What is socialism?

[WorkingClassZero]

Firstly, apologies as I'm sure you get this question all the time..

Could you please explain in the most simple form, I'm very new to politics so a sort of 'socialism for dummies' definition would be good.

Thanks!

[Blake's Baby]

The answer you get depends on who you ask, as different people define it differently.

I started a thread about this recently, with a poll to find out what proportions of people here use which definition. http://www.revleft.com/vb/socialismi-t183513/index.html?p=2674174#post2674174

At the moment it's running at

> 40% use the definition 'identical with communism - a free access classless communal society'

> 20% use the definition 'the lower stage of communism - classless and communal but not a free-access society'

> 20% use the definition 'the dictatorship of the proletariat - a class society under the control of the working class'

> 10% use a different definition.

I'm in the first camp (because I'm a Marxist, I use Marx's definition).

[GiantMonkeyMan]

As Blake's Baby points out, the term socialism has come to mean different things but underlying all of the uses is the idea that, in capitalism, the workers have no control over their lives or the value they create through labour and it's only by achieving socialism that the vast majority of humanity, the working class, will finally have some measure of control over their own lives and the ways they work.

[tuwix]

Firstly, apologies as I'm sure you get this question all the time..

Could you please explain in the most simple form, I'm very new to politics so a sort of 'socialism for dummies' definition would be good.

Thanks!

The word of socialism has its orgins in Latin word 'societas' meaning society. It's the political system where people rules.

[Blake's Baby]

Sadly that just begs the question 'what does societas mean?'

It's related 'socii', which means allies, and must refer to the idea that human groups co-operate or unite.

[Zukunftsmusik]

The word of socialism has its orgins in Latin word 'societas' meaning society. It's the political system where people rules.

Again, tuwix, the word today has less to with its latin origin and more to do with the workers' self-emancipation.

In what society has not (a segment, class of) people ruled?

[tuwix]

Again, tuwix, the word today has less to with its latin origin and more to do with the workers' self-emancipation.

In what society has not (a segment, class of) people ruled?

I use here a special meaning of word people. I use it in meaning equivalent of Spanish 'pueblo' which means rather lower classes than elites. In English language it is, in fact, pretty confusing.

And meaning of word 'socialism" was deeply distorted by bourgeois media too. Now Obama according to them is socialist too.

[Zukunftsmusik]

And meaning of word 'socialism" was deeply distorted by bourgeois media too. Now Obama according to them is socialist too.

Of course, but there is undeniably a more important change in its meaning with the transition to capitalist society that has more to do with class relations and class struggle than what socialism means originally in latin.

[Loony Le Fist]

I see socialism as a society that is in the transition period to full communism. Communism to me is a state where surplus value has been eliminated or minimized to the greatest extent possible.

[Thirsty Crow]

I see socialism as a society that is in the transition period to full communism. Communism to me is a state where surplus value has been eliminated or minimized to the greatest extent possible.
You really can't minimize the scope of the production of surplus value - as value is the term describing the social form which the surplus product take historically, which also implies definite forms of subjugation and exploitation of labor. Basically, for value to exist as the social form of the product and labor (which is, again, different from form of rationing of those parts of the total social product which cannot be produced in sufficient quantities because of one reason or another), you need to have it generalized.

[reb]

Socialism, to a marxist, is communism. It is the movement towards the abolishing of the present state of things. It is not a set of policies to be adopted and implemented. The people who are presenting the idea that socialism is some how different from capitalism and communism are putting forward a non-marxist idea and dressing it up as marxism. What they are in fact doing is presenting us a utopian idea of what socialism is. Socialism is now, for them, just a matter of policies instead of being a process that occurs within the contradictions of capital leading to the negation of capital. Instead of socialism/communism being the immediate result of the negation of capital, they present to us this nothingness which is neither capitalism nor communism, a state that does not fit in with marxist theory or marxist ideas at all. Socialism is something to be be built for them. The historical origins of such an idea should be obvious. Another obvious facet of this is that it also introduces idealism in the shape of revisionism aka, some people in charge are now able to turn back history and modes of production by different policy choices.

[ckaihatsu]

I see socialism as a society that is in the transition period to full communism. Communism to me is a state where surplus value has been eliminated or minimized to the greatest extent possible.


I'll piggyback on what LR is saying and note that 'surplus labor value' is called 'surplus' because of its distinction from 'socially necessary labor' and 'dead labor value'.

So, in other words, whatever value is not 'socially necessary' -- that which allows the labor force to maintain and reproduce itself (including in cultural ways) -- is value that is either used for fixed investments ('constant capital'), or else it is then necessarily 'surplus value'.

Therefore 'surplus labor value' *requires* a commodification of labor value, as we see with capitalism today. Since commodity-exchange is *antithetical* to the definition of 'communism', it would be impossible to have *any* 'surplus value' -- even a "minimal" amount -- within the context of communism.

Communism is about collectivizing all materials and material processes so that *all* labor is 'socially necessary' and nothing else.


[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit

http://s6.postimage.org/c0b0m6i25/23_A_Business_Perspective_on_the_Declining_Rat.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/c0b0m6i25/)

[aty]

I think there is a very simple answer to this question, socialism is the working class control over the means of production.
That control can come in many different ways, but socialism is when the working class gain more control over them.

Socialism is not communism. In practice you can have workers cooperatives controlling means of production and therefore have some kind of socialism. Some as the marxist-leninist would even say that if the "workers state" controls the means of production it is socialism because the state represent the workers...

But neither of those are communism as communism have abolished commodity production, wage labor, the state and all classes.

[tuwix]

Of course, but there is undeniably a more important change in its meaning with the transition to capitalist society that has more to do with class relations and class struggle than what socialism means originally in latin.

But I'm not sure you understand why is so and how it happened.

Socialism started to be regarded as system having to do with class struggle due to assumption (very true one IMHO) that if society as whole gets power, the upper classes must give up their riches. The assumption is based on that it would be one of first reforms done by society as whole containing lower classes as its major part and I remind that this society is root of term 'socialism'.

And from it distortion begined. And I must critisize Marx here because he confused communism and socialism. He used these terms as one. And it is know utilized by bourgeois media too. Lenin in his theoritical research noticed this confusion and separated those terms, but has started calling his own system a socialism which wasn't according not only to Marx but to orginal meaning of word. And with Stalin distortion has gone further. Certainly, bourgeois press has been amplifiing that calling anyone who has left-wing idea a socialist or communist.

And what is difference between socialism and communism IMO?
Socialism is just rule by societty which can be called the DotP. And if power is done too lowe classes, the expropiation will be done for sure. But it won't abolish a (state or private) property by itself and it is possoble that the DotP will maintain some forms of property that isn't only personal one. But communism when everything is common demands that. And there lies a distinction.

[Thirsty Crow]

And I must critisize Marx here because he confused communism and socialism. He used these terms as one.
This is preposterous.
Of course Marx used the terms as one since he didn't envision a mode of production which would be an intermediary between capitalism and communism. And he was quite right in this since a society that is undergoing a radical transformation cannot be said to be based on a stable mode of production. Therefore, the idea of socialist commodity production (which can serve as the basis for that intermediary society) and the separation between socialism and communism arises from the theoretical confusion about the concept of the mode of production (among other sources of this confusion, of course).