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Socialism is a mode of production[1] and transitional phase[2] between two other modes of production, capitalism and communism, characterized by workers' ownership of the means of production, achieved through the expropriation of the bourgeoisie by a dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialist economies are based on central economic planning, absence of the profit-motive and collectivization.
The scientific socialist definition of the term, as used by Marxist–Leninists, refers to a particular stage of historical development -- specifically the transitional state between the capitalist and communist modes of production (for this reason, it is also known as "the lower stage of communism", although it is generally considered distinct enough from communism to constitute its own separate mode of production).[3] However, the term "socialism" is often misused in broader left-wing discourse to denote public works, welfare programmes and/or small-scale forms of economic planning practiced by capitalist countries.
Among the first successful experiments in the scientific development of socialist economics was the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, when the the means of production were brought under social ownership, namely the land and agricultural economy was brought under the ownership of the state and expropriated from private landowners called kulaks.
Socialism can be summarized by the motto "From each according to their ability, to each according to their work."
Means of production
Industry
Socialist industry is highly concentrated and technically advanced and based on public ownership. Heavy industry is the basis of a socialist economy. Economic concentration is planned to benefit the entire population.[4]
Agriculture
Socialist agriculture organizes the scattered peasant economy into large-scale collective and state farms. It is highly mechanized and uses machinery such as tractors and grain harvesters.[4]
Contradictions
As socialism is a way of organizing society that lies somewhere between capitalism and communism, it naturally retains properties of both systems. This is due to the material reality of the world and, in short, that one cannot simply erase the past (capitalism and all that it built and led to) but must work with it when going through revolution. For example, the people that comprised the bourgeoisie in capitalism will still be alive and here in socialism, they are not going anywhere and the revolutionary state must decide what to do with them. The same goes for factories that were built under a capitalist framework (leading for example to highly specialised towns that were known for producing only steel and are now very poor due to the mass closing down of steel plants that happened in the Global North) : these are things that the revolutionary socialist state will inherit and have to work with.
Communism can be succinctly described as the complete abolishment of private property, which is specifically the means of production or, in other words, the tools, machines, resources and locations used to produce economically and socially relevant products. Under socialism private property is only partially abolished.
Personal property, items that are relevant to private usage, exists in socialism and communism.
In China, for example, the financial system, energy, oil, insurance, education and aerospace sectors are all under strong government control, with state-owned enterprises directing the majority of these sectors' resources and manpower in accordance with China's various 5-year plans. Through the guidance of China's vanguard party, China is steadily socializing its bourgeois elements.
At the same time, there are large privately-owned, capitalist enterprises, such as in the real estate industry. These are kept on a tight leash, preventing them from being able to turn their economic power into political power. Thus we see the characteristics of both. These two contradictory halves ebb and flow with the aggregate effect being a country whose socialist economy has grown 2-3 times faster than the capitalist USA for the past 30 years.
Library works
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- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch23.htm
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch02.htm
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R (1954). Political Economy: 'The Material Production Basis of Socialism'. [PDF] London: Lawrence & Wishart. [MIA]