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{{Short description|Political philosophy emphasising social ownership of production}}
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'''Socialism''' is an [[economic ideology|economic]] and [[political philosophy]] encompassing diverse [[Economic system|economic]] and [[social system]]s<ref>{{harvp|Busky|2000|p=2}}: "Socialism may be defined as movements for social ownership and control of the economy. It is this idea that is the common element found in the many forms of socialism."</ref> characterised by [[social ownership]] of the [[means of production]],<ref>
* {{harvp|Busky|2000|p=2}}: "Socialism may be defined as movements for social ownership and control of the economy. It is this idea that is the common element found in the many forms of socialism."
* {{harvp|Arnold|1994|pp=[https://archive.org/details/philosophyeconom00arno/page/n21 7]–8}}: "What else does a socialist economic system involve? Those who favor socialism generally speak of social ownership, social control, or socialization of the means of production as the distinctive positive feature of a socialist economic system."
* {{harvp|Horvat|2000|pp=1515–1516}}: "Just as private ownership defines capitalism, social ownership defines socialism. The essential characteristic of socialism in theory is that it destroys social hierarchies, and therefore leads to a politically and economically egalitarian society. Two closely related consequences follow. First, every individual is entitled to an equal ownership share that earns an aliquot part of the total social dividend ... Second, in order to eliminate social hierarchy in the workplace, enterprises are run by those employed, and not by the representatives of private or state capital. Thus, the well-known historical tendency of the divorce between ownership and management is brought to an end. The society — i.e. every individual equally — owns capital and those who work are entitled to manage their own economic affairs."
* {{harvp|Rosser|Barkley|2003|p=53}}: "Socialism is an economic system characterised by state or collective ownership of the means of production, land, and capital.";
* {{harvp|Badie|Berg-Schlosser|Morlino|2011|p=2456}}: "Socialist systems are those regimes based on the economic and political theory of socialism, which advocates public ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources."
* {{harvp|Zimbalist|Sherman|Brown|1988|p=7}}: "Pure socialism is defined as a system wherein all of the means of production are owned and run by the government and/or cooperative, nonprofit groups."
* {{harvp|Brus|2015|p=87}}: "This alteration in the relationship between economy and politics is evident in the very definition of a socialist economic system. The basic characteristic of such a system is generally reckoned to be the predominance of the social ownership of the means of production."
* {{cite book |last1=Hastings |first1=Adrian |last2=Mason |first2=Alistair |last3=Pyper |first3=Hugh |title=The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0198600244 |page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hast/page/677 677] |quote=Socialists have always recognized that there are many possible forms of social ownership of which co-operative ownership is one ... Nevertheless, socialism has throughout its history been inseparable from some form of common ownership. By its very nature it involves the abolition of private ownership of capital; bringing the means of production, distribution, and exchange into public ownership and control is central to its philosophy. It is difficult to see how it can survive, in theory or practice, without this central idea.|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hast/page/677}}</ref> as opposed to [[private ownership]].{{sfnp|Horvat|2000|pp=1515–1516}}{{sfnp|Arnold|1994|pp=7–8}}<ref name="oxfordcomp">{{cite book |last1=Hastings |first1=Adrian |last2=Mason |first2=Alistair |last3=Pyper |first3=Hugh |title=The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0198600244 |page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hast/page/677 677] |quote=Socialists have always recognized that there are many possible forms of social ownership of which co-operative ownership is one ... Nevertheless, socialism has throughout its history been inseparable from some form of common ownership. By its very nature it involves the abolition of private ownership of capital; bringing the means of production, distribution, and exchange into public ownership and control is central to its philosophy. It is difficult to see how it can survive, in theory or practice, without this central idea.|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hast/page/677}}</ref> It describes the [[Economic ideology|economic]], [[Political philosophy|political]], and [[Social theory|social]] theories and [[Political movement|movements]] associated with the implementation of such systems.<ref name="Socialism at The Free dictionary">{{cite web |url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/socialism |title=Socialism |website=The Free Dictionary |quote=2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) any of various social or political theories or movements in which the common welfare is to be achieved through the establishment of a socialist economic system. |access-date=27 January 2020}}</ref> Social ownership can take various forms, including [[State ownership|public]], [[Community ownership|community]], [[Collective ownership|collective]], [[cooperative]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sherman |first1=Howard J.|last2=Zimbalist |first2=Andrew |title=Comparing Economic Systems: A Political-Economic Approach |publisher=Harcourt College Pub |year=1988 |isbn=978-0155124035 |page=[https://archive.org/details/comparingeconomi0000zimb_q8i6/page/7 7] |quote=Pure socialism is defined as a system wherein all of the means of production are owned and run by the government and/or cooperative, nonprofit groups. |url=https://archive.org/details/comparingeconomi0000zimb_q8i6/page/7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rosser |first1=Mariana V. |last2=Rosser |first2=J. Barkley |title=Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy |url=https://archive.org/details/comparativeecono00jrjb |url-access=limited |publisher=[[MIT Press]] |date=2003 |isbn=978-0262182348 |page=[https://archive.org/details/comparativeecono00jrjb/page/n64 53]|quote=Socialism is an economic system characterised by state or collective ownership of the means of production, land, and capital.}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Badie|Berg-Schlosser|Morlino|2011|p=2456}}: "Socialist systems are those regimes based on the economic and political theory of socialism, which advocates public ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources."</ref> or [[Employee stock ownership|employee]].<ref name="Horvat 2000">{{harvp|Horvat|2000|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ip_IAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1516 1515–1516]}}: "Just as private ownership defines capitalism, social ownership defines socialism. The essential characteristic of socialism in theory is that it destroys social hierarchies, and therefore leads to a politically and economically egalitarian society. Two closely related consequences follow. First, every individual is entitled to an equal ownership share that earns an aliquot part of the total social dividend ... Second, in order to eliminate social hierarchy in the workplace, enterprises are run by those employed, and not by the representatives of private or state capital. Thus, the well-known historical tendency of the divorce between ownership and management is brought to an end. The society — i.e. every individual equally — owns capital and those who work are entitled to manage their own economic affairs."</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=O'Hara |first=Phillip |title=Encyclopedia of Political Economy |volume=2 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2003 |isbn=978-0415241878 |page=71 |quote=In order of increasing decentralisation (at least) three forms of socialised ownership can be distinguished: state-owned firms, employee-owned (or socially) owned firms, and citizen ownership of equity.}}</ref> As one of the main ideologies on the [[political spectrum]], socialism is the standard [[left-wing]] ideology in most countries.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |date= 2009 |title=Left |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/left |access-date=22 May 2022 |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |quote=Socialism is the standard leftist ideology in most countries of the world; ... .}}</ref> Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in [[resource allocation]], and the structure of management in organizations.<ref name="Nove">{{cite web |last=Nove |first=Alec |author-link=Alec Nove |title=Socialism |website=New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics |edition=Second |date=2008 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |url=http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2008_S000173 |quote=A society may be defined as socialist if the major part of the means of production of goods and services is in some sense socially owned and operated, by state, socialised or cooperative enterprises. The practical issues of socialism comprise the relationships between management and workforce within the enterprise, the interrelationships between production units (plan versus markets), and, if the state owns and operates any part of the economy, who controls it and how.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Docherty |editor1-first=James C. |editor2-last=Lamb |editor2-first=Peter |date=2006 |title=Historical Dictionary of Socialism |edition=2nd |series=Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements |volume=73 |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=[[Scarecrow Press]] |pages=1–3 |isbn=978-0810855601}}</ref>

Socialist systems are divided into [[Economic planning|non-market]] and [[Market (economics)|market]] forms.<ref name="Kolb">{{cite book |last=Kolb |first=Robert |title=Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society|edition=1st |publisher=[[Sage Publications]], Inc |date=2007 |isbn=978-1412916523 |page=1345 |quote=There are many forms of socialism, all of which eliminate private ownership of capital and replace it with collective ownership. These many forms, all focused on advancing distributive justice for long-term social welfare, can be divided into two broad types of socialism: nonmarket and market.}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Bockman|2011|p=20}}: "socialism would function without capitalist economic categories—such as money, prices, interest, profits and rent—and thus would function according to laws other than those described by current economic science. While some socialists recognised the need for money and prices at least during the transition from capitalism to socialism, socialists more commonly believed that the socialist economy would soon administratively mobilise the economy in physical units without the use of prices or money."; {{harvp|Steele|1999|pp=175–177}}: "Especially before the 1930s, many socialists and anti-socialists implicitly accepted some form of the following for the incompatibility of state-owned industry and factor markets. A market transaction is an exchange of property titles between two independent transactors. Thus internal market exchanges cease when all of industry is brought into the ownership of a single entity, whether the state or some other organization, ... the discussion applies equally to any form of social or community ownership, where the owning entity is conceived as a single organization or administration."; {{harvp|Arneson|1992}}: "Marxian socialism is often identified with the call to organize economic activity on a nonmarket basis."; {{harvp|Schweickart|Lawler|Ticktin|Ollman|1998|pp=61–63}}: "More fundamentally, a socialist society must be one in which the economy is run on the principle of the direct satisfaction of human needs. ... Exchange-value, prices and so money are goals in themselves in a capitalist society or in any market. There is no necessary connection between the accumulation of capital or sums of money and human welfare. Under conditions of backwardness, the spur of money and the accumulation of wealth has led to a massive growth in industry and technology. ... It seems an odd argument to say that a capitalist will only be efficient in producing use-value of a good quality when trying to make more money than the next capitalist. It would seem easier to rely on the planning of use-values in a rational way, which because there is no duplication, would be produced more cheaply and be of a higher quality."</ref> A non-market socialist system seeks to eliminate the perceived [[Criticism of capitalism#Inefficiency, irrationality, and unpredictability|inefficiencies, irrationalities, unpredictability]], and [[Financial crisis|crises]] that socialists traditionally associate with [[capital accumulation]] and the [[Profit (economics)|profit]] system.<ref>{{harvp|Nove|1991|p=13}}: "Under socialism, by definition, it (private property and factor markets) would be eliminated. There would then be something like 'scientific management', 'the science of socially organized production', but it would not be economics."; {{harvp|Kotz|2006}}: "This understanding of socialism was held not just by revolutionary Marxist socialists but also by evolutionary socialists, Christian socialists, and even anarchists. At that time, there was also wide agreement about the basic institutions of the future socialist system: public ownership instead of private ownership of the means of production, economic planning instead of market forces, production for use instead of for profit."; {{harvp|Weisskopf|1992}}: "Socialism has historically been committed to the improvement of people's material standards of living. Indeed, in earlier days many socialists saw the promotion of improving material living standards as the primary basis for socialism's claim to superiority over capitalism, for socialism was to overcome the irrationality and inefficiency seen as endemic to a capitalist system of economic organization."; {{harvp|Prychitko|2002|p=12}}: "Socialism is a system based upon de facto public or social ownership of the means of production, the abolition of a hierarchical division of labor in the enterprise, a consciously organized social division of labor. Under socialism, money, competitive pricing, and profit-loss accounting would be destroyed."</ref> [[Market socialism]] retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and sometimes the [[profit motive]].<ref name="Social Dividend versus Basic Income Guarantee in Market Socialism, 2004">{{cite journal |last=Marangos |first=John |date=2004 |title=Social Dividend versus Basic Income Guarantee in Market Socialism |journal=[[International Journal of Political Economy]] |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=20–40 |doi=10.1080/08911916.2004.11042930 |jstor=40470892 |s2cid=153267388 |issn = 0891-1916}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=O'Hara |first=Phillip |title=Encyclopedia of Political Economy |volume=2 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2000 |isbn=978-0415241878 |page=71 |quote=Market socialism is the general designation for a number of models of economic systems. On the one hand, the market mechanism is utilized to distribute economic output, to organize production and to allocate factor inputs. On the other hand, the economic surplus accrues to society at large rather than to a class of private (capitalist) owners, through some form of collective, public or social ownership of capital.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Pierson |first=Christopher |title=Socialism After Communism: The New Market Socialism |publisher=[[Pennsylvania State University Press]] |year=1995 |isbn=978-0271014784 |page=96 |quote=At the heart of the market socialist model is the abolition of the large-scale private ownership of capital and its replacement by some form of 'social ownership'. Even the most conservative accounts of market socialism insist that this abolition of large-scale holdings of private capital is essential. This requirement is fully consistent with the market socialists' general claim that the vices of market capitalism lie not with the institutions of the market but with (the consequences of) the private ownership of capital ... .}}</ref> As a political force, [[socialist parties]] and ideas exercise varying degrees of power and influence, heading national governments in several countries. Socialist politics have been [[Proletarian internationalism|internationalist]] and [[Socialist nationalism|nationalist]]; organised through political parties and opposed to party politics; at times overlapping with [[trade union]]s and other times independent and critical of them, and present in industrialised and developing nations.<ref>{{harvp|Newman|2005|p=2}}: "In fact, socialism has been both centralist and local; organized from above and built from below; visionary and pragmatic; revolutionary and reformist; anti-state and statist; internationalist and nationalist; harnessed to political parties and shunning them; an outgrowth of trade unionism and independent of it; a feature of rich industrialized countries and poor peasant-based communities."</ref> [[Social democracy]] originated within the socialist movement,<ref>{{cite book |last=Ely |first=Richard T. |author-link=Richard T. Ely |year=1883 |title=French and German Socialism in Modern Times |location=New York |publisher=Harper and Brothers |pages=204–205 |quote=Social democrats forms the extreme wing of the socialists ... inclined to lay so much stress on equality of enjoyment, regardless of the value of one's labor, that they might, perhaps, more properly be called communists. ... They have two distinguishing characteristics. The vast majority of them are laborers, and, as a rule, they expect the violent overthrow of existing institutions by revolution to precede the introduction of the socialistic state. I would not, by any means, say that they are all revolutionists, but the most of them undoubtedly are. ... The most general demands of the social democrats are the following: The state should exist exclusively for the laborers; land and capital must become collective property, and production be carried on unitedly. Private competition, in the ordinary sense of the term, is to cease.}}</ref> supporting [[Economic interventionism|economic]] and [[Social interventionism|social interventions]] to promote [[social justice]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Merkel |first1=Wolfgang |last2=Petring |first2=Alexander |last3=Henkes |first3=Christian |last4=Egle |first4=Christoph |date=2008 |title=Social Democracy in Power: The Capacity to Reform |series=Routledge Research in Comparative Politics |location=London |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0415438209}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Heywood |first=Andrew |year=2012 |title=Political Ideologies: An Introduction |edition=5th |location=Basingstoke, England |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0230367258 |page=128 |quote=Social democracy is an ideological stance that supports a broad balance between market capitalism, on the one hand, and state intervention, on the other hand. Being based on a compromise between the market and the state, social democracy lacks a systematic underlying theory and is, arguably, inherently vague. It is nevertheless associated with the following views: (1) capitalism is the only reliable means of generating wealth, but it is a morally defective means of distributing wealth because of its tendency towards poverty and inequality; (2) the defects of the capitalist system can be rectified through economic and social intervention, the state being the custodian of the public interest ... .}}</ref> While retaining socialism as a long-term goal,<ref>{{harvp|Roemer|1994|pp=25–27}}: "The long term and the short term."; {{harvp|Berman|1998|p=57}}: "Over the long term, however, democratizing Sweden's political system was seen to be important not merely as a means but also as an end in itself. Achieving democracy was crucial not only because it would increase the power of the SAP in the Swedish political system but also because it was the form socialism would take once it arrived. Political, economic, and social equality went hand in hand, according to the SAP, and were all equally important characteristics of the future socialist society."; {{harvp|Busky|2000|pp=7–8}}; {{harvp|Bailey|2009|p=77}}: "... Giorgio Napolitano launched a medium-term programme, 'which tended to justify the governmental deflationary policies, and asked for the understanding of the workers, since any economic recovery would be linked with the ''long-term'' goal of an advance towards democratic socialism'"; {{harvp|Lamb|2015|p=415}}</ref> in the post-war period social democracy embraced a [[mixed economy]] based on [[Keynesianism]] within a predominantly developed capitalist [[market economy]] and [[liberal democratic]] polity that expands state intervention to include [[income redistribution]], [[Regulatory economics|regulation]], and a [[welfare state]].<ref>{{harvp|Badie|Berg-Schlosser|Morlino|2011|p=2423}}: "Social democracy refers to a political tendency resting on three fundamental features: (1) democracy (e.g., equal rights to vote and form parties), (2) an economy partly regulated by the state (e.g., through Keynesianism), and (3) a welfare state offering social support to those in need (e.g., equal rights to education, health service, employment and pensions)."</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=J. W. |date=2005 |title=Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle for the 21st century |location=Radford |publisher=[[Institute for Economic Democracy Press]] |isbn=1933567015}}</ref>

The socialist [[political movement]] includes political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of concern for the [[social problems]] that socialists associated with capitalism.{{sfnp|Lamb|Docherty|2006|p=1}} By the late 19th century, after the work of [[Karl Marx]] and his collaborator [[Friedrich Engels]], socialism had come to signify [[anti-capitalism]] and advocacy for a [[post-capitalist]] system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gasper |first=Phillip |title=The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document |publisher=[[Haymarket Books]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-1931859257 |page=24 |quote=As the nineteenth century progressed, 'socialist' came to signify not only concern with the social question, but opposition to capitalism and support for some form of social ownership.}}</ref><ref name="Anthony Giddens 1994, p. 71">{{cite book |author-link=Anthony Giddens |first=Anthony |last=Giddens |title=Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics |edition=1998 |location=Cambridge, England, UK |publisher=[[Polity Press]] |orig-date=1994 |year=1998 |pages=71}}</ref> By the early 1920s, [[communism]] and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement,<ref>{{harvp|Newman|2005|p=5}}: "Chapter 1 looks at the foundations of the doctrine by examining the contribution made by various traditions of socialism in the period between the early 19th century and the aftermath of the First World War. The two forms that emerged as dominant by the early 1920s were social democracy and communism."</ref> with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Kurian |editor-first=George Thomas |date=2011 |title=The Encyclopedia of Political Science |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=[[CQ Press]] |pages=1554}}</ref> Many socialists also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as [[Socialist feminism|feminism]], [[Eco-socialism|environmentalism]], and [[progressivism]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Garrett Ward |last=Sheldon |title=Encyclopedia of Political Thought |publisher=[[Infobase Publishing|Facts on File. Inc.]] |date=2001 |pages=280}}</ref>

Although the emergence of the [[Soviet Union]] as the world's first nominally [[socialist state]] led to the widespread association of socialism with the [[Soviet economic model]], the term has since shifted to be associated with [[democratic socialism]]. Academics sometimes recognised the [[mixed economies]] of several Western European and Nordic countries as "democratic socialist",<ref>{{harvp|Barrett|1978}}: "If we were to extend the definition of socialism to include [[Labour Party (UK)|Labor]] Britain or socialist Sweden, there would be no difficulty in refuting the connection between capitalism and democracy."; {{harvp|Heilbroner|1991|pp=96–110}}; {{harvp|Kendall|2011|pp=125–127}}: "Sweden, Great Britain, and France have mixed economies, sometimes referred to as democratic socialism — an economic and political system that combines private ownership of some of the means of production, governmental distribution of some essential goods and services, and free elections. For example, government ownership in Sweden is limited primarily to railroads, mineral resources, a public bank, and liquor and tobacco operations."; {{harvp|Li|2015|pp=60–69}}: "The scholars in camp of democratic socialism believe that China should draw on the Sweden experience, which is suitable not only for the West but also for China. In the post-Mao China, the Chinese intellectuals are confronted with a variety of models. The liberals favor the American model and share the view that the Soviet model has become archaic and should be totally abandoned. Meanwhile, democratic socialism in Sweden provided an alternative model. Its sustained economic development and extensive welfare programs fascinated many. Numerous scholars within the democratic socialist camp argue that China should model itself politically and economically on Sweden, which is viewed as more genuinely socialist than China. There is a growing consensus among them that in the Nordic countries the welfare state has been extraordinarily successful in eliminating poverty."</ref><ref>{{harvp|Sanandaji|2021}}: "Nordic nations—and especially Sweden—did embrace socialism between around 1970 and 1990. During the past 30 years, however, both conservative and social democratic-led governments have moved toward the center."</ref> although the system of these countries, with only limited social ownership (generally in the form of state ownership), is more usually described as [[social democracy]]. Following the [[revolutions of 1989]], many of these countries moved away from socialism as a [[neoliberal]] consensus replaced the social democratic consensus in the advanced capitalist world.<ref>{{harvp|Sanandaji|2021}}; {{harvp|Caulcutt|2022}}; {{harvp|Krause-Jackson|2019}}; {{harvp|Best|Kahn|Nocella II|McLaren|2011|p=xviii}}</ref> In parallel, many former socialist politicians and political parties embraced "[[Third Way]]" politics, remaining committed to equality and welfare while abandoning public ownership and class-based politics.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551569/socialism |title=socialism |website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |date= 2023}}</ref> Socialism experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 2010s due to the [[2008 financial crisis|2008 global financial crisis]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Judis |first=John B. |date=20 November 2019 |title=The Socialist Revival |url=https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-socialist-revival/ |access-date=26 June 2023 |website=American Affairs Journal |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Cassidy |first=John |date=18 June 2019 |title=Why Socialism Is Back |language=en-US |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-socialism-is-back |access-date=26 June 2023 |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>
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== Etymology ==
According to Andrew Vincent, the word 'socialism' finds its root in the Latin {{lang|la|sociare}}, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was {{lang|la|societas}}. This latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen".<ref>{{cite book |first=Andrew |last=Vincent |date=2010 |title=Modern Political Ideologies |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]] |isbn=978-1405154956 |page=83}}</ref>

[[File:Ehrerbietige Vorstellung und Einladung an meine lieben Mitmenschen.pdf|thumb|19th century [[utopian socialist]] pamphlet by [[Rudolf Sutermeister]]]]
Initial use of ''socialism'' was claimed by [[Pierre Leroux]], who alleged he first used the term in the Parisian journal {{lang|fr|[[Le Globe]]}} in 1832.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/socialism |title=socialism (n.) |publisher=[[Online Etymology Dictionary]] |website=etymonline |access-date=3 May 2021}}</ref><ref name="Kołakowski2005">{{cite book |first=Leszek |last=Kołakowski |author-link=Leszek Kołakowski |title=Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qUCxpznbkaoC |year=2005 |publisher=[[W.W. Norton & Company]] |isbn=978-0393060546 |page=151 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> Leroux was a follower of [[Henri de Saint-Simon]], one of the founders of what would later be labelled [[utopian socialism]]. Socialism contrasted with the liberal doctrine of [[Liberal individualism|individualism]] that emphasized the moral worth of the individual while stressing that people act or should act as if they are in isolation from one another. The original utopian socialists condemned this doctrine of individualism for failing to address social concerns during the [[Industrial Revolution]], including poverty, oppression, and vast [[wealth inequality]]. They viewed their society as harming community life by basing society on competition. They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism based on the shared ownership of resources.<ref name="Marvin Perry 1600, p. 540">{{cite book |first1=Marvin |last1=Perry |first2=Myrna |last2=Chase |first3=Margaret |last3=Jacob |first4=James R. |last4=Jacob |title=Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society – From 1600 |volume=2 |edition=Ninth |location=Boston |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]] Publishing Company |date=2009 |page=540 |isbn=978-1305445499 |oclc=1289795802}}</ref> Saint-Simon proposed [[economic planning]], scientific administration and the application of scientific understanding to the organisation of society. By contrast, [[Robert Owen]] proposed to organise production and ownership via [[cooperative]]s.<ref name="Marvin Perry 1600, p. 540"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregory |first1=Paul |last2=Stuart |first2=Robert |title=The Global Economy and its Economic Systems |publisher=[[South-Western College Publishing]] |date=2013 |isbn=978-1285055350 |page=159 |quote=Socialist writers of the nineteenth century proposed socialist arrangements for sharing as a response to the inequality and poverty of the industrial revolution. English socialist Robert Owen proposed that ownership and production take place in cooperatives, where all members shared equally. French socialist Henri Saint-Simon proposed to the contrary: socialism meant solving economic problems by means of state administration and planning, and taking advantage of new advances in science.}}</ref> ''Socialism'' is also attributed in France to [[Marie Roch Louis Reybaud]] while in Britain it is attributed to Owen, who became one of the fathers of the [[cooperative movement]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |dictionary=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |chapter=Etymology of socialism}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |author-link=Bertrand Russell |year=1972 |title=A History of Western Philosophy |publisher=Touchstone |pages=781}}</ref>

