I often see these words used interchangeably, though as I understand it there is a difference between the two ideologies, no?
A socialist society lacks private ownership of the means of production (the things that make society functional), the opposite being social ownership. You can still start a business and make money, but wealth is shared among the workers rather than being hoarded by a single private entity at the top (think co-op)
A communist society is much stricter, lacking private property and social classes. The state owns everything and allocates it based on need
Just for comparison, a capitalist society like the one we (unfortunately) live in is a rat race. Wealth goes to whoever can exploit the system the most, which is usually whoever has the most money to start. It is the Ultimate Deathmatch of society.
This makes sense, thanks for explaining. A follow up question: how is “democratic socialism” a form of socialism then? Because it doesn’t really sound like socialism. It sounds like capitalism with some wealth redistribution
Like with all things, it’s a matter of degree. Democracy and socialism are not inherently incompatible, but can be mixed together at different ratios. For example, a democratic socialist society could follow in the Swiss model of direct democracy, meaning everyone has a say in the policy decisions. Such policy decisions include the law but also how to utilize the means of production, which the state owns entirely.
Whereas another democratic socialist society could realize their democracy through a representative model, where citizens elect a local representative that goes to the capital and votes in a state committee on how to amend the law or utilize the means of production, which the state owns entirely. Here, political power is wielded by a committee but the complete socialist ownership is intact.
Yet another democratic socialist society could be much softer on the state ownership of all the means of production. The state might own the utilities, roads, schools, and all land, but may permit certain collectives to privately own businesses that generate value and to distribute those earnings equally amongst themselves. This could be considered a transitional step, since it allows for a controlled amount of capitalist-style development to occur, while avoiding huge concentrations of private capital. But it could also be a step backwards if the state already fully-owned the means of production but then voted to release some of it to small co-ops.
While words have to mean something to be useful at all, I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to fit all possibilities into neat categories. Ultimately, socioeconomics are fluid.
For example, a democratic socialist society could follow in the Swiss
Is Switzerland a direct democracy?
Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_referendums_in_Switzerland
Switzerland is also a rarity where there isn’t quite a separate head of state (eg UK Monarch, German President) but also the head of government role is done by a council of seven, where the majority decision is what happens. So the legislative body writes the law and the council of seven is tasked with executive power to carry out the law.
The modern Swiss constitution (1848) took inspiration from the American constitution (1789), but rather than a consolidated head of state/government like the American President, they wanted to hew even closer to the long-standing ideals of democracy amongst the Cantons, to also avoid concentrating too much power to individuals. Thus, even though the Swiss Federal Council rotates the title of president every year in turn, it confers zero extra powers.
That’s super interesting. I like that model of governance, seems much more stable the the alternatives
I think no one can give a clear definition of what a socialist democracy is because they don’t live in one, I do and I work for the state and will try explain it.
We have a free market economy and stock exchange ergo full-fledged capitalism, however the collected tax/revenue base collected for the state is used to fund three core functions refered to as “Apex Priorities” namely Health, Education and Housing - these are all free to citizens and legal foreign nationals, we have fee-free schools and means-determined fully funded higher education, healthcare is fully free and an application for a basic, but functional dwelling is applied for and built. These are the conditions that the State believes every citizen requires to reach self-actualisation. There are further support functions through social interventions paying for things such as child-care, disability, old-age to provide the unemployed with no means of monthly income a mometary base to take care of their basic needs.
The State is also responsible for creating new infrastructure based on citizen needs auch as schools, colleges, universities, clinics, hospitals, roads, high-ways, bridges, agriculture, forestry, nature conservation, water supply, electrical supply, sanitation, arts, culture, sport, implementing legislative policies and laws etc etc etc.
What the State is also responsible for, which people get confused, is that it DOES NOT create jobs or job opportunities, its sole-purpose by doing all of these functions is to create a conducive environment for business to operate, this is from brick and mortar to factory and import/export functionaries - every aspect for business, employer and employee to thrive is to provide all the necessary soft and hard means to execute their goals and conteibute to the economy thus driving further investment from local and foreign entities.
Nutshell: the State needs to take care of the citizens needs so that capitalism can flourish. The logic is that is a recursive loop where if the citizens can work, the state gets tax to put back into the citizen - if the one fails the other fails.
N.B. This State is far from perfect but since inception to date we class ourselves as a socialist democracy, and this is why.
Thats interesting. Where do you live if you dont mind me asking?
No idea where they come from, but do take a look at some of the Scandinavian countries systems.
Democratic socialism is when democracy but also the workers control the means of production. Social democracy is when democracy but also private aristocrats control the means of production but also taxes spent on nice things. Democratic Socialists Of America is when democratic socialism but also social democracy but also baby weenie pee pants social democracy but also self sabotage but also like 1% tankies occupying 7% of leadership.
Capitalism with wealth redistribution is considered to be a potential method of achieving socialism or at least a significant amount of it.
