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Testing Ground: This article was created as a testing ground for potential revamp proposals which can be done for the main Socialism article. It's still under construction. Any changes I might make towards the main article will only be done with proper approval, but will be inspired by this testing ground.

May Day in Madrid, 2006.

“”Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

—Harry S. Truman

Socialism is a wide movement proposing a fairly broad set of related socio-economic systems which aim to create a more egalitarian society based on the collective ownership and administration of the means of production. The exact nature of this collective ownership varies depending on the particular conception of socialism. Socialists may advocate for state, society-wide or cooperative ownership. Alternatively, for most conservatives/libertarians, socialism is widely regarded as "when the gummint does stuff".

Socialists are often also defined as those who wish to abolish private property. This has often led to socialism being characterized as a system where "you can't own your house or toothbrush". However, this comes from a misunderstanding of what socialists mean by "private property". Within socialism, private property refers to the property owned by a few individuals but used by someone else, generally being capital or the means of production. Personal property are the items which are actually used by the owner, generally being consumer and non-capital goods and services. Socialists only want to abolish the former, not the latter.

People who believe in socialism are referred to variously as "socialists" or "communists" — the technical difference being that socialists believe in socialism as an end in itself while communists merely see socialism as a "transitional phase" leading into the development of a "communist society", i.e. a classless, moneyless, and stateless form of social organization.

Socialists may subscribe to the idea that everyone should help society in the way they can ("from each according to their ability") and either be given based on the value they add to society ("to each according to their contribution") or be given solely based on their necessities ("to each according to their needs"). The latter is often associated with communism, where society has already reached a state of abundance and can meet the needs of everyone unconditionally, and where individuals are motivated to work with little material remuneration, relying on internal motivation instead (such as working for the sake of helping their community).

History

This section requires more sources.

The Paris Commune in 1871 was an early implementation of socialist ideas.

In the developed world during the Industrial Revolution, workers often felt underpaid for their labour, and dangerous working conditions became commonplace. While this has diminished in the developed world as society has become wealthier, multinational corporations have succeeded in expanding to less-developed countries where there are weaker working-rights laws and/or lower minimum-wages, allowing them to pay lower wages to workers in more primitive factories to potentially increase profits.^{[citation needed]} Socialism has thus always found allies in the labour movement, including trade unions, but often as part of a "minimal program" within capitalism, distinct from socialism's ultimate goal of replacing capitalism with a socialist system.^{[citation needed]}

The first person who theorized of the initial concept of socialism was Henri de Saint Simon, a political, social, and economic philosopher. The term socialism itself was coined in 1832 by a follower of Simon, Pierre Leroux, when describing the system Simon had theorized.

The founders of communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, played a major role in formulating the first in-depth and scientifically-based description of socialism combined with detailed description on how to achieve it, in comparison or previous versions that were vague or unrealistic.^{[citation needed]} The Marxist-inspired definition of socialism is social ownership of the means of production. This is the dominant and most common definition of socialism accepted by Marxist socialists, many non-Marxist socialists, and capitalists.^{[citation needed]} The vast majority of present-day socialists believe this would be best done by transferring ownership of the means of production and distribution (e.g., factories and railroads) to the working class.^{[citation needed]} What this most often means in practice, however, is the transfer of the means of production to the state (the state, in turn, is supposed to foster the creation of a classless society and in time aid the 'withering away' of the state as the working classes eventually assume the means of production).^{[citation needed]} The fact that this never happens — as states by their very nature exist to perpetuate their own power — is probably the most glaring and obvious internal contradiction in Marxist-inspired socialist dogmatism.^{[citation needed]}

Disagreements with Marx's and Engels' revolutionary approach to achieving socialism occurred outside and then inside the Marxist movement. The most devastating internal condemnation of the revolutionary approach came from revisionist Marxist Eduard Bernstein, who had been a close friend of Marx and Engels and presumed heir apparent of their views, who came to believe that capitalism could be gradually reformed into socialism through reformist parliamentary means and he rejected class conflict.^{[citation needed]} Bernstein's views formed the basis of the beginning of what is now known as social democracy. Among the social democratic parties, attempts to reconcile their reformist efforts with the prevailing post-war economic order, resulted in many of them redefining "socialism" to no longer mean social ownership of the means of production, but to a vaguer conception of "socialism" as support of social justice and acceptance of Keynesian capitalism.^{[citation needed]}

