Abstract:

This chapter describes the basic difference of socialism and communism. Socialism is a complex
ideology with numerous variants that are often strongly opposed to each other on one or more
central questions or issues. Variants of socialism and communism have converged with other
classical ideologies (such as liberalism) in their beliefs and values, yet other variants have
remained vehemently opposed to much within communism. The chapter first provides a brief
historical background on socialism and communism before discussing the key beliefs, values, and
difference between socialism and communism. In particular, it looks at socialism's critique of
industrial capitalism and its vision of the good society, along with its conception of human nature,
community, and freedom. Finally, it assesses the historical, contemporary, and future impact of
socialism and communism.

1. Introduction:

Political philosophies are the ideals that help us to understand the reasons for the actions taken
up by the people in a particular course of time, which impacted the global political setup. The
great political thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, Karl Marx, Hobbes, Locke, etc. have propounded
various political theories or philosophies. Indian political thinkers from Chanakya to Ambedkar
have shaped the political arena of the modern world as we see it today.

Political philosophy is concerned with the concepts and arguments involved in political opinion.
Many types of political ideologies have taken shape over hundreds out of which we will be
discussing three philosophies that have played significant roles in the modern world- communism,
socialism, and capitalism. Communism and socialism are political and economic systems that are
related but often confused with each other. Both of them reject capitalism in favor of greater
equality and granting economic power to the working class.

2. Socialism:

Socialism is a political and economic ideology that believes in the public ownership of means of
production and distribution based on a plan formulated by a central authority. In socialism, the
class that produces the wealth can jointly decide how it will be used for the benefit of all. Real
socialism is characterized as democratic and it is economic as well as political. Socialism
encompasses a broader spectrum of political beliefs but shares communism's emphasis on a fair
(if not necessarily equal) distribution of wealth among citizens, as well as public ownership of the
means of production (though not necessarily all of them). In that sense, socialist programs and
policies can exist alongside capitalism in a society, which is less likely in a true communist system.
Socialists may or may not see a communist system as their end goal.

The main features of socialism are:

 Public ownership
 Central planning
 Definite socio-economic objectives
 Freedom of consumption
 Equal income distribution
 Regulated pricing process

3.1History of Socialism:

Like Marxism, modern socialism arose in the 19th century in response to the Industrial Revolution
and what many perceived to be the excesses of capitalism. Instead of the individualism encouraged
by a capitalist system, it emphasized the "collective good," or collectivism. It grew out of ideas
about redistribution of wealth that developed during the Enlightenment and revolutionary
movements of the 18th century.

Another major difference between socialism and communism was that socialism generally
advocated a more gradual, even voluntary transfer of power from the wealthy to the working class.
Among its leading proponents on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean was Robert Owen, himself a
prosperous, Welsh-born owner of textile mills.

Some early socialists, including Owen, often referred to as utopian socialists, created communities
based on shared property in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States. Similar ideas influenced
the Shakers, a Quaker sect formed in England that established settlements throughout the eastern
and Midwestern U.S. starting in the late 18th century. Following Marx and Engels’ articulation of
communist principles in 1848, the socialist movement split into two broad factions. Adherents who
still called themselves socialists maintained their gradualist approach, while communists urged
more aggressive action. From the 19th century on, socialist principles have had an influence on
public policy in Great Britain, France, and other countries—in particular through laws aimed at
protecting workers' rights, including the right to form trade unions and bargain collectively.

Social democracy is a strain of socialism that allows capitalism to exist but attempts to rein in its
excesses through regulation while also addressing inequality through government-run social
programs. It gained ground after World War II, in part as a response to the economic failures and
brutal governance of the Stalin-era Soviet Union. Countries such as Denmark, Finland, Norway,
and Sweden are examples of social democracies, run according to what is called the Nordic model.
Many social welfare programs in the United States and elsewhere might also be seen as social
democratic initiatives. Countries that combine both socialism and capitalism in this way are
sometimes referred to as having mixed economies. In some countries where socialism has not
taken hold as the official form of government, political parties such as the Social Democratic Party
of Germany and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom exert large influence.

3.2 Types of socialism:

Democratic Socialism promotes the principles of Socialism as an economic principle which

signifies that the means of production should be in the hands of ordinary working people and
equality as a governing principle.

Marxian socialism denotes a particular historical phase of financial development and its
corresponding set of social relations that ultimately overtake capitalism in the plan of historical
materialism. From this perspective, socialism is described as a mode of production where the
principle for production is use-value, where production for use is coordinated through conscious
economic planning and the law of value no longer directs economic activity.

