What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

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since reading another thread I’ve been pondering …

What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

Also, isn’t it true that the US version of capitalism has evolved away from “pure” capitalism in that it has refined its material success with more “compassion” by also implementing some of the more noble ideals of socialism?

Also, what nations are the world’s biggest Socialist success stories?
 
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source so·cial·ism (sō’shə-lĭz’əm) Pronunciation Key
n.
Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source com·mu·nism (kŏm’yə-nĭz’əm) Pronunciation Key
n.
A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
Communism
A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.

Socialism is any government that considers an equal or equitable distribution of goods to be its cheif aim.

Communism refers to a very specific system of government following the prescriptions of Marx and Engels, and developed in practice by Lenin, Stalin and Mao.

Socialism was around long before Communism. In practice, socialism is often used as a description of Social Democrat governments which remain democratically elected and pluralistic, but use high taxation to redistribute wealth from the market.

Socialism need not be Marxist in character.

Examples of socialist success stories:
Britain under Clement Atlee’s Labour government in the 1940’s - beginnings of the Welfare State, free Grammar School education, nationalization of the Health Service, end of the rigid class system of earlier British society.

Venezuela under Hugo Chavez - use of oil wealth to fund universal public education for adults and children, end of the power of the ‘Nine Families’ of past Venezuelan military-capitalist dictatorships, free healthcare, empowerment of local and tribal communities to direct their own resources and laws.

Sweden in the 1930’s - massive investment in industry, despite growing government budget deficits, laid strong foundations for sustainable development post-depression rather than responding to immediate import/export imbalance, led to one of the most socially equal and cohesive societies in Western Europe.
 
Communism and Nazism are forms of Socialism. It is difficult to argue against the idea that Socialism is simply a form of Oligarchy in which groups of cynical thugs claim authority over the peasantry without justification but claiming to represent the people. If you mean by a “successful” form of Socialism that it won in certain areas for a time and they were successful in driving out the influence of the Church and of the common man well they do exist. If you mean by “successful” that they accurately represent the authority of God and actually help the people none exist.

CDL
 
Also, what nations are the world’s biggest Socialist success stories?
Probably the Scandinavian countries - Sweden, Norway, Finland.

The UK did quite well in the late 40s, too. DL82 has already pointed this out of course.

As Marx described them, socialism was the stepping stone to communism. Communism was to be largely run at the local level, ie. the commune. But it was going to take a revolution to get there, and socialism was the stepping-stone which required a big (temporary) increase in the size of the state, in order to redistribute the ‘means of production’ from the owners to the workers.

Of course, no-one has ever gone all the way down this path as of yet. Whether that means it is just plain unworkable is a matter for the academics at this point.

Mike
 
Probably the Scandinavian countries - Sweden, Norway, Finland.

The UK did quite well in the late 40s, too. DL82 has already pointed this out of course.

As Marx described them, socialism was the stepping stone to communism. Communism was to be largely run at the local level, ie. the commune. But it was going to take a revolution to get there, and socialism was the stepping-stone which required a big (temporary) increase in the size of the state, in order to redistribute the ‘means of production’ from the owners to the workers.

Of course, no-one has ever gone all the way down this path as of yet. Whether that means it is just plain unworkable is a matter for the academics at this point.

Mike
How much more “down the path” can one get than Stalin and Hitler? Let’s hope to God no one tries.

CDL
 
How much more “down the path” can one get than Stalin
Stalin hardly got to the stage where ‘Communism was to be largely run at the local level, ie. the commune’ - he’d gone somewhere entirely different a long time before.
and Hitler?
What about Hitler? He had some socialist elements of his economic policy, but he certainly wasn’t either a socialist or a communist. Remember that the only people in the Reichstag who voted against his Enabling Act were the real Socialist Party, and all the conservative parties went along with him (as they thought they could control him) - that alone should tell you a lot.

Mike
 
Communism and Nazism are forms of Socialism. It is difficult to argue against the idea that Socialism is simply a form of Oligarchy in which groups of cynical thugs claim authority over the peasantry without justification but claiming to represent the people. If you mean by a “successful” form of Socialism that it won in certain areas for a time and they were successful in driving out the influence of the Church and of the common man well they do exist. If you mean by “successful” that they accurately represent the authority of God and actually help the people none exist.

CDL
The British Labour Party was founded as a Christian socialist party, but for various reasons Christianity was never formally incorporated into its constitution. The idea was to take what was positive about Marxism and strip it of the radical and dangerous elements. It was reasonably successful. The Labour governments of the twentieth century were not characterised by cruelty or even financial corruption. Economically however we fell some way behind the United States, and still haven’t caught up, because nationalised industries created incentives to improve pay through strikes rather than productivity, and managers tended to over-invest in projects with no real prospect of success.
 