The rise of popularity of neoliberalism promoted by people like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, resulted in a collapse in support of Keynesianism, leaving many social democrats in the political wilderness in the 1980s to mid-1990s.^{[citation needed]} The British Labour Party had a Marxist-inspired definition of socialism until its new leader Tony Blair scrapped this definition and abandoned Keynesianism in favor of a watered-down definition of "socialism" that recognized "social interdependence of people."^{[citation needed]} In the aftermath of the failures in neoliberal economies, the Third Way is viewed with disgust and contempt among many social democrats; many of them desire a neo-Keynesianism or post-Keynesianism, while more radical wings favor a restoration of a Marxist-inspired socialism based on social ownership of the means of production.^{[citation needed]} One fringe ideology is "techno-socialism", the belief in completely robotizing and nationalizing the labor force and equally distributing the wealth.^{[citation needed]}

Before Marx and Engels began writing, it referred largely to those ideologies that they referred to as "utopian socialism." Utopian socialists imagined a perfect egalitarian society, but couldn't figure out how to get there.

Historically, most attempts to establish comprehensive planned economies have either collapsed for being politically unsustainable or resulted in horrifying dictatorships.^{[citation needed]} Classical Marxists maintain that socialist planning can only become attainable once technology has advanced to a point where non-market planning becomes technically feasible and that the historical attempts to introduce socialist planning by Marxist-Leninist states in the 20th century happened in places insufficiently developed for socialism to be feasible.^{[citation needed]} In the 21st century, however, a few countries in South America have taken up the socialist mantle again, partly because they began to perceive nationalization of foreign-owned infrastructure and of natural resources as a more expedient way of bringing wealth into those countries than getting more loans from the International Monetary Fund.^{[citation needed]} However, in practice these new socialists (even Hugo Chávez, whose oil nationalization was not unprecedented) have not gone much beyond the social democracy prevalent in mid-20th-century Europe.^{[citation needed]} In the Western world, socialism in a revolutionary sense has become a symbol of rebellion against the capitalist economic order, with radical-chic bohemians and hippies supporting socialist doctrine as an act of rebelliousness and righteous (sometimes) anger but still having difficulty envisioning a post-capitalist economy.^{[citation needed]}

Basic models

Each different variant of socialism is based around one of the following basic institutional models.

Planned economy

A planned economy is a type of economic system where production, distribution and investment is predominantly done according to economic plans rather than through the market and its participants. Plans may determine which and how many goods need to be produced, who produces them and what resources they will have available, how these goods will be distributed and to who, what will be the prices of these goods (if any), etc.

Central planning

See the main article on this topic: Command economy

A centrally planned economy, often referred to as a command economy, is a form of planned economy where economic plans are made by a central body, normally the state bureaucracy. Individual central planners design the plans based on the information they have available about the productive capacity of firms and the national demands.^{[citation needed]}

This socialist model is arguably the most famous, being the face of socialism throughout the whole world. So much so, that any alternative socialist model is unheard of for many. Command economies have been popularized by the rise of socialist states such as the USSR and the Soviet-type economic planning utilized by it and other socialist nations that came after.

Central planning has received numerous criticisms since its inception. Some of the most notable critiques come from the Austrian school of economics, particularly from figures such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Criticisms include the complexity of calculating a whole economy and distinguishing more or less valuable use of resources by only a few individuals, and the difficulty of gathering and using important information, which is tacit and dispersed in a whole economy, due to the lack of price signals for conveying such information. Both of these issues may result in irrational allocation and, consequently, shortages and surpluses. Another common critique is the inevitability of central planning leading to authoritarianism: as the state creates plans which producers have to follow, it also needs great powers of coercion to make sure these producers follow the plans correctly. This concentration of power in a central body leads to the deterioration of democracy as it allows state power to go unchecked. Centralization of power, as well as shortages and surpluses, were indeed common in existing centrally planned socialist states, as noted by many academics.