When you really get into the weeds on a lot of these ideologies you’ll find that the 40,000 foot overview of the single word that defines them is actually quite different from the actual process of getting there, and the people arguing for these ideologies actually understand that. They also understand that the means of getting to the goal, or even just closer to the goal, is sometimes the more important and worthy part than the actual end which may not even be realistically attainable nor permanent.
Socialism: If you have two cows, you give one to your neighbor.
Communism: If you have two cows, you give them to the government and the government then gives you some milk.
My take on it is that socialism is still fundamentally a capitalist approach to resource distribution, while Communism does away with most private property. Some people like to try and dress it up more with ideals, but that’s the basic difference in practice – it doesn’t make sense in this context, from my pov, to talk about the imaginary “ideal” of communism, rather than the realistic implementations of it that have occurred.
So, like under communism everything is basically state owned. People who’ve lived under communism will hear things like “state owned grocery stores” and think “Oh shit, I’ve lived this – you get food stamps/allocations of food assigned by the govt, and that’s what you’re allowed to ‘buy’/‘eat’. And the govt workers will get better stamps/allocations, cause it’ll be inevitably corrupt. This is bad!”. (I’ve heard this very sentiment from people who fled communist states, when topics like Mamdani’s govt run stores comes up). Applied communism isn’t some idyllic fairytale, it’s more “The state has declared the university system too elitist, so we’re forcing you all to do back breaking labour in the fields. Refusal means firing squad”.
Under a socialist approach, you get things like private stores, honoring things like food stamps that are provided to people in need, but most of the transactions are done without government involvement. The talk of setting up government run grocery stores, is viewed more as “We want to provide a baseline that can sell food at cost, but we still want private stores too, especially for more luxury/foreign goods and other options/competition in the market. Having a market option that is providing cheap generic products should have a stabilizing effect on food prices, and downward pressure on cost of living in general for folks”. To provide these services, socialist regimes typically have higher tax rates on private citizens – but those taxes are still fundamentally driven by a capitalist system of private property and individual choice/freedom.
Back in the 19th century—before the working class was split into the factions of socialism, communism and anarchism—these words and their movements were often used interchangeably, with socialism meaning something along the lines of “the people own the means of productions”, communism describing a society that follows the paradigm of “each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” and anarchism meaning that no instance of anything should rule over others.
As you can see, these ideas were not contradicting each other but rather focussing on different aspects of the liberation of the working class
Depends who you ask, but at the core of it, communism is a political structure, while socialism is an economic structure.
That’s a very succinct explanation
I made this just because I want to say that the easiest way to think about it is precisely that.
This is also how the political compass sort of displays it;
communism is stuff at the left hand edge of the compass, “Laissez-faire” capitalism is at the right hand edge of the compass. Stuff on the right but not the edge are varying degrees of capitalism, stuff on the left but not the edge are varying degrees of socialism.
Communism = perfect, pure socialism, and perfected pure capitalism is Laissez-faire capitalism.
But more people personally prefer diluted forms of communism or pure-capitalism.
I personally think that a lot of other explanations, like communism has to have no currency are literally just opinion, not objectively true.
because certain leftists think their type of communism/socialism is the only one that should be considered valid. This seems foolish because it treats politics like religion; politics is in fact primarily policy decision in response to issues - or it should be this - so you can’t really argue that there’s a “correct denomination” like some Christians or Muslims do between other members of their faith.
was there a good implementation of either one?
I’m not a communist but I do think the USSR was a very successful socialism state. Yes, it was poor - but the wealth of a nation isn’t solely tied to the economic system it uses. Russia already had a history of famines, corruption, drinking problems, and was super lacking in technology. And then it also over extended itself for imperialist reasons/spreading socialism (whichever sounds better to you).
And yes it was ruled by some nasty people. But Stalin and Lenin achieved a wonderful turnaround from a wartorn 3rd-world absolute monarchy into a modernised industrialised state that sent spacecraft to the moon and Venus.
If you look into how they expanded their railroads, I mean wow. No capitalist state has done it the way they did. Some precise micromanaging, the persuasion of foreign engineers to settle down in Russia. Stalin got to live like a strategy gamer playing city skylines his entire life.
Instead of asking “was there a perfect implementation of x ideology,” which there has never been for any ideology, we should ask “are there successful implementations of X ideas?” And for socialism, the answer is a resounding yes. People will say that the Nordic states aren’t socialist (instead being “social democracies”) but they undoubtedly implement socialist ideas.
Universal health care - more successful than private health care
Trade unions
Maternity leave…
Universal health care - more successful than private health care
Trade unions
Maternity leave…
I know Europe is famous for this but we have that here in Canada too
True, I didn’t mean to tie it to nordic states like that I just wanted to list some successful socialist ideas
one is utter fantasy role play shite
the other can be watered down and integrated into democracy and functional economic systems
In my mind, pure communism would use no money, just job assignments and resource distribution. In Socialism, money is still used but it is used for the benefit of all, not just a few.
Socialism is the government receives the means of production instead of business and provides resources to the people. You can see where people with malicious intent can mess up the system.
Communism it’s typically a collective of the people that holds the means of production and distribute it amongst the community as needed with no real central authority.