The definition and usage of ''socialism'' settled by the 1860s, with the term ''socialist'' replacing ''[[associationist]]'', ''[[co-operative]]'', ''[[Mutualism (economic theory)|mutualist]]'' and ''[[collectivist]]'', which had been used as synonyms, while the term ''communism'' fell out of use during this period.<ref name="Williams 1983 288">{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Raymond |title=Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, revised edition |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1983 |isbn=978-0195204698 |page=[https://archive.org/details/keywordsvocabula00willrich/page/288 288] |chapter=Socialism |quote=Modern usage began to settle from the 1860s, and in spite of the earlier variations and distinctions it was socialist and socialism which came through as the predominant words ... Communist, in spite of the distinction that had been made in the 1840s, was very much less used, and parties in the Marxist tradition took some variant of social and socialist as titles. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/keywordsvocabula00willrich/page/288}}</ref> An early distinction between ''[[communism]]'' and ''socialism'' was that the latter aimed to only socialise production while the former aimed to socialise both [[Production (economics)|production]] and [[Consumption (economics)|consumption]] (in the form of free access to final goods).<ref name="Steele 1992 43">{{cite book |last=Steele |first=David |title=From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation |publisher=Open Court Publishing Company |year=1992 |isbn=978-0875484495 |page=43 |quote=One widespread distinction was that socialism socialised production only while communism socialised production and consumption.}}</ref> By 1888, [[Marxists]] employed ''socialism'' in place of ''communism'' as the latter had come to be considered an old-fashioned synonym for ''socialism''. It was not until after the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] that ''socialism'' was appropriated by [[Vladimir Lenin]] to mean a stage between [[capitalism]] and communism. He used it to defend the Bolshevik program from Marxist criticism that Russia's [[productive forces]] were not sufficiently developed for communism.<ref name="Steele 1992 44-45">{{cite book |last=Steele |first=David |title=From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation |publisher=Open Court Publishing Company |year=1992 |isbn=978-0875484495 |pages=44–45 |quote=By 1888, the term 'socialism' was in general use among Marxists, who had dropped 'communism', now considered an old fashioned term meaning the same as 'socialism'. ... At the turn of the century, Marxists called themselves socialists. ... The definition of socialism and communism as successive stages was introduced into Marxist theory by Lenin in 1917. ... the new distinction was helpful to Lenin in defending his party against the traditional Marxist criticism that Russia was too backward for a socialist revolution.}}</ref> The distinction between ''communism'' and ''socialism'' became salient in 1918 after the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] renamed itself to the [[All-Russian Communist Party]], interpreting ''communism'' specifically to mean socialists who supported the politics and theories of [[Bolshevism]], [[Leninism]] and later that of [[Marxism–Leninism]],<ref>{{harvp|Busky|2000|p=9}}: "In a modern sense of the word, communism refers to the ideology of Marxism–Leninism."</ref> although [[communist parties]] continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Raymond |title=Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society |edition=revised |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1983 |isbn=978-0195204698 |page=[https://archive.org/details/keywordsvocabula00willrich/page/289 289] |chapter=Socialism |quote=The decisive distinction between socialist and communist, as in one sense these terms are now ordinarily used, came with the renaming, in 1918, of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) as the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). From that time on, a distinction of socialist from communist, often with supporting definitions such as social democrat or democratic socialist, became widely current, although it is significant that all communist parties, in line with earlier usage, continued to describe themselves as socialist and dedicated to socialism. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/keywordsvocabula00willrich/page/289}}</ref> According to ''The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx'', "Marx used many terms to refer to a [[post-capitalist society]]—positive [[humanism]], socialism, communism, realm of free individuality, [[free association of producers]], etc. He used these terms completely interchangeably. The notion that 'socialism' and 'communism' are distinct historical stages is alien to his work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death".<ref name=Hudis>{{cite book |editor1-last=Hudis |editor1-first=Peter |editor2-last=Vidal |editor2-first=Matt |editor3-last=Smith |editor3-first=Tony |editor4-last=Rotta |editor4-first=Tomás |editor5-last=Prew |editor5-first=Paul |date=September 2018 – June 2019 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190695545.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190695545 |title=The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190695545.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190695545-e-50 |chapter=Marx's Concept of Socialism |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0190695545 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190695545.001.0001}}</ref>

In [[Christian Europe]], communists were believed to have adopted [[atheism]]. In Protestant England, ''communism'' was too close to the [[Roman Catholic]] [[communion rite]], hence ''socialist'' was the preferred term.<ref>{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Raymond |author-link=Raymond Williams |title=Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society |publisher=[[Fontana Books]] |year=1976 |isbn=978-0006334798 |title-link=Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society}}</ref> Engels wrote that in 1848, when ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'' was published, socialism was respectable in Europe while communism was not. The [[Owenites]] in England and the [[Fourierists]] in France were considered respectable socialists while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves ''communists''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |author-link=Friedrich Engels |title=Preface to the 1888 English Edition of the Communist Manifesto |orig-date=1888 |pages=202 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |date=2002}}</ref> This branch of socialism produced the communist work of [[Étienne Cabet]] in France and [[Wilhelm Weitling]] in Germany.<ref>{{cite book |last=Todorova |first=Maria |year=2020 |title=The Lost World of Socialists at Europe's Margins: Imagining Utopia, 1870s–1920s |edition=hardcover |location=London |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |isbn=978-1350150331}}</ref> British moral philosopher [[John Stuart Mill]] discussed a form of economic socialism within free market. In later editions of his ''[[Principles of Political Economy]]'' (1848), Mill posited that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies"<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Wilson |first=Fred |chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/ |chapter=John Stuart Mill |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |year=2007 |access-date=2 August 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=Mill, in contrast, advances a form of liberal democratic socialism for the enlargement of freedom as well as to realise social and distributive justice. He offers a powerful account of economic injustice and justice that is centered on his understanding of freedom and its conditions. |first=Bruce |last=Baum |chapter=J. S. Mill and Liberal Socialism |editor1-first=Nadia |editor1-last=Urbanati |editor2-first=Alex |editor2-last=Zacharas |title=J.S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2007}}</ref> and promoted substituting capitalist businesses with [[worker cooperative]]s.<ref>''Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy'', IV.7.21. ''John Stuart Mill: Political Economy'', IV.7.21. "The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves."</ref> While democrats looked to the [[Revolutions of 1848]] as a [[democratic revolution]] which in the long run ensured [[liberty, equality, and fraternity]], Marxists denounced it as a betrayal of working-class ideals by a [[bourgeoisie]] indifferent to the [[proletariat]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Gildea |chapter=1848 in European Collective Memory |editor1-last=Evans |editor2-last=Strandmann |title=The Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849 |pages=207–235}}</ref>

== History ==
{{main|History of socialism}}

{{Recentism|section|date=January 2025}}
[[File:New Harmony, Indiana, por F. Bates.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|New Harmony, a utopian attempt as proposed by [[Robert Owen]]]]The history of socialism has its origins in the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and the 1789 [[French Revolution]], along with the changes that brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'' was written by [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] in 1847–48 just before the [[Revolutions of 1848]] swept Europe, expressing what they termed [[scientific socialism]]. In the last third of the 19th century parties dedicated to [[Democratic socialism]] arose in Europe, drawing mainly from [[Marxism]]. For a duration of one week in December 1899, the [[Australian Labor Party]] formed the first socialist government in the world when it was elected into power in the [[Colony of Queensland]] with Premier [[Anderson Dawson]] as its leader.<ref>{{cite book |last=Blainey |first=Geoffrey |author-link=Geoffrey Blainey |title=A shorter history of Australia |publisher=[[Vintage Books]] |year=2000 |location=Milsons Point, N.S.W. P |isbn=978-1740510332 |page=[https://archive.org/details/shorterhistoryof0000blai/page/263 263] |url=https://archive.org/details/shorterhistoryof0000blai/page/263}}</ref>

=== 20th century ===
[[File:Communist Block.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|{{legend-inline|red}}{{legend-inline|#d00000|States that had socialist governments}} {{legend|#ce5c00|States that the Soviet Union believed at one point to be [[moving toward socialism]]}} {{legend|#d0d000|Other states allied with the Soviet Union at some point}}]]
In the first half of the 20th century, the [[Soviet Union]] and the [[Communist party|communist parties]] of the [[Third International]] around the world, came to represent socialism in terms of the [[Economy of the Soviet Union|Soviet model of economic development]] and the creation of [[Planned economy|centrally planned economies]] directed by a state that owns all the [[means of production]], although other trends condemned what they saw as the lack of democracy. The establishment of the [[People's Republic of China]] in 1949, saw socialism introduced. China established a self-sufficient and self-reliant economy that was state-led and focused on rapid industrialization.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Selden|first1=Mark|author-link1=Mark Selden|date=1988 |title=Mao Zedong and the Political Economy of Chinese Development|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000944558802400202|journal=[[China Report]]|volume=24 |issue= 2|pages= 125–139|doi=10.1177/000944558802400202|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Other policies included land redistribution and the [[Anti-Rightist Movement]], followed by the disastrous [[Great Leap Forward]]. In the UK, [[Herbert Morrison]] said that "socialism is what the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government does" whereas [[Aneurin Bevan]] argued socialism requires that the "main streams of economic activity are brought under public direction", with an economic plan and workers' democracy.<ref>Bevan, Aneurin, ''In Place of Fear'', p. 50, p. 126–128. MacGibbon and Kee, (1961).</ref> Some argued that capitalism had been abolished.<ref>[[Anthony Crosland]] stated: "[T]o the question 'Is this still capitalism?' I would answer 'No'." In ''The Future of Socialism'' p. 46. Constable (2006).</ref> Socialist governments established the [[mixed economy]] with partial [[nationalisation]]s and social welfare.

By 1968, the prolonged [[Vietnam War]] gave rise to the [[New Left]], socialists who tended to be critical of the Soviet Union and [[social democracy]]. [[Anarcho-syndicalists]] and some elements of the New Left and others favoured [[Decentralized planning|decentralised]] [[collective ownership]] in the form of [[cooperatives]] or [[workers' councils]]. In 1989, the Soviet Union saw the end of [[communism]], marked by the [[Revolutions of 1989]] across [[Eastern Europe]], culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Socialists have adopted the causes of other social movements such as [[Eco-socialism|environmentalism]], [[Socialist feminism|feminism]] and [[progressivism]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Garrett Ward |last=Sheldon |title=Encyclopedia of Political Thought |publisher=[[Facts on File]]. Inc. |date=2001 |page=280}}</ref>
Historian William Blum highlights that the historical record of twentieth-century socialist experiments cannot be evaluated in isolation from external interference. Blum argues that:<blockquote>[E]very socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century – without exception – has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement – from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in Salvador – not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Introduction – William Blum |url=https://williamblum.org/chapters/killing-hope/introduction |access-date=2026-02-17 |website=williamblum.org |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>

=== Early 21st century ===
{{see also|Socialism of the 21st century}}
[[File:Foro_sao_paulo_members_2023.svg|alt=|thumb|Map showing socialism in Latin America, the [[pink tide]] (Foro de São Paulo members) in 2023: {{legend|#CC3333;|Socialist government}} {{legend|#0087BD;|Member not in government}}]]
In 1990, the [[São Paulo Forum]] was launched by the [[Workers' Party (Brazil)]], linking left-wing socialist parties in Latin America. Its members were associated with the [[pink tide]] of left-wing governments on the continent in the early 21st century. Member parties ruling countries included the [[Front for Victory]] in Argentina, the [[PAIS Alliance]] in Ecuador, [[Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front]] in El Salvador, [[Peru Wins]] in Peru, and the [[United Socialist Party of Venezuela]], whose leader [[Hugo Chávez]] initiated what he called "[[Socialism of the 21st century]]".

Many mainstream democratic socialist and social democratic parties continued to drift right-wards. On the right of the socialist movement, the [[Progressive Alliance]] was founded in 2013 by current or former members of the [[Socialist International]]. The organisation states the aim of becoming the global network of "the [[Progressivism|progressive]], [[Democratic socialism|democratic]], [[social-democratic]], socialist and [[labour movement]]".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://progressive-alliance.info/basic-document/ |title=Basic document &#124; Progressive Alliance |publisher=Progressive-alliance.info |access-date=23 May 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.spd.de/scalableImageBlob/84620/data/20121217_progressive_alliance_abschlussstatement-data.pdf |title=A Progressive Network for the 21st Century |access-date=23 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140304064047/http://www.spd.de/scalableImageBlob/84620/data/20121217_progressive_alliance_abschlussstatement-data.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2014}}</ref> Mainstream social democratic and socialist parties are also networked in Europe in the [[Party of European Socialists]] formed in 1992. Many of these parties lost large parts of their electoral base in the early 21st century. This phenomenon is known as [[Pasokification]]<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/06/30/why-labour-is-obsessed-with-greek-politics |title=Why Labour is obsessed with Greek politics |magazine=[[The Economist]] |date=30 June 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200603102003/https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/06/30/why-labour-is-obsessed-with-greek-politics |archive-date=3 June 2020 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Henley |first=Jon |title=2017 and the curious demise of Europe's centre-left |language=en-GB |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2017/dec/29/2017-and-the-curious-demise-of-europes-centre-left |access-date=2 January 2020 |issn=0261-3077 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250203162925/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2017/dec/29/2017-and-the-curious-demise-of-europes-centre-left |archive-date=3 February 2025}}</ref> from the Greek party [[PASOK]], which saw a declining share of the vote in national elections—from 43.9% in 2009 to 13.2% in May 2012, to 12.3% in June 2012 and 4.7% in 2015—due to its poor handling of the [[Greek government-debt crisis]] and implementation of harsh [[austerity]] measures.<ref>{{cite news |first=Gary |last=Younge |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/22/jeremy-corbyn-labour-anti-austerity-manifesto |title=Jeremy Corbyn has defied his critics to become Labour's best hope of survival |url-access=registration |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=22 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250203162925/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/22/jeremy-corbyn-labour-anti-austerity-manifesto |archive-date=3 February 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Mark |last=Lowen |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22025714 |title=How Greece's once-mighty Pasok party fell from grace |work=[[BBC News]] |date=5 April 2013 |access-date=20 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250206180945/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22025714 |archive-date=6 February 2025}}</ref>

In Europe, the share of votes for such socialist parties was at its 70-year lowest in 2015. For example, the [[Socialist Party (France)|Socialist Party]], after winning the [[2012 French presidential election]], rapidly lost its vote share, the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]]'s fortunes declined rapidly from 2005 to 2019, and outside Europe the [[Israeli Labor Party]] fell from being the dominant force in Israeli politics to 4.43% of the vote in the [[April 2019 Israeli legislative election]], and the [[Peruvian Aprista Party]] went from ruling party in 2011 to a minor party. The decline of these mainstream parties opened space for more radical and populist left parties in some countries, such as Spain's [[Podemos (Spanish political party)|Podemos]], Greece's [[Syriza]] (in government, 2015–19), Germany's [[Die Linke]], and France's [[La France Insoumise]]. In other countries, left-wing revivals have taken place within mainstream democratic socialist and centrist parties, as with [[Jeremy Corbyn]] in the United Kingdom and [[Bernie Sanders]] in the United States.<ref name=":3" /> Few of these radical left parties have won national government in Europe, while some more mainstream socialist parties have managed to, such as Portugal's [[Socialist Party (Portugal)|Socialist Party]].<ref>{{cite news |date=2 April 2016 |title=Rose thou art sick |newspaper=[[The Economist]] |url=https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/04/02/rose-thou-art-sick |access-date=2 January 2020 |issn=0013-0613 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250208123544/https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/04/02/rose-thou-art-sick |archive-date=8 February 2025}}</ref>
{{multiple image
| perrow            = 2
| total_width       = 350
| image1            = Monument people's heroes 2.jpg
| image2            = Austin, TX Demonstrations on 31 May - 49985139338.png
| image3            = 25th April 2014 Socialist Youth (14033740552).jpg
| image4            = Roe v Wade OVERTURNED Protest to defend US Abortion Rights (Melb) (52187111322).jpg
| footer            = Socialism across the world.<br />Top-left: a picture of the [[Red flag (politics)|red flags]] found by the [[Monument to the People's Heroes]], China.<br />Top-right: a demonstration in Austin, Texas, US by the [[Democratic Socialists of America]].<br />Bottom-left: a demonstration by the [[Socialist Youth (Portugal)|Portuguese Socialist Youth]].<br />Bottom-right: a rally for abortion rights in [[Melbourne, Victoria, Australia]] being led by members of the [[Victorian Socialists]].
}}
[[Bhaskar Sunkara]], the founding editor of the American socialist magazine [[Jacobin (magazine)|''Jacobin'']], argued that the appeal of socialism persists due to the inequality and "tremendous suffering" under current global capitalism, the use of wage labor "which rests on the exploitation and domination of humans by other humans," and ecological crises, such as [[climate change]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last=Sunkara |first=Bhaskar |date=1 May 2019 |title=This May Day, let's hope democratic socialism makes a comeback |language=en-GB |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/01/this-may-day-lets-hope-democratic-socialism-makes-a-comeback |access-date=15 June 2023 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> In contrast, [[Mark J. Perry]] of the conservative [[American Enterprise Institute]] (AEI) argued that despite socialism's resurgence, it is still "a flawed system based on completely faulty principles that aren't consistent with human behavior and can't nurture the human spirit.", adding that "While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Perry |first=Mark |date=22 March 2016 |title=Why Socialism Always Fails |url=https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/why-socialism-always-fails/ |access-date=20 June 2023 |website=American Enterprise Institute – AEI |language=en-US |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220502020234/https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/why-socialism-always-fails/ |archive-date=2 May 2022}}</ref> Some in the scientific community have suggested that a contemporary radical response to social and ecological problems could be seen in the emergence of movements associated with [[degrowth]], [[eco-socialism]] and [[eco-anarchism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wiedmann |first1=Thomas |last2=Lenzen |first2=Manfred |last3=Keyßer |first3=Lorenz T. |last4=Steinberger |first4=Julia K. |author-link4=Julia Steinberger |date=2020 |title=Scientists' warning on affluence |journal=[[Nature Communications]] |volume=11 |issue=3107 |page=3107 |bibcode=2020NatCo..11.3107W |doi=10.1038/s41467-020-16941-y |pmc=7305220 |pmid=32561753}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hickel |first1=Jason |author1-link=Jason Hickel |last2=Kallis |first2=Giorgos |author2-link=Giorgos Kallis |last3=Jackson |first3=Tim |author3-link=Tim Jackson (economist) |last4=O'Neill |first4=Daniel W. |last5=Schor |first5=Juliet B. |author5-link=Juliet Schor |display-authors=etal. |date=12 December 2022 |title=Degrowth can work — here's how science can help |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |volume=612 |issue=7940 |pages=400–403 |bibcode=2022Natur.612..400H |doi=10.1038/d41586-022-04412-x |pmid=36510013 |s2cid=254614532 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

== Varieties ==
{{see also|Labour movement|The labor problem|Trade union}}
[[File:Socialists in Union Square, N.Y.C. (cropped).jpg|thumb|Socialists in [[Union Square, Manhattan|Union Square]], New York City on [[International Workers' Day|May Day]] 1912]]
While major socialist political movements include anarchism, communism, the labour movement, Marxism, social democracy, and syndicalism, independent socialist theorists, [[utopian socialist]] authors, and academic supporters of socialism may not be represented in these movements. Some political groups have called themselves ''socialist'' while holding views that some consider antithetical to socialism. ''Socialist'' has been used by members of the [[political right]] as an epithet, including against individuals who do not consider themselves to be socialists and against policies that are not considered socialist by their proponents. While there are many variations of socialism, and there is no single definition encapsulating all of socialism, there have been common elements identified by scholars.{{sfnp|Lamb|Docherty|2006|pp=1–3}}

In his ''Dictionary of Socialism'' (1924), Angelo S. Rappoport analysed forty definitions of socialism to conclude that common elements of socialism include general criticism of the social effects of [[private ownership]] and control of capital—as being the cause of poverty, low wages, unemployment, economic and social inequality and a lack of economic security; a general view that the solution to these problems is a form of collective control over the [[means of production]], [[Distribution (economics)|distribution]] and [[Means of exchange|exchange]] (the degree and means of control vary among socialist movements); an agreement that the outcome of this collective control should be a society based upon [[social justice]], including social equality, economic protection of people and should provide a more satisfying life for most people.{{sfnp|Lamb|Docherty|2006|pp=1–2}}

In ''The Concepts of Socialism'' (1975), [[Bhikhu Parekh]] identifies four core principles of socialism and particularly socialist society, namely sociality, social responsibility, cooperation and planning.{{sfnp|Lamb|Docherty|2006|p=2}} In his study ''Ideologies and Political Theory'' (1996), [[Michael Freeden]] states that all socialists share five themes: the first is that socialism posits that society is more than a mere collection of individuals; second, that it considers human welfare a desirable objective; third, that it considers humans by nature to be active and productive; fourth, it holds the belief of human equality; and fifth, that history is progressive and will create positive change on the condition that humans work to achieve such change.{{sfnp|Lamb|Docherty|2006|p=2}}

=== African socialism ===
{{main|African socialism}}

[[File:African_socialism_1950s_to_1980s.svg|alt=This map shows the 35 countries that adopted some form of socialism on the African continent from the 1950s to the 1980s using modern boundaries.|thumb|This map shows the 35 countries that adopted some form of socialism on the African continent from the 1950s to the 1980s.<ref name=":152">{{Cite book |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-758|title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|date=29 September 2021|chapter=Socialist Regimes and Economic Planning}}</ref>]]
African socialism is a distinct variant of socialist theory developed in post-colonial Africa during the mid-20th century. As a shared ideology among several African thinkers over the decades, it encompasses a variety of competing interpretations. However, a consistent and defining theme among these theories is the notion that traditional African cultures and community structures have a natural inclination toward socialist principles.

Several African countries adopted socialist systems from the 1950s to mid-1980s (~35 out of ~50-53 countries at the time).<ref name=":152" />

=== Anarchism ===
{{main|Anarchism}}

[[File:Anarchy-symbol.svg|alt=A black capital letter A inside a black ring. The edges of the A do not go outside the ring, they smoothly fit into it.|thumb|The capital letter ''[[A]]'' surrounded by a [[circle]] is a common symbol of anarchism.]]
Anarchism advocates [[stateless societies]] often defined as [[self-governed]] voluntary institutions,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Anarchism |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Philosophy |last=Woodcock |first=George |author-link=George Woodcock |quote=Anarchism, a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies.}}</ref><ref>"In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions." [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/kropotkin/britanniaanarchy.html Peter Kropotkin. "Anarchism" from the Encyclopædia Britannica] Peter Kropotkin. "Anarchism" from the Encyclopædia Britannica]</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Anarchism |encyclopedia=The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2005 |pages=14 |quote=Anarchism is the view that a society without the state, or government, is both possible and desirable.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Sheehan |first=Sean |title=Anarchism |date=2004 |publisher=Reaktion Books Ltd. |location=London |pages=85}}</ref> but that several authors have defined as more specific institutions based on non-[[hierarchical]] [[Free association (communism and anarchism)|free associations]].<ref name="iaf-ifa.org">{{cite web |title=IAF principles |url=http://www.iaf-ifa.org/principles/english.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120105095946/http://www.iaf-ifa.org/principles/english.html |archive-date=5 January 2012 |publisher=[[International of Anarchist Federations]] |quote=The IAF – IFA fights for : the abolition of all forms of authority whether economical, political, social, religious, cultural or sexual.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Suissa |first=Judith |title=Anarchism and Education: a Philosophical Perspective |date=2006 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=New York |pages=7 |quote=as many anarchists have stressed, it is not government as such that they find objectionable, but the hierarchical forms of government associated with the nation state.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kropotkin |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Kropotkin |url=http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Petr_Kropotkin__Anarchism__its_philosophy_and_ideal.html |title=Anarchism: its philosophy and ideal |quote=That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organisation and preaches free agreement—at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120318013807/http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Petr_Kropotkin__Anarchism__its_philosophy_and_ideal.html |archive-date=18 March 2012 |via=The Anarchist Library}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=An Anarchist FAQ |chapter=B.1 Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy? |quote=anarchists are opposed to irrational (e.g., illegitimate) authority, in other words, hierarchy—hierarchy being the institutionalisation of authority within a society. |chapter-url=http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/The_Anarchist_FAQ_Editorial_Collective__An_Anarchist_FAQ__03_17_.html#toc2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120615071249/http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/The_Anarchist_FAQ_Editorial_Collective__An_Anarchist_FAQ__03_17_.html#toc2 |archive-date=15 June 2012 |via=The Anarchist Library}}</ref> While anarchism holds the [[State (polity)|state]] to be undesirable, unnecessary or harmful,<ref name="definition">{{cite journal |last=Malatesta |first=Errico |author-link=Errico Malatesta |title=Towards Anarchism |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1930s/xx/toanarchy.htm |url-status=live |journal=Man! |oclc=3930443 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107221404/http://marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1930s/xx/toanarchy.htm |archive-date=7 November 2012}} {{cite journal |last=Agrell |first=Siri |date=14 May 2007 |title=Working for The Man |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070514.wxlanarchist14/BNStory/lifeWork/home/ |journal=[[The Globe and Mail]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070516094548/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070514.wxlanarchist14/BNStory/lifeWork/home |archive-date=16 May 2007 |access-date=14 April 2008}} {{cite web |year=2006 |title=Anarchism |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9117285 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061214085638/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9117285 |archive-date=14 December 2006 |access-date=29 August 2006 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service}} {{cite journal |year=2005 |title=Anarchism |journal=The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |page=14 |quote=Anarchism is the view that a society without the state, or government, is both possible and desirable.}} The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy:
{{harvp|McLaughlin|2007|p=59}}; {{cite book |last=Johnston |first=R. |title=The Dictionary of Human Geography |publisher=Blackwell Publishers |year=2000 |isbn=978-0631205616 |location=Cambridge |page=24}}</ref><ref name="slevin">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Anarchism |dictionary=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |last=Slevin |first=Carl |date=2003 |editor1-last=McLean |editor1-first=Iain |editor2-first=Alistair |editor2-last=McMillan}}</ref> it is not the central aspect.{{sfnp|McLaughlin|2007|p=28|ps= "Anarchists do reject the state, as we will see. But to claim that this central aspect of anarchism is definitive is to sell anarchism short."}} Anarchism entails opposing [[authority]] or [[hierarchical organisation]] in the conduct of human relations, including the state system.<ref name="iaf-ifa.org" /><ref name="Brown 2002 106">{{cite book |last=Brown |first=L. Susan |title=The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism |publisher=Black Rose Books Ltd. Publishing |year=2002 |page=106 |chapter=Anarchism as a Political Philosophy of Existential Individualism: Implications for Feminism}}</ref>{{sfnp|McLaughlin|2007|p=1|ps= "Authority is defined in terms of the right to exercise social control (as explored in the "sociology of power") and the correlative duty to obey (as explored in the "philosophy of practical reason"). Anarchism is distinguished, philosophically, by its scepticism towards such moral relations—by its questioning of the claims made for such normative power—and, practically, by its challenge to those "authoritative" powers which cannot justify their claims and which are therefore deemed illegitimate or without moral foundation."}}<ref>Individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker defined anarchism as opposition to authority as follows "They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left,—follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism&nbsp;... Authority, takes many shapes, but, broadly speaking, her enemies divide themselves into three classes: first, those who abhor her both as a means and as an end of progress, opposing her openly, avowedly, sincerely, consistently, universally; second, those who profess to believe in her as a means of progress, but who accept her only so far as they think she will subserve their own selfish interests, denying her and her blessings to the rest of the world; third, those who distrust her as a means of progress, believing in her only as an end to be obtained by first trampling upon, violating, and outraging her. These three phases of opposition to Liberty are met in almost every sphere of thought and human activity. Good representatives of the first are seen in the Catholic Church and the Russian autocracy; of the second, in the Protestant Church and the Manchester school of politics and political economy; of the third, in the atheism of Gambetta and the socialism of Karl Marx." [[Benjamin Tucker]]. [http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Benjamin_Tucker__Individual_Liberty.html ''Individual Liberty.'']</ref><ref>Anarchist historian [[George Woodcock]] report of [[Mikhail Bakunin]]'s anti-authoritarianism and shows opposition to both state and non-state forms of authority as follows: "All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it." (p. 9)&nbsp;... Bakunin did not convert the League's central committee to his full program, but he did persuade them to accept a remarkably radical recommendation to the Bern Congress of September 1868, demanding economic equality and implicitly attacking authority in both Church and State."</ref> [[Mutualism (economic theory)|Mutualists]] support market socialism, [[collectivist anarchist]]s favour [[workers cooperative]]s and salaries based on the amount of time contributed to production, [[anarcho-communists]] advocate a direct transition from capitalism to [[libertarian communism]] and a [[gift economy]] and [[anarcho-syndicalist]]s prefer workers' [[direct action]] and the [[general strike]].<ref name="McKay 2008">{{cite book |title=An Anarchist FAQ |publisher=[[AK Press]] |year=2008 |isbn=978-1902593906 |editor-last=McKay |editor-first=Iain |volume=I |location=Stirling |section=Isn't libertarian socialism an oxymoron? |oclc=182529204}}</ref>