Many on the left have abandoned central planning, either turning to decentralized forms of economic planning or abandoning planned economies altogether.^{[citation needed]} Proponents of it still exist, however. They may argue that "the Soviet Union was good, actually!" and deny failings of the system, or claim they come from other sources (such as bourgeois sabotage). Alternatively, they might also advocate for abandoning Soviet-type economic planning in favor of another model involving central planning. A model often characterized as central planning is the one presented by computer scientist Paul Cockshott and economics professor Allin F. Cottrell in their book Towards a New Socialism.

Decentralized planning

As the name suggests, a decentrally planned economy utilizes a form of economic planning based on horizontalism and bottom-up decision-making. Decentralized planning is supposed to include society at large as part of the planning process, rather than a few central planners. This model aims to fix some of the major issues present within centrally planned economies, in particular the lack of worker self-management and the concentration of power in the state. Unsurprisingly, decentralized planning is most popular within anarchist and other libertarian socialist spaces.

Unlike command economies, decentrally planned economies have had few implementations in the real world. Consequently, it's difficult to analyse how well it actually works in practice. One of the most famous examples of a theoretical model of decentralized economic planning is participatory economics (or parecon), created by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel. Its core is based on negotiations between producer and consumer councils (and federations thereof), intermediated by a specialized agency labeled Iteration Facilitation Board (IFB), in order to plan what will be produced and in what quantities for the next year.

Market economy

A market economy is one where the production and distribution of goods and services is determined by the forces of supply and demand through price signals.^{[citation needed]} While often associated with capitalism, many proponents of a market model within socialism exist. Market socialism advocates for the replacement of regular, privately-owned enterprises in favor of worker self-management and worker cooperatives.^{[citation needed]}

There are many versions, from John Roemer's coupon socialism where everyone has a share in the stock market to David Schweickarts economic democracy which has coops and a "rent" on capital to provide revenue for societal funds to Branco Horvats Illyrian model of market socialism, which is an open and free market, to a "Pluralist Commmonwealth" where Community enterprises, cooperatives and credit unions form the basis of a socialist society. They are some of the economic models pushed by market socialists, with other theorists such as Richard Wolff.

Another example of market socialism, the Lange model, takes its name from the Polish economist Oskar Ryszard Lange (1904-1965).

Variants

Armed communists march during the October Revolution.

Socialism can be divided into several branches, some of which are enumerated here.

Utopian socialism

"Utopian socialism" was used by Marx to refer to those who generally believed in a classless and stateless society but had not hammered out any specific theories for getting there. He analogized the difference between utopian socialism and his own theory with the difference between scientists and engineers: the scientists identify what can be done, and the engineers hammer out how to do it.^{[citation needed]}

Utopian socialism is also among the earliest forms of practiced socialism globally. A group known as the Owenites, followers of 19th-century Welsh social reformer Robert Owen, formed several utopian socialist communities organized along communitarian and cooperative principles. The most famous of the communities located in New Harmony, Indiana, was where Owen himself chose to reside. The Owenite communities largely failed in short order (New Harmony's Owenite community only lasted two years). Still, Owenism is largely thought to have been the first socialist movement in American history, and former Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both attended his lectures. While the Owenites largely failed in their goals, Owen's ideas on labor vouchers influenced later socialist thinkers such as Daniel De Leon, while the Owenites' most lasting legacy on the socialist movement is most likely the cooperative movement.

Most utopian socialists believed in the term "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his need." This saying was coined by Marx but was a reference to a very similar quote from another revolutionary socialist, Louis Blanqui, which was itself an apparent paraphrase of Acts 2:44-45, which state:

“”And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

Blanquism

Blanquism is described by Engels as follows:

“”Brought up in the school of conspiracy, and held together by the strict discipline which went with it, they started out from the viewpoint that a relatively small number of resolute, well-organized men would be able, at a given favorable moment, not only seize the helm of state, but also by energetic and relentless action, to keep power until they succeeded in drawing the mass of the people into the revolution and ranging them round the small band of leaders. This conception involved, above all, the strictest dictatorship and centralization of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary government.

^{[citation needed]}

Marx used the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" to differentiate Marxism from the Blanquist style of socialist dictatorship. This is why he mainly used the term when discussing the Spring of Nations and the 1871 Paris Commune, in both of which Blanquism was pretty influential.

