism, he just took an idea that was considered utopian before him and turned it into a science.
You’re wrong.
Communism can be entirely defined as an economic system with no private ownership.
The classes concept is a symptom, not the cause. It’s true that without private ownership there wouldn’t be a working class vs upper class, but we would hardly be classless at that point. There would still be people working, and people not working under communism. Some people can’t work, they simply aren’t capable, and some will choose not to work because there will already be enough to go around from the people who choose to work just for something to do. If you don’t think that classes will form because of those difference, you don’t know human nature very well.
Marx gave a single definition of communism, there are plenty of others.
I don’t think you understand what an economic class is. A new class does not emerge because one person is more productive for society than another. It’s a question of what your relation to the means of production is, and in a communist, classless society there would be no inequality there.
Could you provide a few alternate definitions of Communism? Sounds interesting.
I mean, the current 3-tier standard for social classes directly disagrees with you. Middle class people do get a new tier just by being more productive(perceived or actual) than another.
The 3-tier system is archaic at best, and more likely intentional propaganda.
Either there should only be 2 classes of people(those who work to live, and those who profit off other people enough to not need to work) or there should be a dozen classes to encompass things like the homeless, welfare supported persons, retired people, people who make part of their income from profit and part of their income from employment, etc.
The definition of communism I’ve already mentioned is one of those theories, but you’re arguing it isn’t real. An economic system where there is no private ownership of the means of production. That’s it, no discussion about social classes or anything.
Other alternatives span a range from no private ownership of anything (normally it’s just the means of production) to group ownership rather than being some sort of universal system.
Look: you can either own means of production and be part of the ruling class, or you can not own any and be forced to sell your labor for the rest of your life. A social welfare state is something that purposely built by the ruling class to further their interests, with some concessions to past union efforts.
That’s not what socialism is, trust me, I live in a country with one of the oldest and strongest Social Democratic impact in the world, and while the effects of that are still nice today they do not change anything about the fact that a huge majority works to enrich a tiny minority, and Social Democrats like you have never seriously put an effort into changing that, historically.
So close until you got to communism. Cite marx.
They do have technical definitions that educated people debate over.
For everyone else, theyean the same thing. That thing being all that’s great or terrible in an economy, depending on the point of view.
Socialism is an economic term. Communism is a political term.
They’re both economic terms. Socialism gives society control over the means of production. Communism gives the government control. The reason people think they’re the same is because, in a democratic political system, the government represents their society.
China is an example of an authoritarian state where the government acts independently of the will of society, has complete control over the means of production, and enforces that control, so it’s considered communist.
Scandinavian countries are examples of democratic states where the people have control over the means of production, the government is simply a mechanism that enforces that control, so they’re considered socialist.
The USA is an example of a capitalist state where businesses control the means of production, the government is simply a mechanism that enforces that control, so they’re considered capitalist.
Both words can have more than one meaning.
Socialism may be among other things:
- an economic system where the “means of production” are owned by the workers (Marxist theory as I understand it)
- the economic and political system that was implemented in the Soviet Union and its allies (they described it as socialism)
- social democracy, ie government regulations of the free market in order to make it more socially just
Communism, in Marxist theory, is a future stateless moneyless classless society which Marxists claim will inevitably happen after socialism. (Nonsense, but that’s the theory.) But a lot of times the word is used, it just means the second point from above, ie the way the Soviet Union and its allies were ruled. That’s mainly because a lot of ruling parties in those countries called and still call themselves the Communist Party of (country), though others didn’t, eg the East German ruling party was called the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