The authoritarian–[[libertarian]] struggles and disputes within the socialist movement go back to the First International and the expulsion in 1872 of the anarchists, who went on to lead the [[Anti-authoritarian International]] and then founded their own libertarian international, the [[Anarchist St. Imier International]].<ref>Hahnel, Robin (2005). ''Economic Justice and Democracy''. Routledge Press. p. 138. {{ISBN|0415933447}}.</ref> In 1888, the [[individualist anarchist]] [[Benjamin Tucker]], who proclaimed himself to be an anarchistic socialist and [[libertarian socialist]] in opposition to the authoritarian [[state socialism]] and the compulsory communism, included the full text of a "Socialistic Letter" by [[Ernest Lesigne]]<ref>Lesigne (1887). [http://fair-use.org/liberty/1887/12/17/socialistic-letters "Socialistic Letters"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807090418/http://fair-use.org/liberty/1887/12/17/socialistic-letters|date=7 August 2020}}. ''Le Radical''. Retrieved 20 June 2020.</ref> in his essay on "State Socialism and Anarchism". According to Lesigne, there are two types of socialism: "One is dictatorial, the other libertarian".<ref>Tucker, Benjamin (1911) [1888]. ''State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree and Wherein They Differ''. Fifield.</ref> Tucker's two socialisms were the authoritarian state socialism which he associated to the Marxist school and the libertarian anarchist socialism, or simply anarchism, that he advocated. Tucker noted that the fact that the authoritarian "State Socialism has overshadowed other forms of Socialism gives it no right to a monopoly of the Socialistic idea".<ref>Tucker, Benjamin (1893). ''Instead of a Book by a Man Too Busy to Write One''. pp. 363–364.</ref> According to Tucker, what those two schools of socialism had in common was the [[labor theory of value]] and the ends, by which anarchism pursued different means.<ref>Brown, Susan Love (1997). "The Free Market as Salvation from Government". In Carrier, James G., ed. ''Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture''. Berg Publishers. p. 107. {{ISBN|978-1859731499}}.</ref>

According to anarchists such as the authors of ''An Anarchist FAQ'', anarchism is one of the many traditions of socialism. For anarchists and other anti-authoritarian socialists, socialism "can only mean a classless and anti-authoritarian (i.e. libertarian) society in which people manage their own affairs, either as individuals or as part of a group (depending on the situation). In other words, it implies self-management in all aspects of life", including at the workplace.<ref name="McKay 2008" /> Michael Newman includes anarchism as one of many socialist traditions.{{sfnp|Newman|2005}} [[Peter Marshall (author, born 1946)|Peter Marshall]] argues that "[i]n general anarchism is closer to socialism than liberalism. ... Anarchism finds itself largely in the socialist camp, but it also has outriders in liberalism. It cannot be reduced to socialism, and is best seen as a separate and distinctive doctrine."<ref>{{cite book |last=Marshall |first=Peter |title=Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |year=1992 |isbn=978-0002178556 |location=London |page=641}}</ref>

=== Arab socialism ===
{{main|Arab socialism}}

Arab socialism ({{langx|ar|الإشتِراكيّة العربية|Al-Ishtirākīya Al-'Arabīya}}) is a political ideology based on the combination of [[pan-Arabism]] or [[Arab nationalism]] and socialism. The term ''Arab socialism'' was coined by [[Michel Aflaq]],<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=Baath Party |url=http://www.baath-party.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4920:2003-6&Itemid=188&lang=en |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726090707/http://www.baath-party.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4920:2003-6&Itemid=188&lang=en |archive-date=26 July 2020 |access-date=21 November 2014}}</ref> the principal founder of [[Ba'athism]] and the [[Ba'ath Party|Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party]] in [[Syria]], to distinguish his version of socialist ideology from the international socialist movement. While distinct from the much broader tradition of socialist thought in the [[Arab world]], which predates Arab socialism by as much as fifty years, direct influence and evolutions of his thought, [[Marxism|Marxist]] or otherwise, were realized and expanded upon in countries like Syria, [[Egypt]], [[Iraq]] and others.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Stegagno |first=Carlotta |date=2017 |title=Mīšīl ʿAflaq's Thought between Nationalism and Socialism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/48572295 |journal=Oriente Moderno |volume=97 |issue=1 |pages=154–176 |doi=10.1163/22138617-12340143 |issn=0030-5472 |jstor=48572295 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1453jv5 |title=The Arab Lefts: Histories and Legacies, 1950s–1970s |date=2020 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-5423-0 |pages=57–76 |jstor=10.3366/j.ctv1453jv5}}</ref><ref name=":8">{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1453jv5 |title=The Arab Lefts: Histories and Legacies, 1950s–1970s |date=2020 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-5423-0 |pages=148–168 |jstor=10.3366/j.ctv1453jv5}}</ref> A main innovation of Aflaq's thought was the transformation of Arab unity from an intellectual ideal into a real-world political pursuit of rights alongside a new set of socioeconomic conditions.<ref name=":6" /> [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]]'s Egypt in particular served as a potent vehicle for Aflaq's thought, and would have to grapple with crises in the intellectual and military spheres.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":8" /><ref name=":9">{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1453jv5 |title=The Arab Lefts: Histories and Legacies, 1950s–1970s |date=2020 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-5423-0 |pages=222–242 |jstor=10.3366/j.ctv1453jv5}}</ref>

=== Authoritarian socialism ===
{{Excerpt|Authoritarian socialism|paragraphs=1|only=paragraphs|hat=no}}
==== Leninism ====
{{main|Blanquism|Leninism|Trotskyism|Marxism–Leninism}}

[[File:Lenin in 1920 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist [[Vladimir Lenin]] in 1920]]
Blanquism is a conception of revolution named for [[Louis Auguste Blanqui]]. It holds that socialist revolution should be carried out by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators. Upon seizing power, the revolutionaries introduce socialism.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} [[Rosa Luxemburg]] and [[Eduard Bernstein]]<ref name="bern">{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=Vladimir |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |title=[[The State and Revolution]] |year=1917 |chapter=The Vulgarisation of Marxism by Opportunists |chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch06.htm#s2 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref> criticised Lenin, stating that his conception of revolution was elitist and Blanquist.<ref>Rosa Luxemburg as part of a longer section on Blanquism in her ''[[Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy]]'' (later published as ''Leninism or Marxism?''), writes: "For Lenin, the difference between the [[Social democracy]] and Blanquism is reduced to the observation that in place of a handful of conspirators we have a class-conscious proletariat. He forgets that this difference implies a complete revision of our ideas on organisation and, therefore, an entirely different conception of centralism and the relations existing between the party and the struggle itself. Blanquism did not count on the [[direct action]] of the working class. It, therefore, did not need to organise the people for the revolution. The people were expected to play their part only at the moment of revolution. Preparation for the revolution concerned only the little group of revolutionists armed for the coup. Indeed, to assure the success of the revolutionary conspiracy, it was considered wiser to keep the mass at some distance from the conspirators. Rosa Luxemburg, [http://www.marx.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/ch01.htm ''Leninism or Marxism?''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927072108/http://www.marx.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/ch01.htm|date=27 September 2011}}, [http://www.marx.org Marx.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928115854/http://marx.org/|date=28 September 2011}}, last retrieved 25 April 2007</ref> Marxism–Leninism combines Marx's [[scientific socialist]] concepts and Lenin's [[anti-imperialism]], [[democratic centralism]], [[vanguardism]]<ref>''Marxism–Leninism''. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company.</ref> and the principle of "[[He who does not work, neither shall he eat]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lenin |first=Vladimir |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |title=The State and Revolution |title-link=The State and Revolution |chapter=Chapter 5 |access-date=30 November 2007 |chapter-url=http://marx.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3, |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928115838/http://marx.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3, |archive-date=28 September 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Hal Draper]] defined [[socialism from above]] as the philosophy which employs an elite [[Administration (government)|administration]] to run the [[socialist state]]. The other side of socialism is a more democratic [[socialism from below]].<ref name="Two Souls">{{cite book |last=Draper |first=Hal |url=http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/twosouls/twosouls.htm |title=Two Souls of Socialism |publisher=International Socialists |year=1970 |edition=revised |location=Highland Park, Michigan |access-date=20 January 2016 |orig-date=1963 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160120133501/http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/twosouls/twosouls.htm |archive-date=20 January 2016}}</ref> The idea of socialism from above is much more frequently discussed in elite circles than socialism from below—even if that is the Marxist ideal—because it is more practical.<ref>Young, James D. (1988). ''Socialism Since 1889: A Biographical History''. Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books. {{ISBN|978-0389208136}}.</ref> Draper viewed socialism from below as being the purer, more [[Marxist]] version of socialism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Young |first=James D. |title=Socialism Since 1889: A Biographical History |publisher=[[Barnes & Noble Books]] |year=1988 |isbn=978-0389208136 |location=Totowa}}</ref> According to Draper, [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] were devoutly opposed to any socialist institution that was "conducive to superstitious authoritarianism". Draper makes the argument that this division echoes the division between "reformist or revolutionary, peaceful or violent, democratic or authoritarian, etc." and further identifies six major varieties of socialism from above, among them "Philanthropism", "Elitism", "Pannism", "Communism", "Permeationism" and "Socialism-from-Outside".<ref>{{cite book |last=Draper |first=Hal |url=http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/twosouls/twosouls.htm |title=Two Souls of Socialism |publisher=International Socialists |year=1970 |edition=revised |location=Highland Park, Michigan |quote=We have mentioned several cases of this conviction that socialism is the business of a new ruling minority, non-capitalist in nature and therefore guaranteed pure, imposing its own domination either temporarily (for a mere historical era) or even permanently. In either case, this new ruling class is likely to see its goal as an Education Dictatorship over the masses—to Do Them Good, of course—the dictatorship being exercised by an elite party which suppresses all control from below, or by benevolent despots or Savior-Leaders of some kind, or by Shaw's "Supermen," by eugenic manipulators, by Proudhon's "anarchist" managers or Saint-Simon's technocrats or their more modern equivalents—with up-to-date terms and new verbal screens which can be hailed as fresh social theory as against "nineteenth-century Marxism. |access-date=20 January 2016 |orig-date=1963 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160120133501/http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/twosouls/twosouls.htm |archive-date=20 January 2016}}</ref>
According to Arthur Lipow, Marx and Engels were "the founders of modern revolutionary democratic socialism", described as a form of "socialism from below" that is "based on a mass working-class movement, fighting from below for the extension of democracy and human freedom". This [[type of socialism]] is contrasted to that of the "authoritarian, anti-democratic creed" and "the various totalitarian collectivist ideologies which claim the title of socialism" as well as "the many varieties of 'socialism from above' which have led in the twentieth century to movements and state forms in which a despotic '[[new class]]' rules over a stratified economy in the name of socialism", a division that "runs through the history of the socialist movement". Lipow identifies [[Bellamyism]] and [[Stalinism]] as two prominent authoritarian socialist currents within the history of the socialist movement.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lipow |first=Arthur |title=Authoritarian Socialism in America: Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0520075436 |pages=1}}</ref>

Trotsky viewed himself to be an adherent of Leninism but opposed the [[bureaucratic]] and authoritarian methods of Stalin.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Löwy |first1=Michael |last2=Le Blanc |first2=Paul |date=2018 |title=Lenin and Trotsky |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-51650-3_7 |journal=The Palgrave Handbook of Leninist Political Philosophy |language=en |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] UK |pages=231–256 |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-51650-3_7 |isbn=978-1137516497 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> A number of scholars and Western socialists have regarded Leon Trotsky as a [[democracy|democratic]] [[anti-Stalinist Left|alternative]] rather than a forerunner to Stalin with particular emphasis drawn to his activities in the [[Saint Petersburg Soviet|pre-Civil War period]] and as leader of the [[Left Opposition]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Daniels |first1=Robert V. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=27JGzAoMLjoC |title=The Rise and Fall of Communism in Russia |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0300134933 |page=1889 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Barnett |first1=Vincent |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s71uK9sB27AC&dq=Trotsky+alternative+historians&pg=PA101 |title=A History of Russian Economic Thought |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1134261918 |page=101 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=[[Mehring Books]] |isbn=978-1893638976 |pages=1–15 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Day |first1=Richard B. |year=1990 |title=The Blackmail of the Single Alternative: Bukharin, Trotsky and Perestrojka |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20100543 |journal=Studies in Soviet Thought |volume=40 |issue=1/3 |pages=159–188 |doi=10.1007/BF00818977 |issn=0039-3797 |jstor=20100543 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> More specifically, Trotsky advocated for a [[decentralised]] form of economic planning,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Twiss |first1=Thomas M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3o2fAwAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+decentralized+planning&pg=PA106 |title=Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy |date=2014 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |isbn=978-9004269538 |pages=105–106 |language=en}}</ref> mass [[soviet (council)|soviet]] [[democratization]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wiles |first1=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mHAIEQAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+concentration+camp+stalinism&pg=PA25 |title=The Soviet Economy on the Brink of Reform: Essays in Honor of Alec Nove |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=2023 |isbn=978-1000881905 |pages=25–40 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfnp|Knei-Paz|1978|pp=[https://archive.org/details/socialpoliticalt0000knei/page/300/mode/2up?q=proletarian+culture 207–215]}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mandel |first1=Ernest |author-link=Ernest Mandel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xVmcEAAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+as+alternative+mandel&pg=PT80 |title=Trotsky as Alternative |publisher=[[Verso Books]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-1789607017 |pages=84–86 |language=en}}</ref> [[worker's control|worker's control of production]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wiles |first1=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mHAIEQAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+legalization+of+soviet+parties+worker+control+of+production&pg=PA31 |title=The Soviet Economy on the Brink of Reform: Essays in Honor of Alec Nove |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=2023 |isbn=978-1000881905 |page=31 |language=en}}</ref> elected representation of Soviet [[List of political parties in the Soviet Union|socialist parties]],{{sfnp|Deutscher|2015|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet 293]}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hiCYS9Z3lDoC |title=The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it Going? |publisher=Mehring Books |year=1991 |isbn=978-0929087481 |page=218 |language=en}}</ref> the tactic of a [[united front]] against far-right parties,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ticktin |first1=Hillel |title=Trotsky's political economy of capitalism |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |year=1992 |isbn=978-0748603176 |editor1-last=Brotherstone |editor1-first=Terence |page=227 |editor2-last=Dukes |editor2-first=Paul}}</ref> [[cultural]] autonomy for artistic movements,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eagleton |first1=Terry |author-link=Terry Eagleton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h7k8t09BbIQC&q=trotsky+literature+and+revolution+socialist+realism |title=Marxism and Literary Criticism |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1134947836 |page=20 |language=en}}</ref> voluntary [[collectivisation]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beilharz |first1=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lfe-DwAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+widely+acknowledged+collectivisation&pg=PT196 |title=Trotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism |date=2019 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1000706512 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rubenstein |first1=Joshua |url=https://archive.org/details/leontrotskyrevol0000rube/page/160/mode/2up?q=forced+collectivization |title=Leon Trotsky : a revolutionary's life |date=2011 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0300137248 |location=New Haven |page=161}}</ref> a [[The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International|transitional program]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Löwy |first1=Michael |author-link=Michael Löwy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gSrvmQeZyhoC&dq=trotsky+transitional+program&pg=PA191 |title=The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx |date=2005 |publisher=[[Haymarket Books]] |isbn=978-1931859196 |page=191 |language=en}}</ref> and socialist [[proletarian internationalism|internationalism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cox |first1=Michael |year=1992 |title=Trotsky and His Interpreters; or, Will the Real Leon Trotsky Please Stand up? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/131248 |journal=The Russian Review |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=84–102 |doi=10.2307/131248 |jstor=131248 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Several scholars state that in practice, the Soviet model functioned as a form of [[state capitalism]].<ref name="Chomsky 1986">{{cite journal |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |author-link=Noam Chomsky |date=Spring–Summer 1986 |title=The Soviet Union Versus Socialism |url=https://chomsky.info/1986____/ |journal=[[Our Generation (journal)|Our Generation]] |access-date=10 June 2020 |via=Chomsky.info}}</ref><ref name="State Capitalism in the Soviet Union, 2001">{{cite journal |last1=Howard |first1=M. C. |last2=King |first2=J. E. |date=2001 |title=State Capitalism' in the Soviet Union |url=http://www.hetsa.org.au/pdf/34-A-08.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=History of Economics Review |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=110–126 |doi=10.1080/10370196.2001.11733360 |s2cid=42809979 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728140836/https://www.hetsa.org.au/pdf/34-A-08.pdf |archive-date=28 July 2019 |access-date=17 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="Fitzgibbons 2002">{{cite web |last=Fitzgibbons |first=Daniel J. |date=11 October 2002 |title=USSR strayed from communism, say Economics professors |url=https://www.umass.edu/pubaffs/chronicle/archives/02/10-11/economics.html |access-date=22 September 2021 |website=The Campus Chronicle |publisher=[[University of Massachusetts Amherst]]}} See also {{cite web |last=Wolff |first=Richard D. |author-link=Richard D. Wolff |date=27 June 2015 |title=Socialism Means Abolishing the Distinction Between Bosses and Employees |url=https://truthout.org/articles/socialism-means-abolishing-the-distinction-between-bosses-and-employees/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180311070639/http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31567-socialism-means-abolishing-the-distinction-between-bosses-and-employees |archive-date=11 March 2018 |access-date=29 January 2020 |website=[[Truthout]]}}</ref>

=== Democratic socialism and social democracy ===
{{main|Democratic socialism|Social democracy}}

[[File:Puño y rosa.svg|thumb|The [[fist and rose]], a [[Rose symbolism#Socialism|common symbol]] of democratic socialism and social democracy]]
{{quote box
| quote = You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.<ref>{{cite book |title=Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African-American Thought |last=Franklin |first=Robert Michael |page=125 |publisher=Fortress Press |year=1990 |isbn=978-0800623920}}</ref><ref>Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou (20 January 2014). [http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/martin-luther-kingsocialismantiimperialism.html The radical gospel of Martin Luther King]. ''[[Al Jazeera America]].'' Retrieved 20 January 2014.</ref>
| author = —[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], 1966
| align = right
| width = 300px
| bgcolor = #c6dbf7
}}

Democratic socialism represents any socialist movement that seeks to establish an economy based on [[economic democracy]] by and for the working class. Democratic socialism is difficult to define and groups of scholars have radically different definitions for the term. Some definitions simply refer to all forms of socialism that follow an electoral, reformist or evolutionary path to socialism rather than a revolutionary one.<ref>This definition is captured in this statement by [[Anthony Crosland]], who "argued that the socialisms of the pre-war world (not just that of the [[Marxist|Marxists]], but of the democratic socialists too) were now increasingly irrelevant". {{cite journal |last=Pierson |first=Chris |date=June 2005 |title=Lost property: What the Third Way lacks |journal=[[Journal of Political Ideologies]] |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=145–163 |doi=10.1080/13569310500097265 |s2cid=144916176}} Other texts which use the terms ''democratic socialism'' in this way include Malcolm Hamilton ''Democratic Socialism in Britain and Sweden'' (St Martin's Press 1989).</ref> According to Christopher Pierson, "[i]f the contrast which 1989 highlights is not that between socialism in the East and liberal democracy in the West, the latter must be recognised to have been shaped, reformed and compromised by a century of social democratic pressure". Pierson further claims that "social democratic and socialist parties within the constitutional arena in the West have almost always been involved in a politics of compromise with existing capitalist institutions (to whatever far distant prize its eyes might from time to time have been lifted)". For Pierson, "if advocates of the death of socialism accept that social democrats belong within the socialist camp, as I think they must, then the contrast between socialism (in all its variants) and liberal democracy must collapse. For ''actually existing'' liberal democracy is, in substantial part, a product of socialist (social democratic) forces".<ref>{{cite book |last=Pierson |first=Christopher |title=Socialism After Communism: The New Market Socialism |publisher=[[Penn State Press]] |year=1995 |isbn=978-0271014791 |location=University Park, Pennsylvania |page=71}}</ref>

Social democracy is a socialist tradition of political thought.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eatwell |first1=Roger |author-link1=Roger Eatwell |title=Contemporary Political Ideologies |last2=Wright |first2=Anthony |publisher=Continuum |year=1999 |isbn=978-1855676053 |edition=2nd |location=London |pages=80–103}}</ref>{{sfnp|Newman|2005|p=5}} Many social democrats refer to themselves as socialists or democratic socialists and some such as [[Tony Blair]] employ these terms interchangeably.<ref>{{cite book |last=Raza |first=Syed Ali |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q07jeo_wrk4C&pg=PA86 |title=Social Democratic System |publisher=Global Peace Trust |isbn=978-9699757006 |page=86 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=O'Reilly |first=David |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=Ai2BDAAAQBAJ|page=91}} |title=The New Progressive Dilemma: Australia and Tony Blair's Legacy |publisher=Springer |year=2007 |isbn=978-0230625471 |page=91}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Gage |first=Beverly |date=17 July 2018 |title=America Can Never Sort Out Whether 'Socialism' Is Marginal or Rising |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/magazine/america-can-never-sort-out-whether-socialism-is-marginal-or-rising.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180930213722/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/magazine/america-can-never-sort-out-whether-socialism-is-marginal-or-rising.html |archive-date=30 September 2018 |access-date=17 September 2018 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Others found "clear differences" between the three terms and prefer to describe their own political beliefs by using the term ''social democracy''.{{sfnp|Brandal|Bratberg|Thorsen|2013|p=7}} The two main directions were to establish democratic socialism or to build first a welfare state within the capitalist system. The first variant advances democratic socialism through [[reformist]] and [[gradualist]] methods.{{sfnp|Busky|2000|p=8}} In the second variant, social democracy is a policy regime involving a welfare state, [[collective bargaining]] schemes, support for publicly financed public services and a mixed economy. It is often used in this manner to refer to Western and Northern Europe during the later half of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sejersted |first=Francis |title=The age of social democracy: Norway and Sweden in the twentieth century |date=2011 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0691147741 |oclc=762965992}}</ref><ref name="Foundations of social democracy, 2009">''Foundations of social democracy'', 2004. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, p. 8, November 2009.</ref> It was described by [[Jerry Mander]] as "hybrid economics", an active collaboration of capitalist and socialist visions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mander |first=Jerry |author-link=Jerry Mander |url=https://archive.org/details/capitalismpapers0000mand/page/213 |title=The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System |date=2012 |publisher=[[Counterpoint (publisher)|Counterpoint]] |isbn=978-1582437170 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/capitalismpapers0000mand/page/213 213–217]}}</ref> Some studies and surveys indicate that people tend to live happier and healthier lives in social democratic societies rather than [[neoliberal]] ones.<ref>{{cite web |last=Eskow |first=Richard |date=15 October 2014 |title=New Study Finds Big Government Makes People Happy, "Free Markets" Don't |url=https://ourfuture.org/20141015/new-study-finds-big-government-makes-people-happy-free-markets-dont |access-date=20 April 2020 |website=OurFuture.org by People's Action}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Radcliff |first=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Radcliff |date=25 September 2013 |title=Opinion: Social safety net makes people happier |url=https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/opinion/radcliff-politics-of-happiness/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241208165011/https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/25/opinion/radcliff-politics-of-happiness/index.html |archive-date=8 December 2024 |access-date=20 April 2020 |work=[[CNN]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=World's Happiest Countries? Social Democracies |url=https://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/05/11/worlds-happiest-countries-social-democracies |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807053534/https://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/05/11/worlds-happiest-countries-social-democracies |archive-date=7 August 2020 |access-date=20 April 2020 |website=[[Common Dreams]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sullivan |first1=Dylan |last2=Hickel |first2=Jason |author2-link=Jason Hickel |date=2023 |title=Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century |journal=[[World Development]] |volume=161 |bibcode=2023WoDev.16106026S |doi=10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106026 |s2cid=252315733 |quote=...amongst the developed capitalist countries, the social democracies with generous welfare states (i.e., Scandinavia) have superior health outcomes to neo-liberal states like the US. Poverty alleviation and gains in human health have historically been linked to socialist political movements and public action, not to capitalism. |doi-access=free |article-number=106026}}</ref>