Many Blanquists came to join the First International with Marx after the Commune was crushed,^{[citation needed]} perhaps influencing later events. Specifically, Leninists and Trotskyists are put in a bit of a tight spot by the parallels between the above Engels quote and the unfolding of events during the Bolshevik Revolution; since this event had more of the characteristics of a coup than a popular revolution, the Leninists have a hard time explaining why their beliefs are Marxist and not Blanquist.

On the other hand, Stalinists would argue that these parallels were all fabrication by the oppressive bourgeois media and then send thugs to beat up anyone who said otherwise.

Marxism

Marx and Engels.

In contrast to utopian socialism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels formulated what they called "scientific socialism". This variant of socialism came to be from an analysis of the history of civilization based on class struggle and what became known as dialectical materialism. They believed that the conditions created by capitalism would result in the conflict between the ruling class (the bourgeoisie, i.e. the class that owns the means of production) and the ruled class (the proletariat, i.e. the class of wage-earners who only own their own labor-power) which would build the foundations for a proletarian revolution where the workers would gradually seize the means of production.

The two believed that all socio-political orders, except in the mythical pure communism, were "dictatorships" in which one class dictated to the rest; the bourgeoisie was assigned that role in his characterization of capitalism. For Marx, socialism would not be any less a dictatorship, but it would be a "dictatorship of the proletariat" where the workers would dictate to everyone else.^{[citation needed]} The term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was initially coined to differentiate between Marx's idea of a grass-roots worker-run state and the more elitist ideas of Blanquism; but the "dictatorship" part is not meaningless, since he said in the Communist Manifesto that this dictatorship would have to resort to "despotic" measures at first (e.g., control the army to conquer other capitalist territories).^{[citation needed]}

Marx used the term "lower-stage communism" to refer to this transitory dictatorial phase which would transition to the higher-stage of a classless and stateless society that he believed would follow it. "Classless" and "stateless" were tightly bound together in Marx's theory. Within Marxism, the state is defined as the tools of class oppression and subjugation, meaning a society without social classes would, consequently, have no state. In his book Critique of the Gotha Program, when describing the lower phase, Marx states that "the individual receives from society exactly what he gives to it" and advocates remuneration in the form of labour vouchers as opposed to money.

Anarchism

See the main article on this topic: Anarchism

This section requires more sources.

Anarcho-syndicalist demonstration in Spain.

Anarchism is a variant of socialism often characterized by its advocacy for the abolishment of the state. Anarchists define the state as any tool of domination which allows a small group of people to subjugate the whole. In other words, anarchists oppose any mechanism which goes against the self-government of the people, which includes virtually any form of authority or hierarchy. This definition contrasts with the Marxist definition (a tool for class oppression), meaning a "stateless society" in an anarchist context might not mean the same thing as a "stateless society" in a Marxist context.

Unlike Marxism, anarchism is a wildly varied ideology which includes many different thoughts and theorists. Some influential figures are mutualist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, anarcho-collectivist Mikhail Bakunin, anarcho-communists Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and Nestor Makhno, among others. Anarchism has also inspired movements in various countries, such as Spain during the Spanish Civil War and Ukraine during the Ukraine War of Independence. In contrast to the Marxist-inspired socialist movements, these anarchist movements have often been short-lived (sometimes partly due to sabotage from the Marxists themselves).

As opposed to Marx, Bakunin believed in the spontaneity of organization. A revolutionary organization has to come into existence during a crisis with little forethought, while Marx believed in foresight and planning in terms of collective.^{[citation needed]} Bakunin also believed in secret societies that could just mix with workers and that the people had a natural instinct to revolt, and thus it was not worth educating the workers or organizing them. He, therefore, accused Marx of “ruining the workers by making theorists out of them."^{[citation needed]} Marx also criticized Bakunin by saying that the latter believed in a universal revolution that included the lumpenproletariat (beggars, etc.) and the peasant farmers and the workers. In contrast, Marx had ruled the first two of these groups useless for revolution. Marx thus accused Bakunin of superficiality: knowing many political phrases but not believing in the existence of false consciousness or making any detailed study of economic conditions.^{[citation needed]} Bakunin responded by predicting that Marxism would lead to a new despotic "Red bureaucracy" that would be far more dictatorial than a capitalist system; this has been an accurate description of every self-described communist state.