Economically however we fell some way behind the United States, and still haven’t caught up,
True, but is that such a bad thing per se? Economic success isn’t everything. Our economy would probably be better off if we cut back on workers holidays (as in the USA), removed the right to paid maternity leave (as in the USA), lengthened working hours (as in the USA), removed workers protection and had ‘at will’ employment (as in the USA), etc. etc. but we wouldn’t be better off as human beings. The dignity of the human being trumps economics every time.

Mike
 
Probably the Scandinavian countries - Sweden, Norway, Finland.

The UK did quite well in the late 40s, too. DL82 has already pointed this out of course.

Mike
You are correct about the Nordic countries, but wrong about Britain.

They did horribly in the late 40’s. Food rationing was not ended until Churchill came back into power in the early 50’s. Labour’s economic policies were so bad, that, by the 1960’s Germany, which had its industry completely destroyed in WW II, overtook Britain economically.
 
They did horribly in the late 40’s. Food rationing was not ended until Churchill came back into power in the early 50’s. Labour’s economic policies were so bad, that, by the 1960’s Germany, which had its industry completely destroyed in WW II, overtook Britain economically.
See my last post. Economic success not the be-all-and-end-all of the success of a government, especially in the immediate aftermath of a six-year-war that effectively bankrupted the economy, and had flattened a good proportion of our cities. Attlee’s Labour Government of the late 40s gave us the services and safety net that those who had fought so hard in the Second World War demanded - from a true, national Health Service, through proper nationalised basic utilities, a national rail network, a national parks system, and a post-war consensus of stability that sustained for nearly 30 years. He is widely considered to have been the best Prime Minister of the 20th Century, and even Margaret Thatcher spoke approvingly of him.

Mike
 
See my last post. Economic success not the be-all-and-end-all of the success of a government, especially in the immediate aftermath of a six-year-war that effectively bankrupted the economy, and had flattened a good proportion of our cities. Attlee’s Labour Government of the late 40s gave us the services and safety net that those who had fought so hard in the Second World War demanded - from a true, national Health Service, through proper nationalised basic utilities, a national rail network, a national parks system, and a post-war consensus of stability that sustained for nearly 30 years. He is widely considered to have been the best Prime Minister of the 20th Century, and even Margaret Thatcher spoke approvingly of him.

Mike
I can’t buy that. Germany was far more devastated by the war, and has provided just as strong a safety net as the UK, arguably stronger. But, because they did it w/o the nationalization and socialistic policies, they had much more economic success in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

The worm turned when Thatcher de-nationalized and de-socialized the British economy in the 1980’s. Since then, the UK has outperformed the continent economically.

Cheers,
 
I can’t buy that.
That’s ok, I didn’t expect you to 🙂
Germany was far more devastated by the war, and has provided just as strong a safety net as the UK, arguably stronger. But, because they did it w/o the nationalization and socialistic policies, they had much more economic success in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
I think the argument is significantly more complex than that, but even assuming you are correct, we’re still only talking about economics. Macmillan himself said ‘most of our people have never had it so good’.
The worm turned when Thatcher de-nationalized and de-socialized the British economy in the 1980’s. Since then, the UK has outperformed the continent economically.
Indeed. But at what cost?

Mike
 
From the standpoint of political theory, there are conceptual differences between communism and socialism, but the real differences are practical in nature. Communist states are almost invariably totalitarian while socialist states are usually democratic in some sense. A possible exception to the rule of totalitarian communism may have been the attempt by the reformers of the Prague Spring to institute “socialism with a human face” in 1968, but this early effort at reform was crushed by Warsaw Pact tanks lead by the Soviet Union.
 
That’s ok, I didn’t expect you to 🙂

I think the argument is significantly more complex than that, but even assuming you are correct, we’re still only talking about economics. Macmillan himself said ‘most of our people have never had it so good’.

Indeed. But at what cost?

Mike
I grant you, I’m just talking about economics.

My point is, that if you want to help the poor, or the lower class, or the elderly or whomever you want the government to transfer income to, it is much better to have a capitalist economy, and a reasonable taxation system to support the government programs.

Socialism is a deadweight loss, it’s just not efficient.

A capitalist economy can sustain a tax burden in the neighborhood of 40% and still grow, maybe more if the tax system were very well designed.

This should be ample to fund whatever “welfare state” you want to.
 
My point is, that if you want to help the poor, or the lower class, or the elderly or whomever you want the government to transfer income to, it is much better to have a capitalist economy, and a reasonable taxation system to support the government programs.
We’re probably hitting the bedrock of our opinions here, so we probably won’t get much further in a discussion. We’re also getting a bit off-topic for this particular thread. All that I will say, though, is that all the evidence we have from the (developed) countries of the world at the moment is that the more capitalist a country is, the more unequal it is, and the lower it seems to come on pretty much every scale of well-being other than GDP, such as life expectancy, child mortality, illiteracy, disparity between rich and poor, etc. etc.