Social democrats advocate a peaceful, evolutionary transition of the economy to socialism through [[Progressivism|progressive]] social reform.<ref name="EB">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Social democracy |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551073/social-democracy |access-date=12 October 2013}}</ref>{{sfnp|Newman|2005|p=[{{google books|plainurl=y|id=kN8llUabGh8C|page=74}} 74]}} It asserts that the only acceptable constitutional form of government is [[representative democracy]] under the rule of law.{{sfnp|Meyer|2013|p=91}} It promotes extending democratic decision-making beyond political democracy to include [[economic democracy]] to guarantee employees and other economic stakeholders sufficient rights of [[co-determination]].{{sfnp|Meyer|2013|p=91}} It supports a [[mixed economy]] that opposes inequality, poverty and oppression while rejecting both a totally unregulated [[market economy]] or a fully [[planned economy]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Colby |first=Ira Christopher |title=Connecting social welfare policy to fields of practice |date=2013 |publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] |isbn=978-1118177006 |editor1-last=Dulmus |editor1-first=Catherine N. |page=29 |oclc=827894277 |editor2-last=Sowers |editor2-first=Karen M.}}</ref> Common social democratic policies include universal social rights and universally accessible public services such as education, health care, workers' compensation and other services, including child care and elder care.{{sfnp|Meyer|2013|p=137}} Socialist child care and elderly care systems allow citizens to take a more active role in building a socialist society, especially women.<ref>{{Cite web |last=ariana |date=19 March 2024 |title=Interrupted Emancipation: Women and Work in East Germany |url=https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-74-women-in-the-german-democratic-republic/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250130122713/https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-74-women-in-the-german-democratic-republic/ |archive-date=30 January 2025 |access-date=12 November 2024 |website=Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research |language=en}}</ref> Social democracy supports the trade union labour movement and supports collective bargaining rights for workers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Upchurch |first=Martin |title=The crisis of social democratic trade unionism in Western Europe: the search for alternatives |date=2016 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1315615141 |page=51 |oclc=948604973}}</ref> Most social democratic parties are affiliated with the [[Socialist International]].{{sfnp|Busky|2000|p=8}}

Modern democratic socialism is a broad political movement that seeks to promote the ideals of socialism within the context of a democratic system. Some democratic socialists support social democracy as a temporary measure to reform the current system while others reject reformism in favour of more revolutionary methods. Modern social democracy emphasises a program of gradual legislative modification of capitalism to make it more equitable and humane while the theoretical end goal of building a socialist society is relegated to the indefinite future. According to [[Sheri Berman]], Marxism is loosely held to be valuable for its emphasis on changing the world for a more just, better future.<ref>{{cite book |last=Berman |first=Sheri |title=The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century |date=2006 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0521817998 |page=153}}</ref>

The two movements are widely similar both in terminology and in ideology, although there are a few key differences. The major difference between social democracy and democratic socialism is the object of their politics in that contemporary social democrats support a welfare state and unemployment insurance as well as other practical, progressive reforms of capitalism and are more concerned to administrate and humanise it. On the other hand, democratic socialists seek to replace capitalism with a socialist economic system, arguing that any attempt to humanise capitalism through regulations and welfare policies would distort the market and create economic contradictions.<ref>{{cite web |last=Schweickart |first=David |year=2006 |title=Democratic Socialism |url=http://orion.it.luc.edu/~dschwei/demsoc.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120617235335/http://orion.it.luc.edu/~dschwei/demsoc.htm |archive-date=17 June 2012 |website=Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice |quote=Social democrats supported and tried to strengthen the basic institutions of the welfare state—pensions for all, public health care, public education, unemployment insurance. They supported and tried to strengthen the labour movement. The latter, as socialists, argued that capitalism could never be sufficiently humanised, and that trying to suppress the economic contradictions in one area would only see them emerge in a different guise elsewhere. (E.g., if you push unemployment too low, you'll get inflation; if job security is too strong, labour discipline breaks down; etc.)}}</ref>

=== Ethical and liberal socialism ===
{{main|Ethical socialism|Liberal socialism}}

[[File:R._H._Tawney.jpg|thumb|300x300px|[[R. H. Tawney]], founder of ethical socialism]]
Ethical socialism appeals to socialism on ethical and moral grounds as opposed to economic, egoistic, and consumeristic grounds. It emphasizes the need for a morally conscious economy based upon the principles of altruism, cooperation, and social justice while opposing possessive individualism.{{sfnp|Thompson|2006|pp=52, 58–59}} Ethical socialism has been the official philosophy of mainstream socialist parties.{{sfnmp|1a1=Orlow|1y=2000|1p=190|2a1=Tansey|2a2=Jackson|2y=2008|2p=97}}

Liberal socialism incorporates liberal principles to socialism.{{sfnp|Gaus|Kukathas|2004|p=420}} It has been compared to [[Social democratic mixed economy|post-war social democracy]]<ref name="Adams1998">{{cite book |last=Adams |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_7t714alm68C&pg=PA127 |title=Ideology and Politics in Britain Today |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0719050565 |page=127 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> for its support of a [[mixed economy]] that includes both public and private capital goods.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pugliese |first=Stanislao G. |title=Carlo Rosselli: socialist heretic and antifascist exile |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=1999 |page=99 |oclc=1029276342}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Noel W. |title=Political economy and the Labour Party: the economics of democratic socialism 1884–2005 |date=2006 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |pages=60–61 |oclc=300363066}}</ref> While [[democratic socialism]] and [[social democracy]] are [[anti-capitalist]] positions insofar as [[criticism of capitalism]] is linked to the [[private ownership]] of the [[means of production]],{{sfnp|Lamb|Docherty|2006|pp=1–2}} liberal socialism identifies artificial and legalistic monopolies to be the fault of [[capitalism]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Roland W. |title=The success of modern private enterprise |publisher=The Interstate Printers and Publishers |year=1970 |page=32 |oclc=878037469 |quote=Liberal socialism, for example, is unequivocally in favour of the free market economy and of freedom of action for the individual and recognises in legalistic and artificial monopolies the real evils of capitalism.}}</ref> and opposes an entirely unregulated [[market economy]].<ref name="ref72">{{cite book |last=Bastow |first=Steve |title=Third way discourse: European ideologies in the twentieth century |date=2003 |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |isbn=0748615601 |oclc=899035345}}</ref> It considers both [[liberty]] and [[social equality]] to be compatible and mutually dependent.{{sfnp|Gaus|Kukathas|2004|p=420}}

Principles that can be described as ethical or liberal socialist have been based upon or developed by philosophers such as [[John Stuart Mill]], [[Eduard Bernstein]], [[John Dewey]], [[Carlo Rosselli]], [[Norberto Bobbio]], and [[Chantal Mouffe]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Urbinati |first1=Nadia |title=J.S. Mill's political thought: a bicentennial reassessment |last2=Zakaras |first2=Alex |date=2007 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0511274725 |page=101 |oclc=252535635}}</ref> Other important liberal socialist figures include Guido Calogero, [[Piero Gobetti]], [[Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] and [[R. H. Tawney]].<ref name="ref72" /> Liberal socialism has been particularly prominent in British and Italian politics.<ref name="ref72" />

=== Libertarian socialism ===
{{main|Libertarian socialism}}

[[File:Le libertaire 25.png|thumb|left|upright|The first anarchist journal to use the term ''[[libertarian]]'' was ''[[Le Libertaire]], Journal du Mouvement Social'', published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French [[libertarian communist]] [[Joseph Déjacque]],<ref name="theanarchistlibrary">{{cite web |title=150 years of Libertarian |url=http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/The_Anarchist_FAQ_Editorial_Collective__150_years_of_Libertarian.html |website=theanarchistlibrary.org}}</ref> the first recorded person to describe himself as ''libertarian.''<ref name="Dejacque">Joseph Déjacque, [http://joseph.dejacque.free.fr/ecrits/lettreapjp.htm De l'être-humain mâle et femelle – Lettre à P.J. Proudhon par Joseph Déjacque] (in French)</ref>]]
Libertarian socialism, sometimes called [[left-libertarianism]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bookchin |first1=Murray |author1-link=Murray Bookchin |title=The Murray Bookchin Reader |last2=Biehl |first2=Janet |author2-link=Janet Biehl |publisher=Cassell |year=1997 |isbn=0304338737 |page=170}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hicks |first1=Steven V. |title=The American journal of economics and sociology |last2=Shannon |first2=Daniel E. |date=2003 |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] |page=612}}</ref> [[social anarchism]]<ref name="Ostergaard 1991. p. 21">{{cite encyclopedia |year=1991 |title=Anarchism |dictionary=A Dictionary of Marxist Thought |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] |last=Ostergaard |first=Geoffrey |author-link=Geoffrey Ostergaard |page=21}}</ref><ref name="Noam Chomsky 2004, p. 739">Chomsky, Noam (2004). ''Language and Politics''. In Otero, Carlos Peregrín. [[AK Press]]. p. 739</ref> and [[socialist libertarianism]],<ref>Miller, Wilbur R. (2012). ''The social history of crime and punishment in America. An encyclopedia.'' 5 vols. London: [[Sage Publications]]. p. 1007. {{ISBN|1412988764}}. "There exist three major camps in libertarian thought: right-libertarianism, socialist libertarianism, and ..."</ref> is an [[anti-authoritarian]], [[anti-statist]] and [[libertarian]]<ref>"It implies a classless and anti-authoritarian (i.e. libertarian) society in which people manage their own affairs" [http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI1#sthash.40vnyElp.dpuf I.1 Isn't libertarian socialism an oxymoron?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171116212712/http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI1#sthash.40vnyElp.dpuf|date=16 November 2017}} at An Anarchist FAQ</ref> tradition within socialism that rejects centralised state ownership and control<ref>"unlike other socialists, they tend to see (to various different degrees, depending on the thinker) to be skeptical of centralised state intervention as the solution to capitalist exploitation..." Roderick T. Long. "Toward a libertarian theory of class." ''Social Philosophy and Policy''. Volume 15. Issue 02. Summer 1998. Pg. 305</ref> including criticism of [[wage labour]] relationships ([[wage slavery]])<ref>"Therefore, rather than being an oxymoron, "libertarian socialism" indicates that true socialism must be libertarian and that a libertarian who is not a socialist is a phoney. As true socialists oppose wage labour, they must also oppose the state for the same reasons. Similarly, libertarians must oppose wage labour for the same reasons they must oppose the state." [http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI1 "I1. Isn't libertarian socialism an oxymoron"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171116212712/http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI1|date=16 November 2017}}. In ''An Anarchist FAQ''.</ref> as well as the state itself.<ref name=":0">"So, libertarian socialism rejects the idea of state ownership and control of the economy, along with the state as such. Through workers' self-management it proposes to bring an end to authority, exploitation, and hierarchy in production." [http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI1 "I1. Isn't libertarian socialism an oxymoron" in] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171116212712/http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI1|date=16 November 2017}} An Anarchist FAQ</ref> It emphasises [[workers' self-management]] and [[Libertarian socialist decentralization|decentralised]] structures of political organisation.<ref name=":0" /><ref>" ...preferring a system of popular self governance via networks of decentralized, local voluntary, participatory, cooperative associations. Roderick T. Long. "Toward a libertarian theory of class." ''Social Philosophy and Policy''. Volume 15. Issue 02. Summer 1998. Pg. 305</ref> Libertarian socialism asserts that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control production.<ref>Mendes, Silva. ''Socialismo Libertário ou Anarchismo'' Vol. 1 (1896): "Society should be free through mankind's spontaneous federative affiliation to life, based on the community of land and tools of the trade; meaning: Anarchy will be equality by abolition of [[private property]] (while retaining respect for [[personal property]]) and [[liberty]] by abolition of [[authority]]".</ref> Libertarian socialists generally prefer [[direct democracy]] and [[Federalism#Federalism as the anarchist and libertarian socialist mode of political organization|federal]] or [[confederal]] associations such as [[libertarian municipalism]], [[citizens' assemblies]], trade unions and [[workers' council]]s.<ref>"...preferring a system of popular self governance via networks of decentralized, local, voluntary, participatory, cooperative associations-sometimes as a complement to and check on state power..."</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Rocker |first=Rudolf |title=Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice |publisher=[[AK Press]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-1902593920 |page=65}}</ref>

Anarcho-syndicalist [[Gaston Leval]] explained:

{{Blockquote|We therefore foresee a Society in which all activities will be coordinated, a structure that has, at the same time, sufficient flexibility to permit the greatest possible autonomy for social life, or for the life of each enterprise, and enough cohesiveness to prevent all disorder. ... In a well-organised society, all of these things must be systematically accomplished by means of parallel federations, vertically united at the highest levels, constituting one vast organism in which all economic functions will be performed in solidarity with all others and that will permanently preserve the necessary cohesion".<ref>Leval, Gaston (1959). [https://libcom.org/library/libertarian-socialism-practical-outline-gaston-leval "Libertarian Socialism: A Practical Outline"]. Libcom.org. Retrieved 22 August 2020.</ref>}}

All of this is typically done within a general call for [[Liberty|libertarian]]<ref>{{cite journal |last=Long |first=Roderick T. |date=Summer 1998 |title=Toward a libertarian theory of class |journal=Social Philosophy and Policy |volume=15 |issue=2 |page=305 |doi=10.1017/S0265052500002028 |s2cid=145150666 |quote=LibSoc share with LibCap an aversion to any interference to freedom of thought, expression or choice of lifestyle.}}</ref> and [[Voluntaryism|voluntary]] [[Free association (communism and anarchism)|free associations]]<ref>"What is implied by the term 'libertarian socialism'?: The idea that socialism is first and foremost about freedom and therefore about overcoming the domination, repression, and alienation that block the free flow of human creativity, thought, and action...An approach to socialism that incorporates cultural revolution, women's and children's liberation, and the critique and transformation of daily life, as well as the more traditional concerns of socialist politics. A politics that is completely revolutionary because it seeks to transform all of reality. We do not think that capturing the economy and the state lead automatically to the transformation of the rest of social being, nor do we equate liberation with changing our life-styles and our heads. Capitalism is a total system that invades all areas of life: socialism must be the overcoming of capitalist reality in its entirety, or it is nothing." "What is Libertarian Socialism?" by Ulli Diemer. Volume 2, Number 1 (Summer 1997 issue) of ''The Red Menace''.</ref> through the identification, criticism and practical dismantling of illegitimate authority in all aspects of human life.<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last=Goldman |first=Emma |author-link=Emma Goldman |title=[[Anarchism and Other Essays]] |chapter=What it Really Stands for Anarchy |quote=Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Soviet Union Versus Socialism |url=http://chomsky.info/1986____/ |access-date=22 November 2015 |website=chomsky.info |quote=Libertarian socialism, furthermore, does not limit its aims to democratic control by producers over production, but seeks to abolish all forms of domination and hierarchy in every aspect of social and personal life, an unending struggle, since progress in achieving a more just society will lead to new insight and understanding of forms of oppression that may be concealed in traditional practice and consciousness.}}</ref>{{sfnp|McLaughlin|2007|p=1|ps= "Authority is defined in terms of the right to exercise social control (as explored in the "sociology of power") and the correlative duty to obey (as explored in the "philosophy of practical reason"). Anarchism is distinguished, philosophically, by its scepticism towards such moral relations—by its questioning of the claims made for such normative power—and, practically, by its challenge to those "authoritative" powers which cannot justify their claims and which are therefore deemed illegitimate or without moral foundation."}}

As part of the larger socialist movement, it seeks to distinguish itself from Bolshevism, Leninism and Marxism–Leninism as well as social democracy.<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Neil |first=John |title=The Market: Ethics, knowledge and politics |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=1998 |page=3 |quote=It is forgotten that the early defenders of commercial society like [Adam] Smith were as much concerned with criticising the associational blocks to mobile labour represented by guilds as they were to the activities of the state. The history of socialist thought includes a long associational and anti-statist tradition prior to the political victory of the Bolshevism in the east and varieties of Fabianism in the west.}}</ref> Past and present political philosophies and movements commonly described as libertarian socialist include [[anarchism]] ([[anarcho-communism]], [[anarcho-syndicalism]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Guérin |first1=Daniel |title=Anarchism: From Theory to Practice |last2=Chomsky |first2=Noam |last3=Klopper |first3=Mary |publisher=Monthly Review Press |year=1970 |isbn=978-0853451754 |edition=1st |location=New York}}</ref> [[collectivist anarchism]], [[individualist anarchism]]<ref>"[[Benjamin Tucker|(Benjamin) Tucker]] referred to himself many times as a socialist and considered his philosophy to be "Anarchistic socialism." ''An Anarchist FAQ'' by Various Authors</ref><ref>French individualist anarchist Émile Armand shows clearly opposition to capitalism and centralised economies when he said that the individualist anarchist "inwardly he remains refractory—fatally refractory—morally, intellectually, economically (The capitalist economy and the directed economy, the speculators and the fabricators of single are equally repugnant to him.)"[http://www.spaz.org/~dan/individualist-anarchist/library/emile-armand/life-activity.html "Anarchist Individualism as a Life and Activity" by Emile Armand]</ref><ref>Anarchist Peter Sabatini reports that in the United States "of early to mid-19th century, there appeared an array of communal and "utopian" counterculture groups (including the so-called free love movement). William Godwin's anarchism exerted an ideological influence on some of this, but more so the socialism of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. After success of his British venture, Owen himself established a cooperative community within the United States at New Harmony, Indiana during 1825. One member of this commune was Josiah Warren (1798–1874), considered to be the first individualist anarchist"[http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Peter_Sabatini__Libertarianism__Bogus_Anarchy.html Peter Sabatini. "Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy"]</ref> and [[Mutualism (economic theory)|mutualism]]),<ref>{{cite web |title=A.4. Are Mutalists Socialists? |url=http://www.mutualist.org/id32.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090609075437/http://www.mutualist.org/id32.html |archive-date=9 June 2009 |website=mutualist.org}}</ref> [[autonomism]], [[Communalism (Bookchin)|Communalism]], participism, [[libertarian Marxism]] ([[council communism]] and [[Luxemburgism]]),<ref>{{cite book |last=Bookchin |first=Murray |author-link=Murray Bookchin |title=Ghost of Anarcho-Syndicalism}}</ref><ref name="Graham-2005">{{cite book |last=Graham |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Graham (historian) |title=The General Idea of Proudhon's Revolution}}</ref> [[revolutionary syndicalism]] and [[utopian socialism]] ([[Fourierism]]).<ref>Kent Bromley, in his preface to Peter Kropotkin's book ''The Conquest of Bread'', considered early French utopian socialist Charles Fourier to be the founder of the libertarian branch of socialist thought, as opposed to the authoritarian socialist ideas of [François-Noël] Babeuf and [Philippe] Buonarroti." [[Kropotkin, Peter]]. ''The Conquest of Bread'', preface by Kent Bromley, New York and London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1906.</ref>

=== Religious socialism ===
{{main|Religious socialism}}

[[Christian socialism]] is a broad concept involving an intertwining of Christian religion with socialism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Leech |first1=Kenneth |author1-link=Kenneth Leech |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hast/page/676 |title=The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0198600244 |editor1-last=Hastings |editor1-first=Adrian |editor1-link=Adrian Hastings |location=Oxford |pages=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hast/page/676 676–678] |chapter=Socialism |access-date=8 August 2018 |editor2-last=Mason |editor2-first=Alistair |editor3-last=Pyper |editor3-first=Hugh |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hast |chapter-url-access=limited}}</ref>

[[File:23a-Lam-Alif.png|thumb|Arabic letters "Lam" and "Alif" reading "Lā" (Arabic for "No!") are a symbol of Islamic Socialism in [[Turkey]].]]
[[Islamic socialism]] is a more [[Spirituality|spiritual]] form of socialism. Muslim socialists believe that the teachings of the [[Quran]] and [[Muhammad]] are not only compatible with, but actively promoting the principles of [[Social equality|equality]] and [[public ownership]], drawing inspiration from the early [[Muhammad in Medina|Medina welfare state]] he established. Muslim socialists are more conservative than their Western contemporaries and find their roots in [[anti-imperialism]], [[anti-colonialism]]<ref name="Reid 1974">{{cite journal |last=Reid |first=Donald M. |year=1974 |title=The Syrian Christians and Early Socialism in the Arab World |journal=[[International Journal of Middle East Studies]] |volume=5 |pages=177–193 |doi=10.1017/S0020743800027811 |jstor=162588 |s2cid=161942887 |number=2}}</ref><ref name="paracha">{{cite web |last=Paracha |first=Nadeem F. |author-link=Nadeem F. Paracha |date=21 February 2013 |title=Islamic Socialism: A history from left to right |url=https://www.dawn.com/news/787645/islamic-socialism-a-history-from-left-to-right |access-date=21 November 2020 |website=[[dawn.com]]}}</ref> and sometimes, if in an Arab speaking country, [[Arab nationalism]]. Islamic socialists believe in deriving legitimacy from political [[Mandate (politics)|mandate]] as opposed to religious texts.

=== Social movements ===
{{main|Eco-socialism|Socialism and LGBT rights|Socialist feminism}}

{{see also|Anarcha-feminism|Anarcho-naturism|Environmentalism|Green anarchism|Green politics|Progressivism|Queer anarchism}}
[[File:Zetkin luxemburg1910.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Socialist feminist [[Clara Zetkin]] and Rosa Luxemburg in 1910]]
Socialist feminism is a branch of [[feminism]] that argues that [[Women's liberation|liberation]] can only be achieved by working to end both economic and [[cultural]] sources of women's [[oppression]].<ref>{{cite web |title=What is Socialist Feminism? – The Feminist eZine |url=http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/Socialist-Feminism.html |access-date=20 April 2020 |website=www.feministezine.com}}</ref> [[Marxist feminism]]'s foundation was laid by Engels in ''[[The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State]]'' (1884). [[August Bebel]]'s ''Woman under Socialism'' (1879), is the "single work dealing with sexuality most widely read by rank-and-file members of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD)".<ref>{{cite journal |date=23 September 2003 |title=Acknowledgments |journal=[[Journal of Homosexuality]] |volume=45 |issue=2–4 |pages=xxvii–xxviii |doi=10.1300/j082v45n02_a |issn=0091-8369 |s2cid=216113584}}</ref> In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both [[Clara Zetkin]] and [[Eleanor Marx]] were against the [[demonisation]] of men and supported a [[proletariat]] revolution that would overcome as many male-female inequalities as possible.<ref name="Stokes">{{cite book |last=Stokes |first=John |title=Eleanor Marx (1855–1898): Life, Work, Contacts |publisher=[[Ashgate Publishing]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0754601135 |location=Aldershot}}</ref> As their movement already had the most radical demands in women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin<ref>{{cite web |last=Zetkin |first=Clara |author-link=Clara Zetkin |year=1976 |title=On a Bourgeois Feminist Petition |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1976/women/3-zetkin.html |access-date=20 April 2020 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Zetkin |first=Clara |author-link=Clara Zetkin |year=1920 |title=Lenin on the Women's Question |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm |access-date=20 April 2020 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref> and [[Alexandra Kollontai]],<ref>{{cite web |last=Kollontai |first=Alexandra |author-link=Alexandra Kollontai |year=1909 |title=The Social Basis of the Woman Question |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1909/social-basis.htm |access-date=20 April 2020 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Kollontai |first=Alexandra |author-link=Alexandra Kollontai |year=1919 |title=Women Workers Struggle For Their Rights |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1919/women-workers/ch01.htm |access-date=20 April 2020 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref> counterposed Marxism against [[liberal feminism]] rather than trying to combine them. Anarcha-feminism began with late 19th- and early 20th-century authors and theorists such as anarchist feminists Goldman and [[Voltairine de Cleyre]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Quiet rumours: an anarcha-feminist reader |date=2012 |publisher=[[AK Press]]/Dark Star |isbn=978-1849351034 |editor-last=Dunbar-Ortiz |editor-first=Roxanne |editor-link=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz |page=9 |oclc=835894204}}</ref> In the [[Spanish Civil War]], an anarcha-feminist group, {{lang|es|[[Mujeres Libres]]}} ("Free Women") linked to the {{lang|es|[[Federación Anarquista Ibérica]]}}, organised to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ackelsberg |first=Martha A. |author-link=Martha Ackelsberg |title=[[Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women]] |date=2005 |publisher=[[AK Press]] |isbn=1902593960 |oclc=884001264}}</ref> In 1972, the [[Chicago Women's Liberation Union]] published "Socialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women's Movement", which is believed to be the first published use of the term "socialist feminism".<ref name="CWLUOver">{{cite web |last1=Davenport |first1=Sue |last2=Strobel |first2=Margaret |year=1999 |title=The Chicago Women's Liberation Union: An Introduction |url=http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUAbout/abdoc1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104090301/http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUAbout/abdoc1.html |archive-date=4 November 2011 |access-date=25 November 2011 |website=The CWLU Herstory Website |publisher=[[University of Illinois]]}}</ref>