Leninism

Stalinism

See the main article on this topic: Stalinism

Parade in East Berlin, 1951.

It is claimed by anti-Soviet socialists that the Soviet Union under Stalin was a departure from socialism, on account of the means of production being in the hands of the state instead of the workers. It is occasionally referred to as "state capitalism," "bureaucratic state despotism," or a "degenerated worker's state," by Trotskyites. Anarchists, most of whom were opposed to Lenin's takeover from the outset, would also refer to Lenin's Russia as "state capitalist"; even he himself did. In fact, the system in use in the Soviet Union was a form of "State Socialism", which they officially called "Marxism-Leninism". This system has some similarities with "State Capitalism", with the latter being used primarily by those that are critics of the Soviet kind of Socialism.

Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is not socialism that is democratic, as socialism is intended to be inherently democratic. Democratic socialism is simply socialism that is obtained through democratic means. Democratic socialists advocate for socialization by electing socialist leaders through the ballot box instead of through violent revolution. Democratic socialists believe socialization should happen through an accountable democratic government instead of a dictatorship that claims to have their people's best interests in mind (like the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, etc..). In the beginning of the Soviet Union, the Mensheviks supported a similar idea of socialism being achieved through democratic multi-party coalitions, but they were crushed by the Bolsheviks led by Lenin that prefered a one-party state. The term has often been used to refer to social democracy. Still, they are very different philosophies: social democracy looks to reform capitalism. In contrast, democratic socialism (in the long term) looks to abolish it, specifically by having a mixed economy of nationalized industries to provide for needs and worker cooperatives to provide for things in the market, though some have supported decentralized planning. Bernie Sanders has described himself as a democratic socialist. However, his most advertised tenets (a $15 minimum wage, subsidized college, Medicare for all, campaign finance reform...) are more social democratic than democratic socialism. However, he has supported worker cooperatives, which is a democratic socialist thing to do. Other big-name self-described democratic socialists include Hugo Chávez (who supported worker-owned cooperatives although he did ugly, undemocratic things), Mikhail Gorbachev (who tried to reform the Soviet Union into a democratic state but ended up collapsing it), and Jeremy Corbyn (the British Bernie Sanders who's a bit more explicit in his denunciation of capitalism). Plenty of folks have declared democratic socialist views but have had their views whitewashed with time, including Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King, and George Orwell.

Libertarian socialism

Libertarian socialism is the most anti-authoritarian form of socialism. It's often used as a synonym for anarchism. However, not all anarchists subscribe to socialist thought and some self-described libertarian socialists, such as Daniel De Leon, reject elements of anarchism. Libertarian socialism often takes elements of democratic socialism, such as decentralized planning and self-managed workplaces, to their extreme while also opposing things such as police and prisons, hoping for a community-run "restorative justice" system, and hoping to make as many decisions as possible through consensus by assemblies and councils. The former British Labour Party leader Michael Foot described himself as a libertarian socialist in a 1965 interview where he stated that he believed in socialism that was designed to "get the greatest (amount of) freedom for individuals".

Liberal socialism

Liberal socialists are ones who favor a more market-oriented economy with a welfare state which enshrines basic liberties such as freedom of expression and civil rights. It generally is distinguished from social democracy by emphasizing more fundamental changes in the relations of production, including higher democratization of the workplace.

Not-Socialism

National Socialism

See the main article on this topic: Hitler and socialism

While one might assume that the Nazis are socialist based on their name alone, there's a huge piece that prevents this from being so; Nazi ideology includes the existence of "slave-races" who would perform all the menial tasks a society would need, while the "superior" Germans would have generous social welfare and careers for themselves only. While social welfare is indeed a key aspect of Social Democracy and it's indeed possible to have a stratified society in most versions of socialism, the core concept is that everyone has some "ownership" over their place of employment, whether that's via the workers owning the business directly or everyone getting a share of the profits via taxes and wealth redistribution. Nazism lacks even this most rudimentary requirement. In theory, Nazi ideology would have all the slave-races exterminated eventually with only the Germans remaining, at which point one could argue that the Germans would live in some bizarre form of Social (non)-Democracy and thus be some bizarre/vile form of socialism... until they just declared that the grey-eyed and/or strawberry-blonde Germans to be insufficiently German and they are back to slavery again.

