A Closer Look: Definition of Socialism

Many people don’t understand the true meaning of socialism. Some assume that it applies to both economic and political systems. However, according to the definition of socialism, the true doctrine is only concerned with economic systems. 

Socialism is a system whereby the ownership of capital, resources and production capability reside with and are controlled by the citizens. In theory, citizens have equal access to the products and resources and are compensated based on the amount of work performed.This form of economic control claims to have the benefit of allocating resources, services and compensation equitably among the population. In other words, the system purports to be fair to everyone and to provide everyone with an equal piece-of-the-pie.

History of Socialism

Friedrich Engels, a French social theorist, developed modern socialistic theory in the late 18th century. His ideals advocated the elimination of production methods based on capitalism. He further espoused the idea of wealth and power redistribution based on the total amount of work required for production and an individual’s contribution to that workload. Technological developments of the Industrial Revolution accomplished two main things. It brought new power and new money to those that applied the technology to manufacturing and production. In the wake of this power shift and money redistribution, a large portion of the populace suffered. Capitalistic ventures brought huge amounts of money to the owners of the manufacturing plants and production facilities. Those that merely worked in the plants were left in need, often making only enough to provide for the bare necessities of life. Some turned to socialist ideals. Karl Marx described socialism as a lower form of communism. His opinion was that socialism was an intermediary step in moving from capitalism to communism. Many movements across Europe embraced the Marxist view of socialism and this led to the protests and uprisings of the working class, including the labor unions. These uprisings were provided the basis for the movements towards socialistic economies among the European countries during the 19th century. As socialist movements successfully took control in a number of countries across Europe, history demonstrates that the initial socialist advances rapidly degraded to totalitarianism. In other words, the ideals sounded good to major portions of the populace, but when the system was actually put into place, the ideals did not succeed in keeping the control of the economy in the hands of the labor force.

Instead, the controlling councils and committees began to take the power back away from the people and use it for their own gain. The committees and councils of the plants and facilities failed in their direction, driven by self-interest and abuse of power. This failure initiated seizure by the State of these facilities and control was transferred to a new set of bureaucrats that some believe also had their own self-interest at the top of their list of concerns.

Problems with Socialism

The main problem of a socialistic system is that there are no good examples of purely socialistic systems to use as examples or models for employing the theory in practice. The two largest “socialistic” systems are the former Soviet Union and Mainland China. Each of these began with the ideals of socialism, but ended in becoming totalitarian in nature. The State was the organization that controlled all the sectors of the economy and those in power, succeeded in abusing the population, except for the very elite of society.

Another problem stems from the ideals of socialism themselves. Under the ideals of socialism, there is no motivation for many workers to excel at their jobs because there is no benefit to the worker. Any benefits derived from a worker working hard  would be equalized among all workers, therefore the driving force evaporates. Capitalistic economies allow a worker’s excellence to be rewarded either by money or by position. Capitalism is also a system that promotes creativity and inventiveness on the part of the workers. This may not be practical for every worker but it does open the door to opportunity.  If socialism were held to its ideals it might be beneficial in some areas of the economy, but an examination of history reveals that socialism is never able to endure and that due to the evils inherent in human nature, it often degrades into a form of economy that is much worse than the economy it replaced.