[[File:Day, Fred Holland (1864–1933) - Edward Carpenter.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Edward Carpenter]], philosopher and activist who was instrumental in the foundation of the [[Fabian Society]] and the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] as well as in the early [[LGBTI]] western movements]]
Many socialists were early advocates of [[LGBT rights]]. For early socialist [[Charles Fourier]], true freedom could only occur without suppressing passions, as the suppression of passions is not only destructive to the individual, but to society as a whole. Writing before the advent of the term "homosexuality", Fourier recognised that both men and women have a wide range of sexual needs and preferences which may change throughout their lives, including same-sex sexuality and ''androgénité''. He argued that all sexual expressions should be enjoyed as long as people are not abused and that "affirming one's difference" can actually enhance social integration.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Desbazeille |first=Michèle Madonna |year=1990 |title=Le Nouveau Monde amoureux de Charles Fourier: une écriture passionnée de la rencontre |trans-title=The New World in Love with Charles Fourier: A Passionate Writing of the Encounter |journal=Romantisme |language=fr |volume=20 |issue=68 |pages=97–110 |doi=10.3406/roman.1990.6129 |issn=0048-8593}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Fourier |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Fourier |title=Le Nouveau Monde amoureux |publisher=[[Éditions Anthropos]] |year=1967 |location=Paris |pages=389, 391, 429, 458, 459, 462, and 463 |language=fr |trans-title=The New World of Love |orig-date=1816–1818}}</ref> In [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Soul of Man Under Socialism]]'', he advocates an [[egalitarian]] society where wealth is shared by all, while warning of the dangers of social systems that crush individuality.<ref>{{cite book |last=McKenna |first=Neil |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=giD2qu4C-sUC}} |title=The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-0786734924}} According to McKenna, Wilde was part of a secret organisation that aimed to legalise homosexuality, and was known among the group as a leader of "the Cause".</ref> [[Edward Carpenter]] actively campaigned for homosexual rights. His work ''[[The Intermediate Sex]]: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women'' was a 1908 book arguing for [[gay liberation]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Flood |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Flood |title=International encyclopedia of men and masculinities |date=2013 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0415864541 |page=315 |oclc=897581763}}</ref> who was an influential personality in the foundation of the [[Fabian Society]] and the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]]. After the [[Russian Revolution]] under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, the Soviet Union abolished previous laws against homosexuality.<ref>{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Paul |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=jACXalmJ3nEC|page=124}} |title=The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Gay Men and Lesbians, Past and Present |publisher=[[Kensington Publishing Corporation]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0758201003 |page=124}}</ref> [[Harry Hay]] was an early leader in the American LGBT rights movement as well as a member of the [[Communist Party USA]]. He is known for his involvement in the founding of gay organisations, including the [[Mattachine Society]], the first sustained gay rights group in the United States which in its early days reflected a strong Marxist influence. The ''Encyclopedia of Homosexuality'' reports that "[a]s Marxists the founders of the group believed that the injustice and oppression which they suffered stemmed from relationships deeply embedded in the structure of American society".<ref>{{cite web |title=Mattachine Society at Dynes, Wayne R. (ed.) |url=http://williamapercy.com/wiki/images/Mattachine.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419214800/http://www.williamapercy.com/wiki/images/Mattachine.pdf |archive-date=19 April 2012 |access-date=10 March 2014 |website=Encyclopedia of Homosexuality}}</ref> Emerging from events such as the May 1968 insurrection in France, the [[Opposition to the Vietnam War|anti-Vietnam war movement]] in the US and the [[Stonewall riots]] of 1969, militant gay liberation organisations began to spring up around the world. Many sprang from left radicalism more than established homophile groups,<ref>{{cite web |last=Chabarro |first=Lou |date=2004 |title=Gay movement boosted by '79 march on Washington |url=http://www.washblade.com/2004/11-5/news/national/movement.cfm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091116051252/http://www.washblade.com/2004/11-5/news/national/movement.cfm |archive-date=16 November 2009 |website=[[Washington Blade]]}}</ref> although the [[Gay Liberation Front]] took an [[anti-capitalist]] stance and attacked the [[nuclear family]] and traditional [[gender role]]s.<ref>{{cite web |year=1978 |orig-date=1971 |title=Gay Liberation Front: Manifesto. London |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/glf-london.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120430002550/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/glf-london.html |archive-date=30 April 2012 |access-date=27 March 2014}}</ref>

Eco-socialism is a political strain merging aspects of socialism, Marxism or libertarian socialism with green politics, ecology and [[alter-globalisation]]. Eco-socialists generally claim that the expansion of the capitalist system is the cause of social exclusion, poverty, war and environmental degradation through [[globalisation]] and [[imperialism]] under the supervision of repressive [[State (polity)|states]] and transnational structures.<ref name="Manifesto">{{cite book |last1=Kovel |first1=J. |author1-link=Joel Kovel |url=http://environment-ecology.com/political-ecology/436-an-ecosocialist-manifesto.html |title=An ecosocialist manifesto |last2=Löwy |first2=M. |author2-link=Michael Löwy |year=2001}}</ref> Contrary to the depiction of [[Karl Marx]] by some environmentalists,<ref name="Eckersley">{{cite book |last=Eckersley |first=Robyn |author-link=Robyn Eckersley |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=KLr7Y-mQiRQC}} |title=Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach |publisher=[[SUNY Press]] |year=1992 |isbn=978-0791410134}}</ref> [[Social ecology (theory)|social ecologists]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Clark |first=John P. |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=hcIgAQAAIAAJ}} |title=The Anarchist Moment: Reflections on Culture, Nature, and Power |publisher=[[Black Rose Books]] |year=1984 |isbn=978-0920057087}}</ref> and fellow socialists<ref name="Benton">{{Cite book |last=Benton |first=Ted |title=The greening of Marxism |publisher=[[The Guilford Press]] |year=1996 |isbn=1572301198 |oclc=468837567}}</ref> as a [[Productivism|productivist]] who favoured the domination of nature, eco-socialists revisited Marx's writings and believe that he "was a main originator of the ecological world-view".<ref name="Kovel">{{cite book |last=Kovel |first=Joel |author-link=Joel Kovel |title=The Enemy of Nature: the End of Capitalism or the End of the World? |date=2013 |publisher=[[Zed Books]] |isbn=978-1848136595 |oclc=960164995}}</ref> Marx discussed a "metabolic rift" between man and nature, stating that "private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite absurd as private ownership of one man by another" and his observation that a society must "hand it [the planet] down to succeeding generations in an improved condition".<ref name="Capital3">{{cite book |last=Marx |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Marx |title=Capital: a critique of political economy |publisher=[[Penguin Books|Penguin]] in association with New Left Review |year=1981 |isbn=0140221166 |volume=3 |oclc=24235898}}</ref> English socialist [[William Morris]] is credited with developing principles of what was later called eco-socialism.<ref name="Babylon">{{cite book |last=Wall |first=Derek |author-link=Derek Wall |title=The no-nonsense guide to green politics |date=2010 |publisher=New Internationalist |isbn=978-1906523589 |oclc=776590485}}</ref> During the 1880s and 1890s, Morris promoted his ideas within the [[Social Democratic Federation]] and [[Socialist League (UK, 1885)|Socialist League]].<ref name="GLSite">{{cite web |title=Green Left |url=http://www.greenleft.org.uk |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405022509/http://www.greenleft.org.uk/ |archive-date=5 April 2016 |access-date=3 April 2016 |website=greenleft.org.uk}}</ref> Green anarchism blends anarchism with [[environmental issues]]. An important early influence was [[Henry David Thoreau]] and his book ''[[Walden]]''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Diez |first=Xavier |date=26 May 2006 |title=La Insumisión voluntaria. El Anarquismo individualista Español durante la Dictadura i la Segunda República (1923–1938) |trans-title=Voluntary submission. Spanish Individualist Anarchism during the Dictatorship and the Second Republic (1923–1938) |url=http://www.acracia.org/xdiez.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060526224800/http://www.acracia.org/xdiez.html |archive-date=26 May 2006 |access-date=20 April 2020 |language=es |quote=Su obra más representativa es Walden, aparecida en 1854, aunque redactada entre 1845 y 1847, cuando Thoreau decide instalarse en el aislamiento de una cabaña en el bosque, y vivir en íntimo contacto con la naturaleza, en una vida de soledad y sobriedad. De esta experiencia, su filosofía trata de transmitirnos la idea que resulta necesario un retorno respetuoso a la naturaleza, y que la felicidad es sobre todo fruto de la riqueza interior y de la armonía de los individuos con el entorno natural. Muchos han visto en Thoreau a uno de los precursores del ecologismo y del anarquismo primitivista representado en la actualidad por [[John Zerzan]]. Para George Woodcock, esta actitud puede estar también motivada por una cierta idea de resistencia al progreso y de rechazo al materialismo creciente que caracteriza la sociedad norteamericana de mediados de siglo XIX. |trans-quote=His most representative work is Walden, published in 1854, although written between 1845 and 1847, when Thoreau decides to settle in the isolation of a cabin in the woods, and live in intimate contact with nature, in a life of solitude and sobriety. From this experience, his philosophy tries to convey to us the idea that a respectful return to nature is necessary, and that happiness is above all the fruit of inner richness and the harmony of individuals with the natural environment. Many have seen in Thoreau one of the forerunners of environmentalism and primitive anarchism represented today by [[John Zerzan]]. For George Woodcock, this attitude may also be motivated by a certain idea of resistance to progress and rejection of the growing materialism that characterizes American society in the mid-nineteenth century.}}</ref> as well as [[Élisée Reclus]].<ref name="Reclus1">{{cite web |title=Naturists: The first naturists & the naturist culture – Natustar |url=http://www.natustar.com/uk/naturism-begin.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025125935/http://www.natustar.com/uk/naturism-begin.html |archive-date=25 October 2012 |access-date=11 October 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A.3 What types of anarchism are there? |url=http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA3.html#seca33 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180615004526/http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA3.html#seca33 |archive-date=15 June 2018 |access-date=10 March 2014 |website=Anarchist Writers}}</ref>

In the late 19th century, anarcho-naturism fused anarchism and [[naturist]] philosophies within [[individualist anarchist]] circles in France, Spain, Cuba<ref name="raforum.info">{{cite web |title=R.A. Forum > SHAFFER, Kirwin R. Anarchism and countercultural politics in early twentieth-century Cuba |url=http://raforum.info/spip.php?article3061&lang=fr |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012003926/http://raforum.info/spip.php?article3061&lang=fr |archive-date=12 October 2013 |website=raforum.info}}</ref> and Portugal.<ref name="spanishind">{{cite web |title=La Insumisión voluntaria. El Anarquismo individualista Español durante la Dictadura i la Segunda República (1923–1938) by Xavier Diez |trans-title=Voluntary submission. Spanish Individualist Anarchism during the Dictatorship and the Second Republic (1923–1938) by Xavier Diez |url=http://www.acracia.org/xdiez.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060526224800/http://www.acracia.org/xdiez.html |archive-date=26 May 2006 |language=es}}</ref> [[Murray Bookchin]]'s first book ''[[Our Synthetic Environment]]''<ref>{{cite web |last=Biehl |first=Janet |author-link=Janet Biehl |title=A Short Biography of Murray Bookchin by Janet Biehl |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/bio1.html |access-date=11 May 2012 |publisher=Dwardmac.pitzer.edu}}</ref> was followed by his essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" which introduced ecology as a concept in radical politics.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bookchin |first=Murray |author-link=Murray Bookchin |date=16 June 2004 |title=Ecology and Revolution |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/ecologyandrev.html |access-date=11 May 2012 |publisher=Dwardmac.pitzer.edu}}</ref> In the 1970s, [[Barry Commoner]], claimed that capitalist technologies were chiefly responsible for [[environmental degradation]] as opposed to [[Human overpopulation|population pressures]].<ref name="Commoner">{{Cite book |last=Commoner |first=Barry |author-link=Barry Commoner |title=The closing circle: nature, man, and technology |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |year=2020 |isbn=978-0486846248 |oclc=1141422712}}</ref> In the 1990s socialist/feminists Mary Mellor<ref name="Mellor">{{Cite book |last=Mellor |first=Mary |title=Breaking the boundaries: towards a feminist green socialism |publisher=[[Virago Press]] |year=1992 |isbn=1853812005 |oclc=728578769}}</ref> and [[Ariel Salleh]]<ref name="Salleh">{{Cite book |last=Salleh |first=Ariel |author-link=Ariel Salleh |title=Ecofeminism as politics: nature, Marx and the postmodern |publisher=[[Zed Books]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-1786990976 |oclc=951936453}}</ref> adopt an eco-socialist paradigm. An "environmentalism of the poor" combining ecological awareness and [[social justice]] has also become prominent.<ref name="Guha">{{Cite book |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |author-link=Ramachandra Guha |title=Varieties of Environmentalism Essays North and South |date=2013 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=978-1134173341 |oclc=964049036}}</ref> Pepper critiqued the current approach of many within [[green politics]], particularly [[deep ecologists]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pepper |first=David |title=Eco-Socialism |year=2002 |isbn=978-0203423363 |doi=10.4324/9780203423363}}</ref>

=== Syndicalism ===
{{main|Syndicalism}}

{{see also|Anarcho-syndicalism}}

Syndicalism operates through industrial trade unions. It rejects [[state socialism]] and the use of establishment politics. Syndicalists reject state power in favour of strategies such as the [[general strike]]. Syndicalists advocate a socialist economy based on federated unions or syndicates of workers who own and manage the means of production. Some Marxist currents advocate syndicalism, such as [[De Leonism]]. Anarcho-syndicalism views syndicalism as a method for workers in [[capitalist society]] to gain control of an economy. The [[Spanish Revolution of 1936|Spanish Revolution]] was largely orchestrated by the anarcho-syndicalist trade union [[Confederación Nacional del Trabajo|CNT]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Dolgoff |first=Sam |author-link=Sam Dolgoff |title=[[The Anarchist Collectives|The Anarchist Collectives Workers' Self-management in the Spanish Revolution 1936–1939]] |publisher=Free Life Editions |year=1974 |edition=1st}}</ref> The [[International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores|International Workers' Association]] is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labour unions and initiatives.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hargis |first1=Mike |date=2002 |title=No Human Being is Illegal: International Workers' Association Conference on Immigration |journal=Anarcho-Syndicalist Review |issue=33 |page=10}}</ref>

== Social and political theory ==
{{main|Types of socialism}}

Early socialist thought took influences from a diverse range of philosophies such as civic [[republicanism]], [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] [[rationalism]], [[romanticism]], forms of [[materialism]], Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant), [[natural law]] and [[natural rights theory]], [[utilitarianism]] and liberal political economy.<ref>Andrew Vincent. Modern political ideologies. Wiley-Blackwell publishing. 2010. pp. 87–88</ref> Another philosophical basis for a great deal of early socialism was the emergence of [[positivism]] during the [[European Enlightenment]]. Positivism held that both the natural and social worlds could be understood through scientific knowledge and be analysed using scientific methods.

[[File:Claude Henri de Saint-Simon.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Henri de Saint-Simon|Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon]], early French socialist]]
The fundamental objective of socialism is to attain an advanced level of material production and therefore greater productivity, efficiency and rationality as compared to capitalism and all previous systems, under the view that an expansion of human productive capability is the basis for the extension of freedom and equality in society.<ref>{{cite book |title=Socialism and the Market: The Socialist Calculation Debate Revisited |series=Routledge Library of 20th Century Economics |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2000 |page=12 |isbn=978-0415195867}}</ref> Many forms of socialist theory hold that human behaviour is largely shaped by the social environment. In particular, socialism holds that social [[mores]], values, cultural traits and economic practices are social creations and not the result of an immutable natural law.<ref>{{cite book |last=Claessens |first=August |title=The logic of socialism |publisher=Kessinger Publishing, LLC |date=2009 |isbn=978-1104238407 |page=15 |quote=The individual is largely a product of his environment and much of his conduct and behavior is the reflex of getting a living in a particular stage of society.}}</ref><ref>Ferri, Enrico, "Socialism and Modern Science", in ''Evolution and Socialism'' (1912), p. 79. "Upon what point are orthodox political economy and socialism in absolute conflict? Political economy has held and holds that the economic laws governing the production and distribution of wealth which it has established are natural laws ... not in the sense that they are laws naturally determined by the condition of the social organism (which would be correct), but that they are absolute laws, that is to say that they apply to humanity at all times and in all places, and consequently, that they are immutable in their principal points, though they may be subject to modification in details. Scientific socialism holds, the contrary, that the laws established by classical political economy, since the time of Adam Smith, are laws peculiar to the present period in the history of civilized humanity, and that they are, consequently, laws essentially relative to the period of their analysis and discovery."</ref> The object of their critique is thus not human avarice or human consciousness, but the material conditions and man-made social systems (i.e. the economic structure of society) which give rise to observed social problems and inefficiencies. [[Bertrand Russell]], often considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, identified as a socialist. Russell opposed the class struggle aspects of Marxism, viewing socialism solely as an adjustment of economic relations to accommodate modern machine production to benefit all of humanity through the progressive reduction of necessary work time.<ref>{{cite web |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |url=http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html |title=In Praise of Idleness |year=1932 |access-date=30 November 2013 |archive-date=22 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190822071656/http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html}}</ref>

Socialists view creativity as an essential aspect of human nature and define freedom as a state of being where individuals are able to express their creativity unhindered by constraints of both material scarcity and coercive social institutions.<ref>Bhargava. ''Political Theory: An Introduction''. Pearson Education India, 2008. p. 249.</ref> The socialist concept of individuality is intertwined with the concept of individual creative expression. Karl Marx believed that expansion of the productive forces and technology was the basis for the expansion of human freedom and that socialism, being a system that is consistent with modern developments in technology, would enable the flourishing of "free individualities" through the progressive reduction of necessary labour time. The reduction of necessary labour time to a minimum would grant individuals the opportunity to pursue the development of their true individuality and creativity.<ref>{{cite web |last=Marx |first=Karl |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm |title=The Grundrisse |year=1857–1861|quote=The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.}}</ref>

=== Criticism of capitalism ===
{{main|Anti-capitalism|Criticism of capitalism}}

Socialists argue that the accumulation of capital generates waste through [[Externality|externalities]] that require costly corrective regulatory measures. They also point out that this process generates wasteful industries and practices that exist only to generate sufficient demand for products such as high-pressure advertisement to be sold at a profit, thereby creating rather than satisfying economic demand.<ref name="Use not profit">{{cite web |url=http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/may10/page23.html |title=Let's produce for use, not profit |publisher=[[Socialist Party of Great Britain]] |date=May 2010 |access-date=18 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100716140329/http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/may10/page23.html |archive-date=16 July 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Magdoff |first1=Fred |last2=Yates |first2=Michael D. |url=http://www.monthlyreview.org/091109magdoff-yates.php |title=What Needs To Be Done: A Socialist View |magazine=Monthly Review |access-date=23 February 2014 |date=November 2009 |archive-date=17 March 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110317033149/http://www.monthlyreview.org/091109magdoff-yates.php |url-status=dead }}</ref> Socialists argue that capitalism consists of irrational activity, such as the purchasing of commodities only to sell at a later time when their price appreciates, rather than for consumption, even if the commodity cannot be sold at a profit to individuals in need and therefore a crucial criticism often made by socialists is that "making money", or accumulation of capital, does not correspond to the satisfaction of demand (the production of [[use-value]]s).<ref name="Use not profit"/> The fundamental criterion for economic activity in capitalism is the accumulation of capital for reinvestment in production, but this spurs the development of new, non-productive industries that do not produce use-value and only exist to keep the accumulation process afloat (otherwise the system goes into crisis), such as the spread of the [[Financialization|financial industry]], contributing to the formation of economic bubbles.<ref>{{cite web |first=Richard D. |last=Wolff |author-link=Richard D. Wolff |url=http://www.rdwolff.com/content/economic-crisis-socialist-perspective |title=Economic Crisis from a Socialist Perspective &#124; Professor Richard D. Wolff |publisher=Rdwolff.com |date=29 June 2009 |access-date=23 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140228090631/http://www.rdwolff.com/content/economic-crisis-socialist-perspective |archive-date=28 February 2014}}</ref> Such accumulation and reinvestment, when it demands a constant rate of profit, causes problems if the earnings in the rest of society do not increase in proportion.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.818838886883514|journal=Australian Socialist|title=What is capitalism|first=Chris|last=Warren|issn=1327-7723 |date=December 2022 |volume=28 |issue=2/3}}</ref>

Socialists view [[private property]] relations as limiting the potential of [[productive forces]] in the economy. According to socialists, private property becomes obsolete when it concentrates into centralised, socialised institutions not based on private appropriation of revenue''—''but based on cooperative work and internal planning in allocation of inputs—until the role of the capitalist becomes redundant.<ref>{{cite book |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |author-link=Friedrich Engels |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm |title=Socialism: Utopian and Scientific |access-date=30 October 2010 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |quote=The bourgeoisie demonstrated to be a superfluous class. All its social functions are now performed by salaried employees.}}</ref> With no need for [[capital accumulation]] and a class of owners, private property in the means of production is perceived as being an outdated form of economic organisation that should be replaced by a [[Free association (communism and anarchism)|free association]] of individuals based on public or [[common ownership]] of these socialised assets.{{sfnp|Horvat|1982|loc=1: Capitalism, The General Pattern of Capitalist Development|pp=15–20}}<ref name="Engels Selected Works 1968, p. 40">{{cite book |title=Marx and Engels Selected Works |first=Lawrence |last=Wishart |year=1968 |pages=40 |quote=Capitalist property relations put a "fetter" on the productive forces}}</ref> Private ownership imposes constraints on planning, leading to uncoordinated economic decisions that result in business fluctuations, unemployment and a tremendous waste of material resources during crisis of [[overproduction]].{{sfnp|Horvat|1982|p=197}}

Excessive disparities in income distribution lead to social instability and require costly corrective measures in the form of redistributive taxation, which incurs heavy administrative costs while weakening the incentive to work, inviting dishonesty and increasing the likelihood of tax evasion while (the corrective measures) reduce the overall efficiency of the market economy.{{sfnp|Horvat|1982|pp=197–198}} These corrective policies limit the incentive system of the market by providing things such as [[minimum wage]]s, [[unemployment insurance]], taxing profits and reducing the [[reserve army of labour]], resulting in reduced incentives for capitalists to invest in more production. In essence, social welfare policies cripple capitalism and its incentive system and are thus unsustainable in the long run.{{sfnp|Schweickart|Lawler|Ticktin|Ollman|1998|pp=60–61}} Marxists argue that the establishment of a [[socialist mode of production]] is the only way to overcome these deficiencies. Socialists and specifically Marxian socialists argue that the inherent conflict of interests between the working class and capital prevent optimal use of available human resources and leads to contradictory interest groups (labour and business) striving to influence the state to intervene in the economy in their favour at the expense of overall economic efficiency. Early socialists ([[utopian socialists]] and [[Ricardian socialists]]) criticised capitalism for concentrating [[Power (philosophy)|power]] and wealth within a small segment of society.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |chapter-url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551569/socialism |chapter=Socialism |encyclopedia=Britannica |date=2009 |access-date=14 October 2009 |quote=Socialists complain that capitalism necessarily leads to unfair and exploitative concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of the relative few who emerge victorious from free-market competition—people who then use their wealth and power to reinforce their dominance in society.|title=Socialism &#124; Definition, History, Types, Examples, & Facts &#124; Britannica}}</ref> In addition, they complained that capitalism does not use available technology and resources to their maximum potential in the interests of the public.<ref name="Engels Selected Works 1968, p. 40"/>

=== Marxism ===
{{main|Marxism}}

{{quote box
| quote = At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
| author = —Karl Marx, ''[[Critique of the Gotha Program]]''
| align = left
| width = 246px
| bgcolor = #c6dbf7
}}
[[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] argued that socialism would emerge from historical necessity as capitalism rendered itself obsolete and unsustainable from increasing internal contradictions emerging from the development of the [[productive forces]] and technology. It was these advances in the productive forces combined with the old [[social relations of production]] of capitalism that would generate contradictions, leading to working-class consciousness.<ref name="ComparingEconomic">{{cite book |title=Comparing Economic Systems in the Twenty-First Century |date=2004 |last1=Gregory |first1=Paul |last2=Stuart |first2=Robert |page=62 |chapter=Marx's Theory of Change |publisher=George Hoffman |isbn=0618261818}}</ref>
[[File:Karl Marx by John Jabez Edwin Mayall 1875 - Restored.png|thumb|The writings of [[Karl Marx]] provided the basis for the development of [[Marxist]] political theory and [[Marxian economics]].]]
Marx and Engels held the view that the consciousness of those who earn a wage or salary (the working class in the broadest Marxist sense) would be moulded by their conditions of [[wage slavery]], leading to a tendency to seek their freedom or [[emancipation of labour|emancipation]] by overthrowing ownership of the means of production by capitalists and consequently, overthrowing the state that upheld this economic order. For Marx and Engels, conditions determine consciousness and ending the role of the capitalist class leads eventually to a [[classless society]] in which the [[withering away of the state|state would wither away]].

Marx and Engels used the terms socialism and [[communism]] interchangeably, but many later Marxists defined socialism as a specific historical phase that would displace capitalism and precede communism.<ref name="Steele 1992 44-45"/><ref name=Hudis/>

The major characteristics of socialism (particularly as conceived by Marx and Engels after the [[Paris Commune]] of 1871) are that the [[proletariat]] would control the means of production through a [[workers' state]] erected by the workers in their interests.

For [[orthodox Marxists]], socialism is the lower stage of communism based on the principle of "from each according to his ability, [[to each according to his contribution]]", while upper stage communism is based on the principle of "[[from each according to his ability, to each according to his need]]", the upper stage becoming possible only after the socialist stage further develops economic efficiency and the automation of production has led to a superabundance of goods and services.<ref name="KS">{{cite book |last=Schaff |first=Kory |title=Philosophy and the Problems of Work: A Reader|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |location=Lanham, Md |year=2001 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mdLh5EMehwgC&pg=PA224 224] |isbn=978-0742507951}}</ref><ref name="WA">{{cite book |last=Walicki |first=Andrzej |title=Marxism and the leap to the kingdom of freedom: the rise and fall of the Communist utopia |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=Stanford, Calif |year=1995 |isbn=978-0804723848 |page=95}}</ref> Marx argued that the material productive forces (in industry and commerce) brought into existence by capitalism predicated a cooperative society since production had become a mass social, collective activity of the working class to create commodities but with private ownership (the relations of production or property relations). This conflict between collective effort in large factories and private ownership would bring about a conscious desire in the working class to establish collective ownership commensurate with the collective efforts their daily experience.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |first=Karl |last=Marx |author-link=Karl Marx |chapter=Preface |title=[[A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy]] |year=1859}}</ref>

=== Role of the state ===
{{see also|Anti-statism|Marx's theory of the state|State socialism}}
Socialists have taken different perspectives on the [[State (polity)|state]] and the role it should play in revolutionary struggles, in constructing socialism and within an established socialist economy.