If someone claims that the Nazis were really socialists, chances are that they are actually a Nazi themselves.

Social democracy

While often characterized as socialist, it's difficult to characterize social democracy as such. Unlike what virtually every socialist current advocates for, most forms of social democracy explicitly endorse the preservation of capitalist relations such as private ownership. While it differentiates itself from other capitalist systems (such as neoliberalism) by advocating for a welfare state, partial public ownership and stronger labor rights, social democracy doesn't fit into the concept of collective/social ownership.

This modern social democracy should not be confused with the historical version, however. Social democracy used to be similar to what was called "evolutionary socialism", which advocated for a gradual and reformist method to overcome capitalism, in contrast to a revolution. This type of social democracy could be considered socialistic, as it's still advocating for socialism as the end-goal.

Obamunism

Recently, the right wing in the US has been trying to redefine the term "socialist", with the desired meaning being, "a person who flouts the Republican party line on more than two issues." U.S. President Barack Obama has become the poster-boy for this sort of "socialism" (despite having no socialistic tendencies, except for advocating a state owned health care option), as also discussed below, though he does not stray too far, too often from the Republican Party Line considering he's a New Democrat.

Miscellaneous views

Socialism and religion

Marxism explicitly criticizes religion, with Marx referring to religion as "the opium of the people" to which a pre-socialist state of existence has given rise. Communists have made heavy persecutions of churches when in power, and in some cases even banned religion altogether. Anarchists are also known for their anti-clerical church-burning activities (although not all anarchists perform such behavior, and some are actually Christians themselves).

But Marx did not advocate the banning of religion, instead saying that it is simply a way to cope, and to see something bright at the end of the tunnel when one is faced with the injustices of feudal and capitalist society, and says that the criticism of religion is thus the criticism of the conditions that breed it.

There are also currents of religious socialism, as will be mentioned right now.

The first socialist?

"Jesus Expels the Moneylenders from the Temple" by Giovanni Pannini.

We'll give you a few hints: he is generally portrayed as a tall, blue eyed white man with long hair, wearing a flowing robe, or nailed to a cross, although he was more likely short, had short hair, brown skin, brown eyes and would have never worn a robe, as it would have been a terrible hazard in his carpentry work. A few quotes:

• Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.- Matthew 19:24 (KJV)
• Do not store up your treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.- Matthew 6:19-21
• No man can serve two masters. For a slave will either love the one and hate the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.- Matthew 6:24
• Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.- Matthew 19:21
• Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'- Matthew 25:34-40
• The love of money is the root of all evil."- 1 Timothy 6:10

He's got your back!

As recounted in Acts 2:44, the early Christian church practiced a form of religious communism with "all things common." Today, there are many Christian socialist throughout the world, particularly in South America, which hold that the teachings of Jesus Christ and Marx line up nicely, and see Christ as a great social reformer and the first socialist agitator. However, these people have been criticized for equating the poor, spoken of at length by Jesus, with Marx's proletariat; specifically, Jesus said, "For the poor always ye have with you" (John 12:8), while Marxism aims to do away with the proletariat altogether. There are also small Christian groups such as the Hutterites who also practice a form of voluntary religious communism. Monasteries and other similar religious institutions may also do so.

Oddly enough, his message has been largely ignored by some of his North American followers, who seem to think he was actually ye olde Ronald Reagan or a long-haired John Galt. Cognitive dissonance sure is great, isn't it? Although in their defense, Jesus never said give your money to the poor through government. He talked about private self-decided socialism. Of course, they don't do that either.

Socialism and patriotism

Socialism and patriotism/nationalism are typically in opposition and socialists are generally against the concept of nations, seeing them as an unnecessary division. Many socialists instead strive for "internationalism." To quote Eugene V. Debs, early leader of the SPUSA (he started as a social democrat, and then turned to socialism along the lines of De Leonism. He ran for President while locked in jail for protesting against the first World War), "I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world." They often view patriotism and nationalism as simply ways to divide the working class, like racism and sexism.

This has, unfortunately, led to some people using socialism as a front to push hatred of whatever ethnic group they can paint as coterminous with whatever class of people are judged to be the "oppressors" this week; the bloodiest example of this was Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It is also seen in some left-wing anti-American sentiment, as criticized in the Euston Manifesto.