Mike
 
Of course, no-one has ever gone all the way down this path as of yet. Whether that means it is just plain unworkable is a matter for the academics at this point.
Not even the early Church? The community of believers set up by the Apostles after the death of Jesus certainly sounds Communist to me (Acts 4:32-35):
32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” - Karl Marx
 
Not even the early Church? The community of believers set up by the Apostles after the death of Jesus certainly sounds Communist to me
Oh, and me too 🙂 That’s one of my favourite passages to quote at people 🙂 But I meant through the building up of the state as a whole in the way Marx envisaged, through (his type of) socialism and out the other end in communal communism. The early Christians sound great, but they weren’t the ‘state’ in any sense. Probably the way they did it was a better way of getting to the end result than the way Marx envisaged it happening, but it’s definitely different.

Mike
 
Somewhat tongue-in-cheek:

Socialism: Control of the economy for the good of all. Take from the rich to give to the poor.

Marist Communism: To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities. Everyone works if they can, and everyone gets fed.

Lenninst Communism: Serve the State for the good of the party & hopefully the country. Anyone who doesn’t threaten the state gets fed, but often not what they want.

Stalinist Communism: Serve the state or die! The Party is the state! State forgets to feed the masses anything worth eating.

More seriously: The US is barely remaining as a capitalist economy in the sense that Marx would have labeled it. We ceased being truly laizze faire capitalists in the 1850’s, with the rise of medical licensure and labor laws.

The so-called communist states were all ostensibly democratic republics; the one-party system profering one candidate resulted in little sense of demos.

Most socialist states have a functional democratic process.
 
Communism and Nazism are forms of Socialism. It is difficult to argue against the idea that Socialism is simply a form of Oligarchy in which groups of cynical thugs claim authority over the peasantry without justification but claiming to represent the people. If you mean by a “successful” form of Socialism that it won in certain areas for a time and they were successful in driving out the influence of the Church and of the common man well they do exist. If you mean by “successful” that they accurately represent the authority of God and actually help the people none exist.

CDL
You’ve really confused systems. Socialism is, as pointed out the collectivisation of property, capital, resources. Nazism began as a socialist form - called National Socialist, but Hitler purged the more radical element from his party in the so-called “Night of the Long Knives”. He allowed private capital to continue so multi-nationals continued to operate in Germany.

Nazism is also inherently racist. Socialism isn’t.

Although you didn’t make this claim, I’d like to point out that an oligarchy is simply control by a few. Nazi Germany was controlled ‘through’ a few, but control was in the hands of one, Adolph Hitler. So Nazi Germany was not an oligarchy.

And socialism isn’t inherently oligarchical either - which seems to be your claim.

Define ‘helped the people’ and ‘accurately represent the authority of God’.
 
since reading another thread I’ve been pondering …

What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

Also, isn’t it true that the US version of capitalism has evolved away from “pure” capitalism in that it has refined its material success with more “compassion” by also implementing some of the more noble ideals of socialism?

Also, what nations are the world’s biggest Socialist success stories?
Communism is an extreme (or particular) form of socialism. It does not allow for individuals to work outside of it.

Capitalism has no inherent social sense, it is purely a community of self-centeredness, each to one’s own without a sense of moral obligation for anyone else outside of the ‘family’.

Socialism is a very old idea. It crops up all over in places you might never expect. It can help ease the iniquitities of the Capitalist system. It artifically extends the ‘family’ concept to include others.

Pure capitalism does not work very well to serve the needs of the entire community, if we had a purely capitalist system life would be a lot more like those “survivor” shows where people get pushed aside and destroyed routinely. Charles Dickens novels described many of the ills of a capitalist sysem in olde London of his day, the Protestant Reformation destroyed the monasteries which constituted a huge social safety net in England. (BTW, a monastery is a socialist concept itself.)

People of little means no longer had a place they could go for a meal, or spend a cold night, or die. They had debtors prisons instead, and died in the street.

Socialism serves as a patch to cover a public concern that cannot be handled uniformly well by private enterprise. Some examples of socialism as practiced in the USA:
  • free and publicly-owned public roads
  • free public schools, owned by the public
  • the Postal Service owned by the people
  • most major airports
  • most municipal water suppliers (some municipal electric utilities)
  • Public libraries
  • power generating dams owned by the public
    Those are merely the ‘government’ examples. There are also many private examples of socialism in modern western society. The principle characteristic is that the members are owners and the premiums from their investmant takes the form of a lower cost to them, or better particular service.
  • Mutual savings banks, Savings and Loan Associations and Credit Unions (Think *Bailey Building & Loan *of Bedford Falls)
  • Mutual insurance companies
  • Monastic houses, co-op housing
  • Food banks and cooperative groceries
  • private (membership, usually ‘closed stack’) libraries
  • most churches and temples (theoretically, although these deseve a great deal of further discussion)
    Michael
 
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