In the 19th century, the philosophy of state socialism was first explicitly expounded by the German political philosopher [[Ferdinand Lassalle]]. In contrast to Karl Marx's perspective of the state, Lassalle rejected the concept of the state as a class-based power structure whose main function was to preserve existing class structures. Lassalle also rejected the Marxist view that the state was destined to "wither away". Lassalle considered the state to be an entity independent of class allegiances and an instrument of justice that would therefore be essential for achieving socialism.{{sfnp|Berlau|1949|p=21}}

Preceding the Bolshevik-led revolution in Russia, many socialists including [[reformists]], [[orthodox Marxist]] currents such as [[council communism]], anarchists and [[libertarian socialists]] criticised the idea of using the state to conduct central planning and own the means of production as a way to establish socialism. Following the victory of Leninism in Russia, the idea of "state socialism" spread rapidly throughout the socialist movement and eventually state socialism came to be identified with the [[Soviet economic model]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Screpanti |first1=Ernesto |last2=Zamagni |first2=Stefano |title=An Outline on the History of Economic Thought |edition=2nd |year=2005 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |quote=It should not be forgotten, however, that in the period of the Second International, some of the reformist currents of Marxism, as well as some of the extreme left-wing ones, not to speak of the anarchist groups, had already criticised the view that State ownership and central planning is the best road to socialism. But with the victory of Leninism in Russia, all dissent was silenced, and socialism became identified with 'democratic centralism', 'central planning', and State ownership of the means of production. |page=295}}</ref>

[[Joseph Schumpeter]] rejected the association of socialism and social ownership with state ownership over the means of production because the state as it exists in its current form is a product of capitalist society and cannot be transplanted to a different institutional framework. Schumpeter argued that there would be different institutions within socialism than those that exist within modern capitalism, just as [[feudalism]] had its own distinct and unique institutional forms. The state, along with concepts like [[Private property|property]] and taxation, were concepts exclusive to commercial society (capitalism) and attempting to place them within the context of a future socialist society would amount to a distortion of these concepts by using them out of context.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schumpeter |first=Joseph |title=Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy |publisher=Harper Perennial |date=2008 |isbn=978-0061561610 |page=169 |quote=But there are still others (concepts and institutions) which by virtue of their nature cannot stand transplantation and always carry the flavor of a particular institutional framework. It is extremely dangerous, in fact it amounts to a distortion of historical description, to use them beyond the social world or culture whose denizens they are. Now ownership or property—also, so I believe, taxation—are such denizens of the world of commercial society, exactly as knights and fiefs are denizens of the feudal world. But so is the state (a denizen of commercial society).}}</ref>

=== Utopian versus scientific ===
{{main|Scientific socialism|Utopian socialism}}

Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of [[Henri de Saint-Simon]], [[Charles Fourier]] and [[Robert Owen]] which inspired [[Karl Marx]] and other early socialists.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/synopsis.html |title=Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism |publisher=[[PBS]] |access-date=15 December 2011 |archive-date=4 January 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060104041306/http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/synopsis.html}}</ref> Visions of imaginary ideal societies, which competed with revolutionary social democratic movements, were viewed as not being grounded in the material conditions of society and as reactionary.<ref name=Draper>{{cite book |last=Draper |first=Hal |title=Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Volume IV: Critique of Other Socialisms |year=1990 |publisher=[[Monthly Review Press]] |location=New York |isbn=978-0853457985 |pages=1–21}}</ref> Although it is technically possible for any set of ideas or any person living at any time in history to be a utopian socialist, the term is most often applied to those socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century who were ascribed the label "utopian" by later socialists as a negative term to imply naivete and dismiss their ideas as fanciful or unrealistic.{{sfnp|Newman|2005}}

Religious sects whose members live communally such as the [[Hutterites]] are not usually called "utopian socialists", although their way of living is a prime example. They have been categorised as [[religious socialists]] by some. Similarly, modern [[intentional communities]] based on socialist ideas could also be categorised as "utopian socialist". For Marxists, the development of capitalism in Western Europe provided a material basis for the possibility of bringing about socialism because according to ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'' "[w]hat the bourgeoisie produces above all is its own grave diggers",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marx |first1=Karl |author1-link=Karl Marx |last2=Engels |first2=Friedrich |author2-link=Friedrich Engels |title=[[The Communist Manifesto]]}}</ref> namely the working class, which must become conscious of the historical objectives set it by society.

=== Reform versus revolution ===
{{main|Reformism|Revolutionary socialism}}

Revolutionary socialists believe that a social revolution is necessary to effect structural changes to the socioeconomic structure of society. Among revolutionary socialists there are differences in strategy, theory and the definition of ''revolution''. [[Orthodox Marxists]] and [[left communists]] take an [[impossibilist]] stance, believing that revolution should be spontaneous as a result of contradictions in society due to technological changes in the productive forces. Lenin theorised that under capitalism the workers cannot achieve class consciousness beyond organising into trade unions and making demands of the capitalists. Therefore, [[Leninists]] argue that it is historically necessary for a [[Vanguardism|vanguard]] of class conscious revolutionaries to take a central role in coordinating the social revolution to overthrow the capitalist state and eventually the institution of the state altogether.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Leninist Concept of the Revolutionary Vanguard Party |url=http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/partyPR46.html |author=Workers Revolutionary Group |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |access-date=9 December 2013}}</ref> ''Revolution'' is not necessarily defined by revolutionary socialists as violent insurrection,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schaff |first=Adam |title=Marxist Theory on Revolution and Violence |journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] |volume=34 |number=2 |date=April–June 1973 |pages=263–270 |doi=10.2307/2708729 |jstor=2708729}}</ref> but as a complete dismantling and rapid transformation of all areas of class society led by the majority of the masses: the working class.

Reformism is generally associated with [[social democracy]] and [[gradualist]] [[democratic socialism]]. Reformism is the belief that socialists should stand in parliamentary elections within capitalist society and if elected use the [[machinery of government]] to pass political and social reforms for the purposes of ameliorating the instabilities and inequities of capitalism. Within socialism, ''reformism'' is used in two different ways. One has no intention of bringing about socialism or fundamental economic change to society and is used to oppose such structural changes. The other is based on the assumption that while reforms are not socialist in themselves, they can help rally supporters to the cause of revolution by popularizing the cause of socialism to the working class.<ref name="Parker">{{cite news |url=http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2002/no-1171-march-2002/reformism-or-socialism |title=Reformism – or socialism? |last=Parker |first=Stan |date=March 2002 |work=Socialist Standard |access-date=26 December 2019}}</ref>

The debate on the ability for social democratic reformism to lead to a socialist transformation of society is over a century old. Reformism is criticized for being paradoxical as it seeks to overcome the existing economic system of capitalism while trying to improve the conditions of capitalism, thereby making it appear more tolerable to society. According to [[Rosa Luxemburg]], capitalism is not overthrown, "but is on the contrary strengthened by the development of social reforms".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1973/01/reform.htm |title=Do We Support Reformist Demands? |last=Hallas |first=Duncan |work=Controversy: Do We Support Reformist Demands? |publisher=[[International Socialism]] |date=January 1973 |access-date=26 December 2019 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref> In a similar vein, Stan Parker of the [[Socialist Party of Great Britain]] argues that reforms are a diversion of energy for socialists and are limited because they must adhere to the logic of capitalism.<ref name="Parker"/> French social theorist [[André Gorz]] criticized reformism by advocating a third alternative to reformism and social revolution that he called "[[non-reformist reforms]]", specifically focused on structural changes to capitalism as opposed to reforms to improve living conditions within capitalism or to prop it up through economic interventions.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://socialistreview.org.uk/363/do-we-need-reform-or-revolution |title=Do we need reform of revolution? |last=Clifton |first=Lois |work=Socialist Review |date=November 2011 |access-date=26 December 2019 |archive-date=24 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180924191657/http://socialistreview.org.uk/363/do-we-need-reform-or-revolution |url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Culture ==
{{see also|Proletarian literature|Counterculture|New York Intellectuals|New Left|Surrealism|Russian Futurism|Constructivism (art)|Constructivist architecture|Russian avant-garde}}
{{Quote box
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| quote = Under Socialism, solidarity will be the basis of society. Literature and art will be tuned to a different key.
| source = —Trotsky, ''Literature and Revolution'', 1924<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=Literature and Revolution |date=2005 |publisher=Haymarket Books |isbn=978-1931859165 |page=188 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MG-981usVQEC&dq=Under+Socialism,+solidarity+will+be+the+basis+of+society.+Literature+and+art+will+be+tuned+to+a+different+key.+All+the+emotions+which+we+revolutionists,+at+the+present+time,+feel+apprehensive+of+naming+%E2%80%93+so+much+have+they+been+worn+thin+by+hypocrites+and+vulgarians+%E2%80%93+such+as+disinterested+friendship,+love+for+one%E2%80%99s+neighbor,+sympathy,+will+be+the+mighty+ringing+chords+of+Socialist+poetry+..&pg=PA188}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Trotsky on the Society of the Future (1924) |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1941/v05n34/trotsky.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>
}}

In the Leninist conception, the role of the vanguard party was to politically educate the workers and peasants to dispel the societal [[false consciousness]] of institutional religion and nationalism that constitute the [[Cultural hegemony|cultural ''status quo'']] taught by the [[bourgeoisie]] to the proletariat to facilitate their economic [[Exploitation of labour|exploitation]] of peasants and workers. Influenced by Lenin, the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party]] stated that the development of the socialist workers' culture should not be "hamstrung from above" and opposed the ''[[Proletkult]]'' (1917–1925) organisational control of the national culture.<ref>Central Committee, "On Proletcult Organisations", ''[[Pravda]]'' No. 270, 1 December 1920.</ref> Similarly, Trotsky viewed the party as transmitters of culture to the masses for raising the standards of [[education]], as well as entry into the cultural sphere, but that the process of artistic creation in terms of language and presentation should be the domain of the practitioner. According to political scientist Baruch Knei-Paz in his book ''[[The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky]]'', this represented one of several distinctions between Trotsky's approach on cultural matters and [[Socialist realism#Stalin era|Stalin's policy in the 1930s]].{{sfnp|Knei-Paz|1978|pp=[https://archive.org/details/socialpoliticalt0000knei/page/300/mode/2up?q=proletarian+culture 289–301]}}

[[File:Mural. El hombre en el cruce de caminos. Diego rivera (1934).JPG|thumb|400px|[[Man at the Crossroads|Man, Controller of the Universe]] produced by Mexican artist [[Diego Rivera]]]]

In ''[[Literature and Revolution]]'', Trotsky examined aesthetic issues in relation to class and the Russian revolution. Soviet scholar Robert Bird considered his work as the "first systematic treatment of art by a Communist leader" and a catalyst for later, Marxist cultural and critical theories.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bird |first1=Robert |title=Culture as permanent revolution: Lev Trotsky's Literature and] Revolution |journal=Studies in East European Thought |date=1 September 2018 |volume=70 |issue=2 |pages=181–193 |doi=10.1007/s11212-018-9304-6 |s2cid=207809829 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11212-018-9304-6 |language=en |issn=1573-0948|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In ''"[[Problems of Everyday Life]]"'', a contemporaneous book which further articulated his views on culture and science, Trotsky argued that cultural development was a prerequisite for socialist reconstruction.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |author-link=Leon Trotsky |title=Problems of Everyday Life: Creating the Foundations for a New Society in Revolutionary Russia |year= 1998 |publisher=Pathfinder Press |isbn=978-0873488549 |pages=1–10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t0CdMQAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref> In particular, he argued that cultural development would accentuate industrial and technical progress. He viewed both elements to be interrelated components as part of dialectical interaction in which he viewed the low level of Russian [[technology|technique]] and [[expertise]] to be a function of cultural backwardness. According to Trotsky, Western industrial techniques and products such as the [[radio]] should not be rejected due to their status as a product of a capitalist system but rather absorbed into the Soviet socialist framework to facilitate new forms of techniques and cultural production.<ref name="Knei-Paz 282">{{harvp|Knei-Paz|1978|pp=[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Social_and_Political_Thought_of_Leon/GUAFAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=political+and+social+thought+trotsky&dq=political+and+social+thought+trotsky&printsec=frontcover 282–300]}}</ref> In this interpretation, the [[Technology transfer|transference of techniques]] brought new cultural changes in terms of rationalism, [[efficiency]], exactitude and [[service quality|quality]].<ref name="Knei-Paz 282"/>

Trotsky would later co-author the 1938 ''[[Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art]]'' with the endorsement of prominent artists [[Andre Breton]] and [[Diego Rivera]].{{sfnp|Deutscher|2015|pp=1474–1475}} Trotsky's writings on literature such as his 1923 survey which advocated tolerance, limited censorship and respect for literary tradition had strong appeal to the [[New York Intellectuals]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Patenaude |first1=Betrand |chapter=Trotsky and Trotskyism |title=The Cambridge History of Communism |volume=1, World Revolution and Socialism in One Country 1917–1941 |year= 2017 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1108210416 |page=204 |language=en}}</ref>

Prior to Stalin's rule, [[Russian literature#Early post-Revolutionary era|literary, religious and national representatives]] had some level of autonomy in [[Soviet Russia]] throughout the 1920s but these groups were later rigorously repressed during the [[Stalinism|Stalinist era]]. [[Socialist realism]] was imposed under Stalin in artistic production and other creative industries such as [[music]], [[film]] along with [[sports]] were subject to extreme levels of political control.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Derek |title=Censorship: A World Encyclopedia |year =2001 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1136798641 |page=2083 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gDqsCQAAQBAJ&q=stalin+mass+censorshipI&pg=PA2092 |language=en}}</ref>

The [[counter-cultural]] phenomenon which emerged in the 1960s shaped the [[intellectual]] and radical outlook of the [[New Left]]; this movement placed a heavy emphasis on [[anti-racism#Anti-racism and socialism|anti-racism]], [[anti-imperialism]] and [[direct democracy]] in opposition to the [[culture of capitalism|dominant culture]] of advanced [[industrial capitalism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rossinow |first1=Doug |title=The New Left in the Counterculture: Hypotheses and Evidence |journal=[[Radical History Review]] |date=1 January 1997 |volume=1997 |issue=67 |pages=79–120 |doi=10.1215/01636545-1997-67-79 |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/radical-history-review/article-abstract/1997/67/79/88154/The-New-Left-in-the-Counterculture-Hypotheses-and?redirectedFrom=PDF|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Socialist groups have also been closely involved with a number of counter-cultural movements such as [[Vietnam Solidarity Campaign]], [[Stop the War Coalition]], [[Love Music Hate Racism]], [[Anti-Nazi League]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Høgsbjerg |first1=Christian |title=Trotskyology: A review of John Kelly, Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain |journal=International Socialism |date=18 October 2018 |issue=160 |url=https://isj.org.uk/trotskyology/}}</ref> and [[Unite Against Fascism]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Platt |first1=Edward |title=Comrades at war: the decline and fall of the Socialist Workers Party |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2014/05/comrades-war-decline-and-fall-socialist-workers-party |magazine=[[New Statesman]] |date=20 May 2014}}</ref>

== Economics ==
{{main|Socialist economics}}
{{Economic systems sidebar}}

{{see also|Production for use}}
{{quote box
| quote = The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. ... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilised in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php |title=Why Socialism? |last=Einstein |first=Albert |author-link=Albert Einstein |magazine=[[Monthly Review]] |date=May 1949}}</ref>
| author = —[[Albert Einstein]], "[[Why Socialism?]]", 1949
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Socialist economics starts from the premise that "individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members".<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite web |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551569/socialism |title=Socialism |website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |date=29 May 2023}}</ref>

[[File:Albert Einstein Head.jpg|150px|left|thumb|Albert Einstein advocated for a socialist [[planned economy]] with his 1949 article "[[Why Socialism?]]"]]
The original conception of socialism was an economic system whereby production was organised in a way to directly produce goods and services for their utility (or use-value in [[Classical economics|classical]] and [[Marxian economics]]), with the direct allocation of resources in terms of physical units as opposed to financial calculation and the economic laws of capitalism (see [[law of value]]), often entailing the end of capitalistic economic categories such as [[Renting|rent]], interest, [[Profit (economics)|profit]] and money.<ref>{{harvp|Bockman|2011|p=20}}: "According to nineteenth-century socialist views, socialism would function without capitalist economic categories—such as money, prices, interest, profits and rent—and thus would function according to laws other than those described by current economic science. While some socialists recognised the need for money and prices at least during the transition from capitalism to socialism, socialists more commonly believed that the socialist economy would soon administratively mobilise the economy in physical units without the use of prices or money."</ref> In a fully developed socialist economy, production and balancing factor inputs with outputs becomes a technical process to be undertaken by engineers.<ref>{{cite book |title=Comparing Economic Systems in the Twenty-First Century |date=2004 |last1=Gregory |first1=Paul |last2=Stuart |first2=Robert |edition=Seventh |chapter=Socialist Economy |publisher=George Hoffman |isbn=978-0618261819 |page=117 |quote=In such a setting, information problems are not serious, and engineers rather than economists can resolve the issue of factor proportions.}}</ref>

[[Market socialism]] refers to an array of different economic theories and systems that use the market mechanism to organise production and to allocate factor inputs among socially owned enterprises, with the economic surplus (profits) accruing to society in a [[social dividend]] as opposed to private capital owners.<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Hara |first=Phillip |title=Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2003 |isbn=978-0415241878 |page=70 |quote=Market socialism is a general designation for a number of models of economic systems. On the one hand, the market mechanism is utilised to distribute economic output, to organise production and to allocate factor inputs. On the other hand, the economic surplus accrues to society at large rather than to a class of private (capitalist) owners, through some form of collective, public or social ownership of capital.}}</ref> Variations of market socialism include [[libertarian]] proposals such as [[Mutualism (economic theory)|mutualism]], based on classical economics, and [[Neoclassical economics|neoclassical]] economic models such as the [[Lange model]]. Some economists, such as [[Joseph Stiglitz]], [[Mancur Olson]], and others not specifically advancing anti-socialists positions have shown that prevailing economic models upon which such democratic or market socialism models might be based have logical flaws or unworkable presuppositions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stiglitz |first=Joseph |title=Whither Socialism? |publisher=The MIT Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0262691826|quote=.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Mancur |last=Olson, Jr. |orig-date=1965 |edition=2nd |year=1971 |title=The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]}} [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=978-0674537514 Description], [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=24500&content=toc Table of Contents], and [https://archive.org/details/logicofcollectiv00olso_0/page/5 preview].</ref> These criticisms have been incorporated into the models of market socialism developed by [[John Roemer]] and [[Nicholas Vrousalis]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=John E. |last=Roemer |author-link=John Roemer |title=Should Marxists be Interested in Exploitation |journal=[[Philosophy & Public Affairs]] |volume=14 |number=1 |year=1985 |pages=30–65}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Vrousalis |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Vrousalis |year=2023 |title=Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/exploitation-as-domination-9780192867698?cc=us&lang=en& |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0192867698 |access-date=9 March 2023}}</ref>{{when|date=June 2023}}

The ownership of the [[means of production]] can be based on direct ownership by the users of the productive property through [[worker cooperative]]; or [[commonly owned]] by all of society with management and control delegated to those who operate/use the means of production; or [[public ownership]] by a state apparatus. Public ownership may refer to the creation of [[state-owned enterprises]], [[nationalisation]], [[municipalisation]] or autonomous collective institutions. Some socialists feel that in a socialist economy, at least the "[[Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy|commanding heights]]" of the economy must be publicly owned.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yergin |first1=Daniel |author-link1=Daniel Yergin |url=https://www.amazon.com/dp/product-description/068483569X |title=The Commanding Heights : The Battle for the World Economy |last2=Stanislaw |first2=Joseph |year= 2002 |publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]] |isbn=978-0684835693 |edition=Updated |access-date=11 February 2025}}</ref> [[Economic liberals]] and [[right libertarians]] view private ownership of the [[means of production]] and the market exchange as natural entities or moral rights which are central to their conceptions of freedom and liberty and view the economic dynamics of capitalism as immutable and absolute, therefore they perceive public ownership of the means of production, [[cooperatives]] and [[economic planning]] as infringements upon liberty.<ref name="milton">{{cite web |url=http://www.sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/11-25_Friedman_MGR.php?uid=2075 |title=On Milton Friedman, MGR & Annaism |publisher=Sangam.org |access-date=30 October 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bellamy |first=Richard |title=The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgehistory00ball |url-access=limited |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0521563543 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgehistory00ball/page/n71 60]}}</ref>

Management and control over the activities of enterprises are based on self-management and self-governance, with equal power-relations in the workplace to maximise occupational autonomy. A socialist form of organisation would eliminate controlling hierarchies so that only a hierarchy based on technical knowledge in the workplace remains. Every member would have decision-making power in the firm and would be able to participate in establishing its overall policy objectives. The policies/goals would be carried out by the technical specialists that form the coordinating hierarchy of the firm, who would establish plans or directives for the work community to accomplish these goals.<ref name="The Political Economy of Socialism, 1982. p. 197">{{harvp|Horvat|1982|p=197}}: "The sandglass (socialist) model is based on the observation that there are two fundamentally different spheres of activity or decision making. The first is concerned with value judgments, and consequently each individual counts as one in this sphere. In the second, technical decisions are made on the basis of technical competence and expertise. The decisions of the first sphere are policy directives; those of the second, technical directives. The former are based on political authority as exercised by all members of the organisation; the latter, on professional authority specific to each member and growing out of the division of labour. Such an organisation involves a clearly defined coordinating hierarchy but eliminates a power hierarchy."</ref><ref>{{harvp|Horvat|1982|p=197}} "The sandglass (socialist) model is based on the observation that there are two fundamentally different spheres of activity or decision making. The first is concerned with value judgments, and consequently each individual counts as one in this sphere. In the second, technical decisions are made on the basis of technical competence and expertise. The decisions of the first sphere are policy directives; those of the second, technical directives. The former are based on political authority as exercised by all members of the organisation; the latter, on professional authority specific to each member and growing out of the division of labour. Such an organisation involves a clearly defined coordinating hierarchy but eliminates a power hierarchy."</ref>

The role and use of money in a hypothetical socialist economy is a contested issue. Nineteenth century socialists including [[Karl Marx]], [[Robert Owen]], [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]] and [[John Stuart Mill]] advocated various forms of [[labour voucher]]s or labour credits, which like money would be used to acquire articles of consumption, but unlike money they are unable to become [[Financial capital|capital]] and would not be used to allocate resources within the production process. Bolshevik revolutionary [[Leon Trotsky]] argued that money could not be arbitrarily abolished following a socialist revolution. Money had to exhaust its "historic mission", meaning it would have to be used until its function became redundant, eventually being transformed into bookkeeping receipts for statisticians and only in the more distant future would money not be required for even that role.<ref>{{cite book |first=Leon |last=Trotsky |author-link=Leon Trotsky |chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch04.htm |title=The Revolution Betrayed |year=1936 |chapter=4: The Struggle for Productivity of Labor |quote=Having lost its ability to bring happiness or trample men in the dust, money will turn into mere bookkeeping receipts for the convenience of statisticians and for planning purposes. In the still more distant future, probably these receipts will not be needed. |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

=== Planned economy ===
{{main|Planned economy}}

A planned economy is a type of economy consisting of a mixture of public ownership of the means of production and the coordination of production and distribution through [[economic planning]]. A planned economy can be either decentralised or centralised. [[Enrico Barone]] provided a comprehensive theoretical framework for a planned socialist economy. In his model, assuming perfect computation techniques, simultaneous equations relating inputs and outputs to ratios of equivalence would provide appropriate valuations to balance supply and demand.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregory |first1=Paul |last2=Stuart |first2=Robert |title=Comparing Economic Systems in the Twenty-First Century |edition=7th |publisher=George Hoffman |year=2004 |isbn=978-0618261819 |pages=120–121}}</ref>

The most prominent example of a planned economy was the [[Economy of the Soviet Union|economic system of the Soviet Union]] and as such the centralised-planned economic model is usually associated with the [[communist state]]s of the 20th century, where it was combined with a single-party political system. In a centrally planned economy, decisions regarding the quantity of goods and services to be produced are planned in advance by a planning agency (see also the [[analysis of Soviet-type economic planning]]). The economic systems of the Soviet Union and the [[Eastern Bloc]] are further classified as "command economies", which are defined as systems where economic coordination is undertaken by commands, directives and production targets.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ericson |first=Richard E. |title=Command Economy |url=http://econ.la.psu.edu/~bickes/rickcommand.pdf |access-date=9 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125010605/http://econ.la.psu.edu/~bickes/rickcommand.pdf |archive-date=25 November 2011}}</ref> Studies by economists of various political persuasions on the actual functioning of the Soviet economy indicate that it was not actually a planned economy. Instead of conscious planning, the Soviet economy was based on a process whereby the plan was modified by localised agents and the original plans went largely unfulfilled. Planning agencies, ministries and enterprises all adapted and bargained with each other during the formulation of the plan as opposed to following a plan passed down from a higher authority, leading some economists to suggest that planning did not actually take place within the Soviet economy and that a better description would be an "administered" or "managed" economy.<ref>{{harvp|Nove|1991|p=[https://archive.org/details/economicsoffeasi00nove/page/78 78]}} "Several authors of the most diverse political views have stated that there is in fact no planning in the Soviet Union: Eugene Zaleski, J. Wilhelm, Hillel Ticktin. They all in their very different ways note the fact that plans are often (usually) unfulfilled, that information flows are distorted, that plan-instructions are the subject of bargaining, that there are many distortions and inconsistencies, indeed that (as many sources attest) plans are frequently altered within the period to which they are supposed to apply ... ."</ref>

Although central planning was largely supported by [[Marxist–Leninists]], some factions within the Soviet Union before the rise of [[Stalinism]] held positions contrary to central planning. Leon Trotsky rejected central planning in favour of decentralised planning. He argued that central planners, regardless of their intellectual capacity, would be unable to coordinate effectively all economic activity within an economy because they operated without the input and tacit knowledge embodied by the participation of the millions of people in the economy. As a result, central planners would be unable to respond to local economic conditions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Trotsky |first=Leon |author-link=Leon Trotsky |title=Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1932–33 |year=1972 |publisher=[[Pathfinder Press]] |isbn=978-0873482288 |page=96}}Trotsky.</ref>

=== Self-managed economy ===
{{main|Decentralised planning|Economic democracy|Workers' self-management|Socialist self-management}}

{{quote box
| quote = Socialism, you see, is a bird with two wings. The definition is 'social ownership and democratic control of the instruments and means of production.'{{sfnp|Sinclair|1918}}
| author = —[[Upton Sinclair]]
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}}
[[File:Lev Trotsky 1906-3.3 V1.jpg|250x250px|thumb|The [[Saint Petersburg Soviet|Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg]] in 1905, Trotsky in the center. The [[soviet (council)|soviets]] were an early example of a [[workers council]].]]

A self-managed, decentralised economy is based on autonomous self-regulating economic units and a decentralised mechanism of resource allocation and decision-making. This model has found support in notable classical and neoclassical economists including [[Alfred Marshall]], [[John Stuart Mill]] and [[Jaroslav Vanek]]. There are numerous variations of self-management, including labour-managed firms and worker-managed firms. The goals of self-management are to eliminate exploitation and reduce [[Social alienation|alienation]].<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Hara |first=Phillip |title=Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2003 |isbn=978-0415241878 |pages=8–9 |quote=One finds favorable opinions of cooperatives also among other great economists of the past, such as, for example, John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall...In eliminating the domination of capital over labour, firms run by workers eliminate capitalist exploitation and reduce alienation.}}</ref> [[Guild socialism]] is a political movement advocating [[workers' control]] of industry through the medium of [[trade-related guilds]] "in an implied contractual relationship with the public".<ref name="britannica.com">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/248652/Guild-Socialism |title=Guild Socialism |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=11 October 2013}}</ref> It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century.<ref name="britannica.com"/> It was strongly associated with [[G. D. H. Cole]] and influenced by the ideas of [[William Morris]].