On the flip side, many leaders of "actually existing" socialist countries have promoted nationalism however. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, for instance, as well as probably most other Latin American socialists, has definitely played on nationalist appeal. Gamal Abdel Nasser promoted Arab nationalism.

Socialism and revolution

While socialism is revolutionary, in that it seeks to change the mechanisms of society, it does not necessarily require violent revolution. Many socialists support a revolution through the ballot, while others, such as De Leonists, advocate both industrial and political organization (although they may still think that "where the ballot is silenced, the bullet must speak").

Socialism and political parties

Socialist International

Logo of the social democrat Socialist International

The Socialist International is a worldwide federation of socialist political parties, mostly consisting of democratic socialist, labor, and social democratic parties. Over thirty nations are governed by a Socialist International member-party, such as France, Iceland and South Africa. These parties are in practice social democratic or even Third Way/liberal and in recent years have experienced spectacular collapses in the face of polarization.

Communist internationals

There have been a number of communist internationals. The First International was founded in the 19th century, but dissolved in the midst of the Bakunin-Marx infighting; the Second International followed, but dissolved in the midst of infighting over support of World War I; the Third International (Comintern) was a Soviet-funded body dissolved in World War II. The Fourth International, a Trotskyist organization, still exists.

American Democratic Party

Some people say that the Democratic Party in the United States are socialists, specifically Barack Obama and the 2008 version of Hillary Clinton. The Democrats are centrists, at most center-left. If they moved left enough even to approach socialistic beliefs, even so far as such factions as the right wing of the Socialist Party USA, they would start being ignored by the Biased Conservative Media.

Why are the Democrats not socialist? Well, it's quite simple. Rather than going into every single way in which they're not, let us look at possibly the most important aspect of socialism, i.e. common ownership of the means of production and thus the abolition of class. The Democrats do not support this, hence are not socialists. At the very most, they would support a welfare state.

The only mainstream American politician approaching socialism on the federal level is Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who self-identifies as a democratic socialist, although he does caucus with the Democrats out of convenience.

Some Democrats, such as former Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich (notwithstanding his swing to the right in recent years), may adhere to social democracy. Social democracy being a "middle-way" between democratic socialism and capitalism (the stuff you see in Scandinavia).

British Labour Party

Historically, the Labour Party were social democrats, or 'reformists', and Labour governments have made some lasting changes in terms of universal welfare, especially the founding of the National Health Service.

"New Labour" (Tony Blair etc.) were arguably conservatives in all but name, and indeed much has been said about the similarities between their policies and those of Thatcherism. Clause IV of the Labour Party's constitution, which expressed a long-term commitment to redistribution of wealth and common ownership of the means of production, was rewritten in 1994, under Blair's leadership, as a more vague expression of striving for equality, causing some internal conflict and outrage from "Old Labour" socialist members of the party. In 2015, many social democrats won Labour Party contests, signaling a return to the left; there was only one actual socialist who was elected to leadership, however, although being the leader of the party, he (Jeremy Corbyn) does have a lot more say in party policy. In the run-up to the 2017 General Election the party published a report entitled Alternative Models of Ownership which tried to envision economic and business models without traditional capitalists; even though it ran its most left-wing campaign in years, envisioning more state-run corporations, universal welfare programs and public services, the party stopped far short of actively railing against capitalism in general, and in fact tried to court some businesses over Brexit.

Notable proponents of socialist theories

• George Orwell; British author
• Nelson Mandela
• Jeremy Corbyn; British Labour party leader, considered hard-left by his party standards
• Bernie Sanders; (self proclaimed socialist, though often considered a social democrat)
• Albert Einstein; His socialist leanings best shown in his essay "Why Socialism?"; he notably had various conflicting attitudes towards the USSR throughout his life, supporting its goals and achievements but taking issue with the ways they were achieved.
• Eugene Debs
• Noam Chomsky
• Jean Jaurès
• Jean-Luc Mélenchon
• Olof Palme

See also

• Anarchism
• Communism
• Charles Fourier
• George Orwell
• Socialist Alliance
• Fun:Socialism with Biden characteristics