[[File:CyberSyn-render-106.png|right|250px|thumb|[[Project Cybersyn]] was an early form of computational [[economic planning]]]]

One such system is the cooperative economy, a largely free [[market economy]] in which workers manage the firms and democratically determine remuneration levels and labour divisions. Productive resources would be legally owned by the [[cooperative]] and rented to the workers, who would enjoy [[usufruct]] rights.<ref>Vanek, Jaroslav, ''The Participatory Economy'' (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 1971).</ref> Another form of decentralised planning is the use of [[cybernetics]], or the use of computers to manage the allocation of economic inputs. The socialist-run government of [[Salvador Allende]] in Chile experimented with [[Project Cybersyn]], a real-time information bridge between the government, state enterprises and consumers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cybersyn.cl/ingles/cybersyn/cybernet.html |title=CYBERSYN/Cybernetic Synergy |publisher=Cybersyn.cl |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104064421/http://www.cybersyn.cl/ingles/cybersyn/cybernet.html |archive-date=4 November 2021}}</ref> This had been preceded by similar efforts to introduce a form of cybernetic economic planning as seen with the proposed [[OGAS]] system in the Soviet Union. The OGAS project was conceived to oversee a nationwide [[information network]] but was never implemented due to conflicting, [[nomenklatura|bureaucratic interests]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gerovitch |first1=Slava |title=InterNyet: why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer network |journal=History and Technology |date=December 2008 |volume=24 |issue=4 |pages=335–350 |doi=10.1080/07341510802044736 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07341510802044736 |language=en|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Another, more recent variant is [[participatory economics]], wherein the economy is planned by decentralised councils of workers and consumers. Workers would be remunerated solely according to effort and sacrifice, so that those engaged in dangerous, uncomfortable and strenuous work would receive the highest incomes and could thereby work less.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Albert |first1=Michael |author1-link=Michael Albert |last2=Hahnel |first2=Robin |author2-link=Robin Hahnel |title=The Political Economy of Participatory Economics |location=Princeton, NJ. |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=1991}}</ref> A contemporary model for a self-managed, non-market socialism is [[Pat Devine]]'s model of negotiated coordination. Negotiated coordination is based upon social ownership by those affected by the use of the assets involved, with decisions made by those at the most localised level of production.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://gesd.free.fr/devine.pdf |title=Participatory Planning Through Negotiated Coordination |access-date=30 October 2011}}</ref>

[[Michel Bauwens]] identifies the emergence of the open software movement and [[Social peer-to-peer processes|peer-to-peer production]] as a new alternative [[mode of production]] to the capitalist economy and centrally planned economy that is based on collaborative self-management, common ownership of resources and the production of use-values through the free cooperation of producers who have access to distributed capital.<ref name="CTheory">{{cite news |url=http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499 |title=The Political Economy of Peer Production |date=12 January 2005 |publisher=CTheory |access-date=8 June 2011 |archive-date=14 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414192527/http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499}}</ref>

[[Anarcho-communism]] is a theory of [[anarchism]] which advocates the abolition of the [[State (polity)|state]], [[private property]] and capitalism in favour of [[common ownership]] of the [[means of production]].<ref name=Mayne>{{cite book |first=Alan James |last=Mayne |title=From Politics Past to Politics Future: An Integrated Analysis of Current and Emergent Paradigms |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6MkTz6Rq7wUC&pg=PA131 |year=1999 |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing]] Group |isbn=978-0275961510 |page=131 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jeiudz5sBV4C&pg=PA14 |title=Anarchism for Know-It-Alls |publisher=Filiquarian Publishing |year=2008 |isbn=978-1599862187 |via=[[Google Books]]}}{{Dead link|date=January 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> [[Anarcho-syndicalism]] was practised in [[Catalonia]] and other places in the [[Spanish Revolution of 1936|Spanish Revolution]] during the Spanish Civil War. [[Sam Dolgoff]] estimated that about eight million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution.<ref name=Dolgoff1974>{{citation |last=Dolgoff |first=S. |title=The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution |year=1974 |isbn=978-0914156031 |title-link=The Anarchist Collectives|publisher=Free Life Editions }}</ref>

The economy of the former [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]] established a [[Socialist self-management|system]] based on market-based allocation, social ownership of the means of production and self-management within firms. This system substituted Yugoslavia's Soviet-type central planning with a decentralised, self-managed system after reforms in 1953.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Estrin |first=Saul |year=1991 |title=Yugoslavia: The Case of Self-Managing Market Socialism |journal=[[Journal of Economic Perspectives]] |volume=5 |number=4 |pages=187–194 |doi=10.1257/jep.5.4.187|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The [[Marxian economist]] [[Richard D. Wolff]] argues that "re-organising production so that workers become collectively self-directed at their work-sites" not only moves society beyond both capitalism and [[state socialism]] of the last century, but would also mark another milestone in human history, similar to earlier transitions out of slavery and feudalism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wollf |first=Richard |author-link=Richard D. Wolff |date=2012 |url=http://www.democracyatwork.info/ |title=Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism |publisher=[[Haymarket Books]] |isbn=978-1608462476 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-QnzAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA13 13–14] |quote=The disappearances of slaves and masters and lords and serfs would now be replicated by the disappearance of capitalists and workers. Such oppositional categories would no longer apply to the relationships of production, Instead, workers would become their own collective bosses. The two categories—employer and employee—would be integrated in the same individuals.}}</ref> As an example, Wolff claims that [[Mondragon Corporation|Mondragon]] is "a stunningly successful alternative to the capitalist organisation of production".<ref>{{cite news |last=Wollf |first=Richard |author-link=Richard D. Wolff |date=24 June 2012 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/24/alternative-capitalism-mondragon |title=Yes, there is an alternative to capitalism: Mondragon shows the way |work=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=12 August 2013}}</ref>

=== State-directed economy ===
{{main|State socialism}}

{{see also|Dirigisme|Nationalization|Public ownership|State capitalism|Steady-state economy}}
State socialism can be used to classify any variety of socialist philosophies that advocates the ownership of the [[means of production]] by the [[State (polity)|state apparatus]], either as a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism, or as an end-goal in itself. Typically, it refers to a form of technocratic management, whereby technical specialists administer or manage economic enterprises on behalf of society and the public interest instead of workers' councils or workplace democracy.

A state-directed economy may refer to a type of mixed economy consisting of public ownership over large industries, as promoted by various Social democratic political parties during the 20th century. This ideology influenced the policies of the British Labour Party during Clement Attlee's administration. In the biography of the 1945 United Kingdom Labour Party Prime Minister [[Clement Attlee]], [[Francis Beckett]] states: "[T]he government ... wanted what would become known as a mixed economy."{{sfnp|Beckett|2007}}

Nationalisation in the United Kingdom was achieved through compulsory purchase of the industry (i.e. with compensation). [[British Aerospace]] was a combination of major aircraft companies [[British Aircraft Corporation]], [[Hawker Siddeley]] and others. [[British Shipbuilders]] was a combination of the major shipbuilding companies including [[Cammell Laird]], [[Govan Shipbuilders]], [[Swan Hunter]] and [[Yarrow Shipbuilders]], whereas the nationalisation of the coal mines in 1947 created a coal board charged with running the coal industry commercially so as to be able to meet the interest payable on the bonds which the former mine owners' shares had been converted into.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Strike Weapon: Lessons of the Miners' Strike |publisher=Socialist Party of Great Britain |location=London |year=1985 |url=http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pdf/ms.pdf |access-date=28 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070614065637/http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pdf/ms.pdf |archive-date=14 June 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hardcastle |first=Edgar |author-link=Edgar Hardcastle |title=The Nationalisation of the Railways |journal=[[Socialist Standard]] |volume=43 |issue=1 |year=1947 |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/hardcastle/1947/02/railways.htm |access-date=28 April 2007 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

=== Market socialism ===
{{main|Market socialism}}

Market socialism consists of publicly owned or cooperatively owned enterprises operating in a [[market economy]]. It is a system that uses the market and [[Price system|monetary prices]] for the allocation and accounting of the [[means of production]], thereby retaining the process of [[capital accumulation]]. The profit generated would be used to directly remunerate employees, collectively sustain the enterprise or finance public institutions.<ref>{{cite book |title=Comparing Economic Systems in the Twenty-First Century |date=2003 |last1=Gregory |first1=Paul |last2=Stuart |first2=Robert |chapter=Marx's Theory of Change |publisher=George Hoffman |isbn=0618261818 |page=142 |quote=It is an economic system that combines social ownership of capital with market allocation of capital...The state owns the means of production, and returns accrue to society at large.}}</ref> In state-oriented forms of market socialism, in which state enterprises attempt to maximise profit, the profits can be used to fund government programs and services through a [[social dividend]], eliminating or greatly diminishing the need for various forms of taxation that exist in capitalist systems. [[Neoclassical economist]] [[Léon Walras]] believed that a socialist economy based on state ownership of land and natural resources would provide a means of public finance to make income taxes unnecessary.<ref>{{harvp|Bockman|2011|p=21}} "For Walras, socialism would provide the necessary institutions for free competition and social justice. Socialism, in Walras's view, entailed state ownership of land and natural resources and the abolition of income taxes. As owner of land and natural resources, the state could then lease these resources to many individuals and groups, which would eliminate monopolies and thus enable free competition. The leasing of land and natural resources would also provide enough state revenue to make income taxes unnecessary, allowing a worker to invest his savings and become 'an owner or capitalist at the same time that he remains a worker."</ref> [[Yugoslavia]] implemented a market socialist economy based on cooperatives and worker self-management.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Estrin |first1=Saul |title=Yugoslavia: The Case of Self-Managing Market Socialism |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |year=1991 |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=187–194 |doi=10.1257/jep.5.4.187 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Some of the economic reforms introduced during the [[Prague Spring]] by [[Alexander Dubček]], the [[Communist Party of Czechoslovakia#Leaders|leader]] of [[Czechoslovakia]], included elements of market socialism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Golan |first=Galia |title=Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia: The Dubcek Era 1968–1969 |date=1971 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0521085861}}</ref>

[[File:Proudhon-children.jpg|thumb|[[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], main theorist of [[Mutualism (economic theory)|mutualism]] and influential French socialist thinker]]
[[Mutualism (economy)|Mutualism]] is an [[Economics|economic theory]] and [[anarchist school of thought]] that advocates a society where each person might possess a [[means of production]], either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labour in the [[free market]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mutualist.org/ |title=Introduction |publisher=Mutualist.org |access-date=29 April 2010}}</ref> Integral to the scheme was the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Miller |first=David |year=1987 |title=Mutualism |encyclopedia=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] |page=11}}</ref> Mutualism is based on a [[labour theory of value]] that holds that when labour or its product is sold, in exchange it ought to receive goods or services embodying "the amount of labour necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tandy |first=Francis D. |year=1896 |title=[[Voluntary Socialism]] |chapter=6, paragraph 15}}</ref>

The current economic system in China is formally referred to as a [[socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics]]. It combines a large state sector that comprises the commanding heights of the economy, which are guaranteed their public ownership status by law,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/19/content_762056.htm |title=China names key industries for absolute state control |website=China Daily |date=19 December 2006 |access-date=2 June 2010}}</ref> with a [[private sector]] mainly engaged in commodity production and light industry responsible from anywhere between 33%<ref>{{cite web |url=http://english.people.com.cn/200507/13/eng20050713_195876.html |title=China has socialist market economy in place |publisher=[[People's Daily]] Online |date=13 July 2005 |access-date=2 June 2010}}</ref> to over 70% of GDP generated in 2005.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/3/36174313.pdf |title=China and the OECD |date=May 2006 |access-date=2 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081010154017/http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/3/36174313.pdf |archive-date=10 October 2008}}</ref> The current Chinese economy consists of 150 [[corporatised]] state-owned enterprises that report directly to China's central government.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.forbes.com/2008/07/08/china-enterprises-state-lead-cx_jrw_0708mckinsey.html |title=Reassessing China's State-Owned Enterprises |work=Forbes |access-date=2 June 2010 |date=8 July 2008}}</ref> By 2008, these state-owned corporations had become increasingly dynamic and generated large increases in revenue for the state,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto031620081407384075 |title=InfoViewer: China's champions: Why state ownership is no longer proving a dead hand |publisher=Us.ft.com |date=28 August 2003 |access-date=2 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711045431/https://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto031620081407384075 |archive-date=11 July 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://ufirc.ou.edu/publications/Enterprises%20of%20China.pdf |title=Today's State-Owned Enterprises of China |access-date=18 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720024533/http://ufirc.ou.edu/publications/Enterprises%20of%20China.pdf |archive-date=20 July 2011}}</ref> resulting in a state-sector led recovery during the 2009 financial crises while accounting for most of China's economic growth.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8153138.stm |work=[[BBC News]] |title=China grows faster amid worries |date=16 July 2009 |access-date=7 April 2010}}</ref> The Chinese economic model is widely cited as a contemporary form of state capitalism, the major difference between Western capitalism and the Chinese model being the degree of state-ownership of shares in publicly listed corporations. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has adopted a similar model after the [[Doi Moi]] economic renovation but slightly differs from the Chinese model in that the Vietnamese government retains firm control over the state sector and strategic industries, but allows for private-sector activity in commodity production.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/news/story.php?d=20031117235404 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727075147/http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/news/story.php?d=20031117235404 |archive-date=27 July 2011 |title=VN Embassy: Socialist-oriented market economy: concept and development soluti |website=Radio Voice of Vietnam |publisher=Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the United States of America |date=17 November 2003 |access-date=2 June 2010}}</ref>

== Analysis of the Soviet Model==

=== Achievements of the Soviet planned economies ===
[[File:Sputnik-stamp-ussr.jpg|thumb|upright|Soviet stamp showing the orbit of [[Sputnik 1]]]]
In the officially sanctioned textbooks describing the socialist planned economies as they existed in the 1980s, it was claimed as follows:
* Class and national oppression had been totally eradicated.
* [[Unemployment]], [[hunger]], [[poverty]], [[illiteracy]] and uncertainty about the future had been eliminated.
* Every citizen had a guaranteed right to work, rest, [[universal education|education]], [[universal healthcare|health care]], abode and security in old age and maintenance in the event of disability.
* Material standards of living were rising steadily and everyone had free access to knowledge and to the values of world and national culture.
* Every citizen had a right in practice to take part in discussing and solving any problems in the life of the enterprise, region, republic and the country they lived in, including the rights to free speech, of assembly and to demonstrate.<ref>Sergei Ilyin and Alexander Motylev, ''What is Political Economy?'', 1986, Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 271–72.</ref>

Data collected by the United Nations of indicators of human development in the early 1990s show that a high level of social development was achieved in the former socialist planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS). Life expectancy in the CEE/CIS area in the period 1985–1990 was 68 years, while for the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) it was 75 years.<ref>UN Department of Economic & Social Affairs, ''World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision'', File MORT/7.1. Data for 1985–1990. The world average was 64 years.</ref> Infant mortality in the CEE/CIS area was 25 for every 1,000 live births in 1990, compared to 13 in the OECD area.<ref>UN, 1994, ''Demographic Yearbook 1992'', New York: United Nations Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Tables 4 and 20. Data is for 1990. The world average was 58 for every1,000 live births.</ref> In terms of education, the two areas enjoyed universal adult literacy and full enrolment of children in primary and secondary schools. For tertiary education, the CEE/CIS had 2,600 university students per 100,000 population, while in the OECD the comparable figure was 3,550 students. Overall enrolment at primary, secondary and tertiary levels was 75 percent in the CEE/CIS region and 82 percent in the OECD countries.<ref>UNDP, ''Human Development Report 1997'', Tables 27 and 47; figures are for 1992–94. The world average is 1,490 students per 100,000 people and 60 percent for the gross enrolment ratio, combining all levels of education. Countries with a high intake at tertiary level to technical and vocational education such as Western Germany (2,320) had a similar ratio of university students to the socialist countries, reflecting a higher proportion of manufacturing and construction in their economies. {{ISBN|0-19-511997-5}}.</ref>

The Soviet Union placed great emphasis on [[Science and technology in the Soviet Union|science and technology]].<!--delete this sentence if you can park the citations elsewhere---><ref>{{cite web |title=Science and Technology |publisher=[[Library of Congress Country Studies]] |url=http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0413%29 |access-date=23 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904015129/http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+su0413%29 |archive-date=4 September 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=15 June 1992 |title=The Soviet Union and the United States – Revelations from the Russian Archives {{!}} Exhibitions – Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170915012329/http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sovi.html |archive-date=15 September 2017 |access-date=12 November 2017 |website=www.loc.gov}}</ref> Lenin believed the USSR would never overtake the developed world if it remained as technologically backward as it was upon its founding. Soviet authorities proved their commitment to Lenin's belief by developing massive networks and research and development organizations. In the early 1960s, 40% of chemistry PhDs in the Soviet Union were attained by women, compared with only 5% in the United States.<ref>[[Rose Eveleth]] (12 December 2013). [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/soviet-russia-had-a-better-record-of-training-women-in-stem-than-america-does-today-180948141/?no-ist Soviet Russia Had a Better Record of Training Women in STEM Than America Does Today] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006112126/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/soviet-russia-had-a-better-record-of-training-women-in-stem-than-america-does-today-180948141/?no-ist |date=6 October 2014 }}. ''[[Smithsonian Institution|Smithsonian.com]].'' Retrieved 26 June 2014.</ref> By 1989, Soviet scientists were among the world's best-trained specialists in several areas, such as energy physics, selected areas of medicine, mathematics, welding, space technology, and military technologies. However, due to rigid state planning and [[Nomenklatura|bureaucracy]], the Soviets remained far behind the [[First World]] in chemistry, biology, and computer science. Under Stalin, the Soviet government persecuted [[geneticists]] in favour of [[Lysenkoism]], a [[pseudoscience]] rejected by the scientific community in the Soviet Union and abroad but supported by Stalin's inner circles.<!--after Stalin?---> Implemented in the USSR and China, it resulted in reduced crop yields and is widely believed to have contributed to the [[Great Chinese Famine]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Offord |first1=Catherine |title=Stamping Out Science, 1948 |journal=[[The Scientist (magazine)|The Scientist]] |url=https://www.the-scientist.com/foundations/stamping-out-science-1948-68665 |access-date=20 September 2021 |archive-date=28 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210528184521/https://www.the-scientist.com/foundations/stamping-out-science-1948-68665 |url-status=live}}</ref> In the 1980s, the Soviet Union had more [[scientists]] and [[engineers]] relative to the world's population than any other major country, owing to strong levels of state support.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chan |first1=Chi Ling |title=Fallen Behind: Science, Technology and Soviet Statism |journal=Intersect: The Stanford Journal of Science, Technology, and Society |date=11 June 2015 |volume=8 |issue=3 |url=https://ojs.stanford.edu/ojs/index.php/intersect/article/view/691#:~:text=This%20essay%20argues%20that%20the,demands%20of%2021st%20century%20informationalization. |language=en}}</ref> Some of its most remarkable technological achievements, such as launching the [[Sputnik 1|world's first space satellite]], were achieved through military research.<ref name="Library of Congress Country Studies">{{cite web |title=Economy |publisher=[[Library of Congress Country Studies]] |url=http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0009%29 |access-date=23 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904015129/http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+su0009%29 |archive-date=4 September 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

On housing the main problem was over-crowding rather than homelessness in the socialist planned economies. In the USSR the area of residential accommodation was 15.5 square meters per person by 1990 in urban areas but 15 percent of the population were without their own separate accommodation and had to live in communal apartments according to the 1989 census.<ref>Brown, A, Kaser, M C, Smith, G S (editors), ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union'', 1994, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 411, 465 {{ISBN|0-521-35593-1}}.</ref> Housing was generally of good quality in both the CEE/CIS region and in the OECD countries: 98 and 99 percent of the population in the OECD countries had access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation respectively, compared to 93 and 85 percent in the CEE/CIS area by 1990.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data |work=UN Statistics Division, Department of Economic & Social Affairs |title=Millennium Development Goals Indicators for 1990 |access-date=26 December 2013 |archive-date=6 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200406202726/http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Unemployment did not exist officially in the socialist planned economies, though there were people between jobs and a fraction of unemployable people as a result of illness, disability or other problems, such as alcoholism. The proportion of people changing jobs was between 6 and 13 percent of the labour force a year according to employment data during the 1970s and 1980s in Central and Eastern Europe and the USSR. Labour exchanges were established in the USSR in 1967 to help enterprises re-allocate workers and provide information on job vacancies. Compulsory unemployment insurance schemes operated in Bulgaria, Eastern Germany and Hungary but the numbers claiming support as a result of losing their job through no fault of their own numbered a few hundred a year.<ref>Brown, A, Kaser, M C, Smith, G S (editors), ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union'', 1994, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 431, 464 {{ISBN|0-521-35593-1}}; and Porket, J L, ''Unemployment in Capitalist, Communist and Post-Communist Economies'', 1995, London: Macmillan pp. 32–36 {{ISBN|0-312-12484-8}}.</ref>

By 1988, GDP per person, measured at purchasing power parity in US dollars, was $7,519 in Russia and $6,304 for the USSR. The highest income was to be found in Slovenia ($10,663) and Estonia ($9,078) and the lowest in Albania ($1,386) and Tajikistan ($2,730). Across the whole CEE/CIS area, GDP per person was estimated at $6,162.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/20631/ |title=IMF staff estimates in Stanley Fischer, Ratna Sahay and Carlos Vegh, ''Stabilization and growth in transition economies: The early experience'', April 1996, IMF Working Paper WP/96/31; Table 1, p. 6 |publisher=Mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de |date= April 1996|access-date=15 August 2014}}</ref> This compared to the US with $20,651 and $16,006 for Germany in the same year. For the OECD area as a whole estimated GDP per person was $14,385.<ref>OECD ''National Accounts at a Glance'', 2013 edition for 1988 GDP per capita at current purchasing power parities and current prices, Retrieved 1 November 2013.</ref> Thus, on the basis of IMF estimates, national income (GDP) per person in the CEE/CIS area was 43 percent of that in the OECD area.

=== Economic problems of the Soviet planned economies ===
[[File:Graph of Soviet National Income Growth.png|thumb|350px|Soviet national income 1928–1987 growth in % based on estimates of the official statistical agency of the Soviet Union, the CIA and revised estimates by [[Grigorii Khanin]]]]

From the 1960s onwards, CMEA countries, beginning with East Germany, attempted "intensive" growth strategies, aiming to raise the productivity of labour and capital. However, in practice this meant that investment was shifted towards new branches of industry, including the electronics, computing, automotive and nuclear power sectors, leaving the traditional heavy industries dependent upon older technologies. Despite the rhetoric about modernization, innovation remained weak as enterprise managers preferred routine production that was easier to plan and brought them predictable bonuses. Embargoes on high technology exports organized through the US-supported [[CoCom]] arrangement hampered technology transfer. Enterprise managers also ignored inducements to introduce labour-saving measures as they wished to retain a reserve of personnel to be available to meet their production target by working at top speed when supplies were delayed.<ref>[[Archie Brown (historian)|Archie Brown]], and [[Michael Kaser]], ''Soviet Policy for the 1980s'', 1982, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 188, 194, 200, 208 {{ISBN|0-253-35412-9}}; Simon Clarke (editor), ''Structural Adjustment without Mass Unemployment? Lessons from Russia'', 1998, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 23–28 {{ISBN|1-85898-713-X}}; Marie Lavigne, ''The Economies of Transition: From socialist economy to market economy'', 1995, London: Macmillan, pp. 52–54, 60–61, 75–76, 248 {{ISBN|0-333-52731-3}}; Padma Desai, ''The Soviet Economy: Problems and Prospects'', 1990, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 10–11 {{ISBN|0-631-17183-5}}</ref>

Under conditions of "taut planning", the economy was expected to produce a volume of output higher than the reported capacity of enterprises and there was no "slack" in the system. Enterprises faced a resource constraint and hoarded labour and other inputs and avoided sub-contracting intermediate production activities, preferring to retain the work in-house. The enterprise, according to the theory promulgated by [[János Kornai]], was constrained by its resources not by the demand for its goods and services; nor was it constrained by its finances since the government was not likely to shut it down if it failed to meet its financial targets. Enterprises in socialist planned economies operated within a "soft" budget constraint, unlike enterprises in capitalist market economies which are demand-constrained and operate within "hard" budget constraints, as they face bankruptcy if their costs exceed their sales. As all producers were working in a resource-constrained economy they were perpetually in short supply and the shortages could never be eliminated, leading to chronic disruption of production schedules. The effect of this was to preserve a high level of employment.<ref>János Kornai, ‘’Economics of Shortage’’, Amsterdam: North Holland; Marie Lavigne, ''The Economies of Transition: From socialist economy to market economy'', 1995, London: Macmillan, pp. 60, 130–35, 248 {{ISBN|0-333-52731-3}}</ref>

As the supply of consumer goods failed to match rising incomes (because workers still received their pay even if they were not fully productive), household savings accumulated, indicating, in the official terminology, "postponed demand". Western economists called this "[[monetary overhang]]" or "repressed inflation". Prices on the black market were several times higher than in the official price-controlled outlets, reflecting the scarcity and possible illegality of the sale of these items. Therefore, although consumer welfare was reduced by shortages, the prices households paid for their regular consumption were lower than would have been the case had prices been set at market-clearing levels.<ref>Brown, A, and Kaser, M C, ''The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev'', 1978, London: Macmillan, pp. 212–14 {{ISBN|0-333-23337-9}}; Brown, A, and Kaser, M C, ''Soviet Policy for the 1980s'', 1982, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, p. 193 {{ISBN|0-253-35412-9}}; Marie Lavigne, ''The Economies of Transition: From socialist economy to market economy'', 1995, London: Macmillan, pp. 61, 130–35 {{ISBN|0-333-52731-3}}</ref>

Over the course of the 1980s it became clear that the CMEA area was "in crisis", although it remained viable economically and was not expected to collapse.<ref>Marie Lavigne, ''The Economies of Transition: From socialist economy to market economy'', 1995, London: Macmillan, pp. 76 and 248 {{ISBN|0-333-52731-3}}</ref> The "extensive" growth model was retarding growth in the CMEA as a whole, with member countries dependent upon supplies of raw materials from the USSR and upon the Soviet market for sales of goods. The decline in growth rates reflected a combination of diminishing returns to capital accumulation and low innovation as well as micro-economic inefficiencies, which a high rate of saving and investment was unable to counter. The CMEA was supposed to ensure coordination of national plans but it failed even to develop a common methodology for planning which could be adopted by its member states. As each member state was reluctant to give up national self-sufficiency the CMEA's efforts to encourage specialization was thwarted. There were very few joint ventures and therefore little intra-enterprise technology transfer and trade, which in the capitalist world was often undertaken by trans-national corporations. The International Bank for Economic Cooperation had no means of converting a country's trade surplus into an option to buy goods and services from other CMEA members.<ref>Marie Lavigne, ''The Economies of Transition: From socialist economy to market economy'', 1995, London: Macmillan, pp. 52–54, 75–76 {{ISBN|0-333-52731-3}}</ref>

== Public views ==

[[File:Socialist Alternative Protest1.jpg|thumbnail|[[Socialist Alternative (United States)|Socialist Alternative]] holding a mass anti-war protest, 2007]]

A multitude of polls have found significant levels of support for socialism among modern populations.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.ipsos.com/en-za/value-socialism-global-ipsos-poll |title=The value of Socialism: Global Ipsos Poll &#124; Ipsos |date=4 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240102153727/https://www.ipsos.com/en-za/value-socialism-global-ipsos-poll |archive-date=2 January 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Stancil |first1=Kenny |title=Socialism Is Gaining Popularity, Poll Shows |url=https://truthout.org/articles/socialism-is-gaining-popularity-poll-shows/ |work=[[Truthout]] |date=26 June 2021}}</ref>

A 2018 [[Ipsos|IPSOS]] poll found that 50% of the respondents globally strongly or somewhat agreed that present socialist values were of great value for societal progress. In China this was 84%, India 72%, Malaysia 62%, Turkey 62%, South Africa 57%, Brazil 57%, Russia 55%, Spain 54%, Argentina 52%, Mexico 51%, Saudi Arabia 51%, Sweden 49%, Canada 49%, Great Britain 49%, Australia 49%, Poland 48%, Chile 48%, South Korea 48%, Peru 48%, Italy 47%, Serbia 47%, Germany 45%, Belgium 44%, Romania 40%, United States 39%, France 31%, Hungary 28% and Japan 21%.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-05/global_socialism_survey-ipsos.pdf |title=IPSOS – Global Socialism Survey 2018}}</ref>

A 2021 survey conducted by the [[Institute of Economic Affairs]] (IEA) found that 67% of young British (16–24) respondents wanted to live in a [[planned economy|socialist economic system]], 72% supported the [[nationalization|re-nationalisation]] of various industries such as [[energy industry|energy]], [[water industry|water]] along with [[railways]] and 75% agreed with the view that [[climate change]] was a specifically [[capitalist]] problem.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://iea.org.uk/media/67-per-cent-of-young-brits-want-a-socialist-economic-system-finds-new-poll/ |title=67 per cent of young Brits want a socialist economic system, finds new poll |website=Institute of Economic Affairs}}</ref>

A 2023 IPSOS poll found that a majority of British public favoured public ownership of [[utilities]] including water, rail and [[electricity]]. Specifically, 68% of respondents favoured the nationalisation of water services, 65% supporting the nationalisation of the railways, 63% supporting the public ownership of [[electrical grid|power networks]] and 39% favouring [[broadband access]] which is operated by the government. The poll also found broad levels of support among traditional Labour and Conservative voters.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gye |first1=Hugo |title=Majority of public including Tory voters want water and rail nationalised, poll suggests |url=https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/majority-public-tory-voters-want-water-rail-nationalised-poll-2549628 |work=[[The i Paper]] |language=en |date=16 August 2023}}</ref>

The results of a 2019 [[Axios (website)|Axios]] poll found that 70% of US [[millennials]] were willing to vote for a socialist candidate and 50% of this same demographic had a somewhat or very unfavourable view of capitalism.<ref>{{Cite web |first=Stef W. |last=Kight |url=https://www.axios.com/2019/10/28/millennials-vote-socialism-capitalism-decline |title=Young Americans are increasingly embracing socialism over capitalism |website=[[Axios (webiste)|Axios]] |date=28 October 2019}}</ref> Subsequently, another 2021 Axios poll found that 51% of 18–34 US adults had a positive view of socialism. Yet, 41% of Americans more generally had a positive view of socialism compared to 52% of those who viewing socialism more negatively.<ref>{{cite web |title=Axios{{!}}SurveyMonkey Poll: Capitalism and Socialism (2021) |url=https://uk.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/axios-capitalism-update/ |website=SurveyMonkey}}</ref>

In 2023, the [[Fraser Institute]] published findings which found that 42% of Canadians viewed socialism as the ideal system compared to 43% of British respondents, 40% Australian respondents and 31% American respondents. Overall support for socialism ranged from 50% of Canadians 18–24 year olds to 28% of Canadians over 55.<ref>{{cite web |title=Four in 10 Canadians prefer socialism but not higher taxes to pay for it: op-ed |url=https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/four-in-10-canadians-prefer-socialism-but-not-higher-taxes-to-pay-for-it |website=Fraser Institute |language=en |date=23 February 2023}}</ref>

In 2025, a joint [[Rasmussen Reports|Rasmussen]] and Heartland Institute poll had found that 53% of young American voters (18–39 age range) supported the prospect of a socialist candidate running in the upcoming 2028 presidential election and 76% of this same demographic favoured the nationalisation of key industries such as energy, healthcare and big tech sectors.<ref>{{cite web |title=Heartland/Rasmussen Poll: 53% of Young Voters Want a Socialist to Win the 2028 Presidential Election, 76% Want Government to Nationalize Major U.S. Industries |url=https://heartland.org/opinion/heartland-rasmussen-poll-53-of-young-voters-want-a-socialist-to-win-the-2028-presidential-election-76-want-government-to-nationalize-major-u-s-industries/ |website=The Heartland Institute |date=4 September 2025}}</ref>

== Criticism ==
{{main|Criticism of socialism}}

{{multiple image
| perrow            = 3
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| image1            = Portrait of Milton Friedman.jpg
| image2            = Ludwig von Mises.jpg
| image3            = Friedrich Hayek portrait.jpg
| image4            = 
| footer            = L–R: [[Milton Friedman]], [[Ludwig von Mises]] and [[Friedrich Hayek]], economists belonging to the [[Chicago school of economics|Chicago]] and [[Austrian school of economics|Austrian]] schools of economics and critics of socialism in the 20th century
}}

According to [[analytical Marxist]] sociologist [[Erik Olin Wright]], "The Right condemned socialism as violating individual rights to private property and unleashing monstrous forms of state oppression", while "the Left saw it as opening up new vistas of social equality, genuine freedom and the development of human potentials."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wright |first=Erik Olin |date=15 January 2012 |title=Toward a Social Socialism |url=https://thepointmag.com/politics/toward-a-social-socialism/ |access-date=27 September 2022 |website=The Point Magazine |language=en-US |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201022120117/https://thepointmag.com/politics/toward-a-social-socialism/ |archive-date=22 October 2020}}</ref>

Because of socialism's many varieties, most critiques have focused on a specific approach. Proponents of one approach typically criticise others. Socialism has been criticised in terms of its [[Socialist economics|models of economic organization]] as well as its political and social implications. Other critiques are directed at the [[socialist movement]], [[Socialist Party|parties]], or existing [[Socialist state|states]].

Some forms of criticism occupy theoretical grounds, such as in the [[economic calculation problem]] presented by proponents of the [[Austrian School]] as part of the [[socialist calculation debate]], while others support their criticism by examining historical attempts to establish socialist societies. The economic calculation problem concerns the feasibility and methods of resource allocation for a [[Planned economy|planned socialist system]].<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Durlauf |editor1-first=Steven N. |editor1-link=Steven Durlauf |editor2-last=Blume |editor2-first=Lawrence E. |editor2-link=Lawrence E. Blume |year=1987 |title=The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online |chapter=Socialist Calculation Debate |pages=685–692 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_2070-1 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |access-date=2 February 2013 |doi=10.1057/9780230226203.1570 |isbn=978-1349951215}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Biddle |first1=Jeff |last2=Samuels |first2=Warren |author2-link=Warren Samuels |last3=Davis |first3=John |date=2006 |title=A Companion to the History of Economic Thought |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]] |page=319 |quote=What became known as the socialist calculation debate started when von Mises (1935 [1920]) launched a critique of socialism.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Levy |first1=David M. |last2=Peart |first2=Sandra J. |date=2008 |chapter=Socialist calculation debate |title=The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics |edition=Second |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]}}</ref> Central planning is also criticized by elements of the radical left. Libertarian socialist economist [[Robin Hahnel]] notes that even if central planning overcame its inherent inhibitions of incentives and innovation, it would nevertheless be unable to maximize economic democracy and self-management, which he believes are concepts that are more intellectually coherent, consistent and just than mainstream notions of economic freedom.<ref name="Hahnel, Robin 2002">{{cite book |last=Hahnel |first=Robin |author-link=Robin Hahnel |title=The ABC's of Political Economy |publisher=[[Pluto Press]] |date=2002 |page=262}}</ref>

[[Economic liberals]] and [[right-libertarians]] argue that [[Private enterprise|private ownership]] of the [[means of production]] and market exchange are natural entities or moral rights which are central to freedom and liberty and argue that the economic dynamics of [[capitalism]] are immutable and absolute. As such, they also argue that [[public ownership]] of the means of production and [[economic planning]] are infringements upon liberty.<ref name="milton2">{{cite web |title=On Milton Friedman, MGR & Annaism |url=http://www.sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/11-25_Friedman_MGR.php?uid=2075 |access-date=30 October 2011 |publisher=Sangam.org}}</ref><ref name="Bellamy, Richard 2003 60">{{cite book |last=Bellamy |first=Richard |title=The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2003 |isbn=978-0521563543 |page=60}}</ref>

Critics of socialism have argued that in any society where everyone holds equal wealth, there can be no material incentive to work because one does not receive rewards for a work well done. They further argue that incentives increase productivity for all people and that the loss of those effects would lead to stagnation. Some critics of socialism argue that income sharing reduces individual incentives to work and therefore incomes should be individualized as much as possible.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Zoltan J. |last1=Acs |author1-link=Zoltan Acs |first2=Bernard |last2=Young |title=Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Global Economy |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |page=47 |year=1999}}</ref>

[[Peter Self]] criticized the aims of socialism, arguing that equality erodes away at individual diversities and that the establishment of an equal society would have to entail strong coercion.<ref name="Self">{{cite book |first=Self |last=Peter |author-link=Peter Self |chapter=Socialism |title=A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy |editor1-last=Goodin |editor1-first=Robert E. |editor1-link=Robert E. Goodin |editor2-last=Pettit |editor2-first=Philip |editor2-link=Philip Pettit |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] |year=1995 |page=339 |quote=Extreme equality overlooks the diversity of individual talents, tastes and needs, and save in a utopian society of unselfish individuals would entail strong coercion; but even short of this goal, there is the problem of giving reasonable recognition to different individual needs, tastes (for work or leisure) and talents. It is true therefore that beyond some point the pursuit of equality runs into controversial or contradictory criteria of need or merit.}}</ref>

[[Milton Friedman]] argued that the absence of private economic activity would enable political leaders to grant themselves coercive powers, powers that, under a capitalist system, would instead be granted by a capitalist class, which Friedman found preferable.<ref name="Bellamy, Richard 2003 602">{{cite book |author=Bellamy, Richard |title=The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0521563543 |page=60}}</ref>

Many commentators on the political right point to the [[mass killings under communist regimes]], claiming them as an indictment of socialism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Piereson |first=James |title=Socialism as a hate crime |url=https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/socialism-as-a-hate-crime-9746 |access-date=22 October 2021 |website=newcriterion.com |date=21 August 2018 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826070443/https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/socialism-as-a-hate-crime-9746 |archive-date=26 August 2018}}</ref>{{sfnp|Engel-DiMauro|2021|pp=1–17}}<ref>{{Cite news |last=Satter |first=David |date=6 November 2017 |title=100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead |language=en-US |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810 |access-date=22 October 2021 |issn=0099-9660 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180112092528/https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810 |archive-date=12 January 2018}}</ref> Opponents of this view, including supporters of socialism, state that these killings were aberrations caused by specific authoritarian regimes rather than socialism itself. They draw comparisons to killings, famines and excess deaths under capitalism, [[colonialism]] and [[Anti-communist mass killings|anti-communist authoritarian governments]].<ref>{{harvp|Bevins|2020|pp=238–240}}; {{harvp|Ghodsee|Sehon|2018}}; {{harvp|Engel-DiMauro|2021|pp=1–17}}; {{harvp|Sullivan|Hickel|2022}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Div col}}
* [[Anarchism and socialism]]
* {{anl|Critique of work}}
* {{anl|French Republicans under the July Monarchy}}
* {{anl|List of communist ideologies}}
* [[List of socialist economists]]
* [[List of socialist parties with national parliamentary representation]]
* [[List of socialist songs]]
* {{anl|List of non-communist socialist states|List of socialist states}}
* [[Critique of political economy#Karl Marx|Marxian critique of political economy]]
* {{anl|Paris Commune}}
* {{anl|Scientific socialism}}
* [[:Category:Socialism by country|Socialism by country]] (category)
* [[Social policy]] and [[cultural policy]]
* {{anl|Socialist democracy}}
* {{anl|Spanish Revolution of 1936}}
* {{anl|Types of socialism}}
* {{anl|Zenitism}}
{{div col end}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

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* {{cite book |last=Horvat |first=Branko |author-link=Branko Horvat |year=1982 |title=The Political Economy of Socialism}}
* {{cite book |last1=Horvat |first1=Branko |author1-link=Branko Horvat |editor1-last=Michie |editor1-first=Jonathan |editor1-link=Jonathan Michie |title=Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences |volume=1 |date=2000 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=London and New York |pages=1515–1516 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ip_IAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1516 |access-date=15 October 2021 |chapter=Social ownership |isbn=978-1135932268 |via=[[Google Books]] }}
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* {{cite web |last=Kotz |first=David M. |title=Socialism and Capitalism: Are They Qualitatively Different Socioeconomic Systems? |date=December 2006 |access-date=19 February 2011 |publisher=[[University of Massachusetts]] |url=http://people.umass.edu/dmkotz/Soc_and_Cap_Diff_Syst_06_12.pdf |archive-date=31 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831211913/http://people.umass.edu/dmkotz/Soc_and_Cap_Diff_Syst_06_12.pdf: |url-status=dead }}
* {{cite news |last=Krause-Jackson |first=Flavia |date=28 December 2019 |title=Socialism declining in Europe as populism support grows |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/socialism-europe-parties-populism-corbyn-left-wing-francois-holland-snp-a9262656.html |access-date=20 April 2022 |work=[[The Independent]] |language=en }}
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* {{cite book |last=Lamb |first=Peter |date=2015 |title=Historical Dictionary of Socialism |edition=3rd |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=978-1442258266}}
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* {{cite book |last=McLaughlin |first=Paul |title=Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kkj5i3CeGbQC |publisher=[[Ashgate Publishing]] |date=2007 |isbn=978-0754661962 |via=[[Google Books]] }}
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* {{cite book |last=Newman |first=Michael |date=2005 |title=Socialism: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0192804310}}
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* {{cite book |last=Robinson |first=Geoffrey B. |date=2018 |title=The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965–66 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11135.html |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-1400888863 |access-date=1 August 2018 |archive-date=19 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190419011656/https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11135.html |url-status=live }}
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* {{cite web |last=Sanandaji |first=Nima |title=Nordic Countries Aren't Actually Socialist |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/27/nordic-countries-not-socialist-denmark-norway-sweden-centrist/ |date=27 October 2021 |access-date=20 April 2022 |website=Foreign Policy |language=en-US }}
* {{cite book |last1=Schweickart |first1=David |author1-link=David Schweickart |last2=Lawler |first2=James |last3=Ticktin |first3=Hillel |author3-link=Hillel Ticktin |last4=Ollman |first4=Bertell |author4-link=Bertell Ollman |year=1998 |title=Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists |chapter=The Difference Between Marxism and Market Socialism |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0415919678}}
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* {{cite news |last1=Sullivan |first1=Dylan |last2=Hickel |first2=Jason |author2-link=Jason Hickel |date=2 December 2022 |title=How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians |work=[[Al Jazeera]] |access-date=8 February 2023 |quote=While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history. It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and Mengistu's Ethiopia. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115112349/https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians |archive-date=15 January 2023 }}
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* {{cite journal |last=Weisskopf |first=Thomas E. |year=1992 |title=Toward a Socialism for the Future, in the Wake of the Demise of the Socialism of the Past |journal=[[Review of Radical Political Economics]] |volume=24 |issue=3–4 |pages=1–28 |doi=10.1177/048661349202400302 |hdl=2027.42/68447 |s2cid=20456552 |hdl-access=free}}
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* {{cite book |last1=Zimbalist |first1=Andrew |last2=Sherman |first2=Howard J. |last3=Brown |first3=Stuart |title=Comparing Economic Systems: A Political-Economic Approach |publisher=Harcourt College Pub |year=1988 |isbn=978-0155124035 |page=[https://archive.org/details/comparingeconomi0000zimb_q8i6/page/7 7] |url=https://archive.org/details/comparingeconomi0000zimb_q8i6/page/7 }}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |last=Bellarmine |first=Robert |chapter=[[s:Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 28|Socialism.]] |title=Sermons from the Latins |year=1902 |publisher=Benziger Brothers |author-link=Robert Bellarmine}}
* {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Gerald |author1-link=Gerald Cohen |title=Why Not Socialism? |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |date=2009 |isbn=978-0691143613}}
* {{cite book |last1=Cole |first1=G. D. H. |author1-link=G. D. H. Cole |title=History of Socialist Thought, in 7 volumes |orig-date=1965 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |date=2003 |edition=reprint |isbn=140390264X}}
* {{cite EB1922 |wstitle=Socialism |last=Cole |first=George Douglas Howard}}
* {{cite book |last1=Ellman |first1=Michael |author1-link=Michael Ellman |date=2014 |url=http://www.cambridge.org/US/academic/subjects/economics/economics-general-interest/socialist-planning-3rd-edition |title=Socialist Planning |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |edition=3rd |isbn=978-1107427327 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Frank |first1=Peter |last2=McAloon |first2=Jim |title=Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party, 1916–2016 |year=2016 |publisher=[[Victoria University Press]] |location=[[Wellington, New Zealand]] |isbn=978-1776560745 |url=https://vup.victoria.ac.nz/brands/Peter-Franks-%26-Jim-McAloon.html |access-date=16 September 2019 }}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Fried |editor1-first=Albert |editor2-last=Sanders |editor2-first=Ronald |title=Socialist Thought: A Documentary History |location=Garden City, NY |publisher=[[Doubleday Anchor]] |year=1964 |lccn=64011312}}
* {{cite book |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen |author-link=Kristen Ghodsee |date=2018 |title=[[Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism]] |publisher=[[Vintage Books]] |isbn=978-1568588902}}
* {{cite book |last1=Harrington |first1=Michael |author1-link=Michael Harrington |title=Socialism |location=New York |publisher=Bantam |year=1972 |lccn=76154260}}
* {{cite book |last1=Harrington |first1=Michael |author1-link=Michael Harrington |title=Socialism: Past and Future |publisher=Arcade Publishing |date=2011 |isbn=978-1611453355}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Hayes |first1=Carlton J. H. |title=The History of German Socialism Reconsidered |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_american-historical-review_1917-10_23_1/page/62 |journal=[[American Historical Review]] |year=1917 |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=62–101 |doi=10.2307/1837686 |jstor=1837686 }}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Heilbroner |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Heilbroner |editor-first=David R. |editor-last=Henderson |editor-link=David R. Henderson |encyclopedia=The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics |chapter=Socialism |chapter-url=https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Socialism.html |year=2008 |publisher=[[Liberty Fund]] |location=Indianapolis, IN |isbn=978-0865976665 |pages=466–468 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Imlay |first1=Talbot |title=The Practice of Socialist Internationalism: European Socialists and International Politics, 1914–1960 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2018 |volume=1 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780199641048.001.0001 |isbn=978-0191774317}}
* {{cite book |last1=Itoh |first1=Makoto |title=Political Economy of Socialism |location=London |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]] |year=1995 |isbn=0333553373}}
* {{cite book |last=Kitching |first=Gavin |author-link=Gavin Kitching |title=Rethinking Socialism |publisher=Meuthen |year=1983 |url=https://archive.org/details/rethinkingsocial0000kitc |isbn=978-0416358407 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Oskar |first1=Lange |author1-link=Oskar Lange |title=On the Economic Theory of Socialism |location=Minneapolis, MN |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |year=1938 |lccn=38012882}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Lebowitz |first1=Michael |url=http://www.monthlyreview.org/builditnow.htm |title=Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st century |journal=[[Monthly Review Press]] |date=2006 |isbn=1583671455 |archive-date=20 December 2008 |access-date=23 September 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081220090226/http://www.monthlyreview.org/builditnow.htm |url-status=dead }}
* {{cite book |last=Lichtheim |first=George |title=A Short History of Socialism |publisher=Praeger Publishers |year=1970}}
* {{cite book |last=Maass |first=Alan |title=The Case for Socialism |publisher=[[Haymarket Books]] |date=2010 |edition=Updated |isbn=978-1608460731}}
* Marx & Engels, ''Selected works in one volume'', Lawrence and Wishart (1968) {{ISBN|978-0853151814}}.
* {{cite book |last1=Martell |first1=Luke |title=Alternative Societies: For a Pluralist Socialism |date=2023 |publisher=[[Policy Press]] |isbn=978-1529229707 |language=en}}
* {{cite book |last=Muravchik |first=Joshua |author-link=Joshua Muravchik |title=Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism |url=https://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/resources.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019012658/http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/resources.html |archive-date=19 October 2014 |location=San Francisco |publisher=Encounter Books |date=2002 |isbn=1893554457 }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Navarro |first1=V. |year=1992 |title=Has socialism failed? An analysis of health indicators under socialism |journal=[[International Journal of Health Services]] |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=583–601 |doi=10.2190/B2TP-3R5M-Q7UP-DUA2 |pmid=1399170 |s2cid=44945095}}
* [[Bertell Ollman]], ed., ''Market Socialism: The Debate among Socialists'', Routledge, 1998. {{ISBN|0415919673}}.
* [[Leo Panitch]], ''Renewing Socialism: Democracy, Strategy, and Imagination''. {{ISBN|0813398215}}.
* Emile Perreau-Saussine, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20090206081900/http://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/contacts/staff/eperreausaussine/what_is_left_of_socialism.pdf What remains of socialism?]'', in Patrick Riordan (dir.), Values in Public life: aspects of common goods (Berlin, LIT Verlag, 2007), pp.&nbsp;11–34.
* {{cite book |last=Piketty |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Piketty |date=2021 |title=Time for Socialism: Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016–2021 |url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300268126/time-for-socialism/ |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0300259667 }}
* {{cite book |last=Pipes |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Pipes |title=Property and Freedom |publisher=Vintage |date=2000 |isbn=0375704477}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Prychitko |first=David L. |author-link=David L. Prychitko |editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter=Socialism |chapter-url=https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/libertarianism/n290.xml |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n290 |year=2008 |publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |isbn=978-1412965804 <!-- |oclc=750831024 |lccn=2008009151 --> |pages=474–476 |via=[[Google Books]] |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite book |last1=Rubel |first1=Maximilien |author1-link=Maximilien Rubel |last2=Crump |first2=John |title=Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries |date=8 August 1987 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=0312005245}}
* {{cite book |last=Sassoon |first=Donald |title=One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century |publisher=New Press |year=1998 |isbn=1565844866}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Sunkara |editor-first=Bhaskar |editor-link=Bhaskar Sunkara |title=The ABCs of Socialism |publisher=[[Verso Books]] |date=2016 |isbn=978-1784787264}}
* {{cite book |last=Verdery |first=Katherine |title=What Was Socialism, What Comes Next |location=Princeton |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=1996 |isbn=069101132X}}
* {{cite web |last=Webb |first=Sidney |url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1889webb.asp |title=The Basis of Socialism – Historic |year=1889 |publisher=Library of Economics and Liberty |author-link=Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield }}
* {{cite book |last=Weinstein |first=James |author-link=James Weinstein (author) |title=Long Detour: The History and Future of the American Left |publisher=[[Westview Press]] |date=2003 |edition=hardcover |isbn=0813341043}}
* {{cite book |last=Wilberg |first=Peter |url=http://www.newgnosis.co.uk/deep.html |title=Deep Socialism: A New Manifesto of Marxist Ethics and Economics |date=2003 |publisher=New Gnosis Publications |isbn=1904519024 |archive-date=8 September 2006 |access-date=10 October 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060908064515/http://www.newgnosis.co.uk/deep.html |url-status=dead }}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* [https://www.britannica.com/topic/socialism Socialism] – entry at the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''
* {{IEP|url-id=socialis}}
* {{Cite EB9 |wstitle=Socialism |volume=XXII |last= Kirkup |first= Thomas |short=1}}
* {{Cite NIE |last1=Ely |first1=Richard T. |author1-link=Richard T. Ely |last2=Adams |first2=Thomas Sewall |author2-link=Thomas Sewall Adams |wstitle=Socialism |short=x}}
* {{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Socialism |volume=25 |last=Bonar |first=James |pages=301–308 |short=1}}
* {{Cite EB1922 |last=Cole |first=G. D. H. |author-link=G. D. H. Cole |wstitle=Socialism |short=x}}

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