Revolutionary Socialism supports the need for essential social change through revolution or
revolution instead of gradual reform as a strategy to attain a socialist society.

Utopian Socialism describes the first streams of modern socialist thought in the first quarter of
the 19th Century. It was used by later socialist thinkers to define early socialist, or quasi-socialist,
intellectuals who created hypothetical visions of perfect egalitarian and communalist societies
without actually concerning themselves with how these societies could be created or sustained.
Market Socialism is a type of an economic system in which there is a market economy directed
and guided by socialist developers, and where prices would be set through trial and error rather
than relying on a free price tool.

Eco-Socialism is a philosophy that combines aspects of Marxism, Socialism, Green politics,

ecology, and the anti-globalization movement. They focus on collective ownership of the means
of production, to alleviate the social barring, poverty, and environmental deprivation brought about
by the capitalist system, globalization, and colonialism.

4. Communism:

At its most basic, communism is a philosophy based on the equitable distribution of wealth among
a nation's citizens and common ownership of all property. In particular, it called for the control of
the means of production, such as manufacturing and agriculture, by the working class, or
proletariat. Its ultimate goal was achieving a classless society, at which point the state (or
government) would "wither away." In layman’s terms, communism is the political system in which
the community owns and controls entities like factories, farms, services, etc. intending to treat
everyone equally. Communism is based on the goal of eliminating socioeconomic class struggles
by creating a classless and stateless society in which everyone shares the benefits of labour and
the community controls all property and wealth.

4.1 History of Communism:

Communism in today’s sense dates to the 19th century, particularly with the publication, in 1848,
of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The philosophy they laid out is
often referred to as Marxism.

"The basic thought running through the Manifesto," Engels wrote in a preface, was that "all history
has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between exploited and exploiting, between
dominated and dominating classes at various stages of social evolution; that this struggle, however,
has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer
emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the
same time forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression, class struggles..."
Engels dismissed socialism as a middle-class movement led by "social quacks who, by all manner
of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social
grievances." Communism, by contrast, was a working-class movement aimed at a total dismantling
of the power structure. Marx and Engels traced the inequality of their day to the Industrial
Revolution that began in the 18th century, arguing that the mechanization of production had
exacerbated social inequality, dividing society into two classes: those who owned the means of
production and possessed wealth (the bourgeoisie) and the workers who were at their economic
mercy (the proletariat). To address the problem, they prescribed a system in which the workers
themselves "take the control of industry and of all branches of production," along with the abolition
of private property and "the communal ownership of goods."

4.2 Types of communism:

Marxism is a perspective that involves several differing “sub-perspectives” that is, whilst there
tends to be a general agreement about the need to construct a critique of Capitalist society, there
are major differences between theorists working within this viewpoint.

Marxism-Leninism is the Communist philosophical field that emerged amongst Communist

parties in the 1920s during the era of Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953), with whom it is mainly
associated. The philosophy of Leninism was built upon and extended the ideas of Marxism, and
served as the theoretical foundation for the ideology of Soviet Communism after the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet Union.

Stalinism is a more judgmental phrase for Joseph Stalin’s vision of Communism. Supporters of
this ideology argue that it includes widespread use of publicity to establish a personality cult
around an absolute ruler, as well as extensive use of secret police to maintain social proposals and
silence political opposition, all of which are trappings of totalitarianism.

Trotskyism is the philosophical model of Marxism that was supported by Leon Trotsky (1879 –
1940), who considered himself a conformist Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist and squabbled for the
establishment of a frontline party. His politics concerning support for an international proletarian
revolution and firm support for a true dictatorship.

Luxemburgism is a theoretical model under Communism, which is based on the texts of Rosa
Luxemburg (1870 – 1919). Her politics deviated from those of Lenin and Trotsky mainly in her
discrepancy with their concept of “democratic centralism”, which she visualized as unsatisfactorily
democratic. Luxemburgism looks like Anarchism in its averting of an authoritarian society by
relying on the people themselves as opposed to their leaders.

5. Difference between Communism & Socialism:

In both communism and socialism, the people own the factors of economic production. The main
difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and
controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, all citizens share equally
in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government. This difference and
others are outlined in the table below.

Communism vs. Socialism

Attribute Communism Socialism
Basic From each according to his ability, From each according to his ability,
Philosophy to each according to his needs. to each according to his contribution.

Economy Central government Central government

Planned By

Ownership of All economic resources are Individuals own personal property but
Economic publicly owned and controlled by all industrial and production capacity
Resources the government. Individuals hold is communally owned and managed by
no personal property or assets. a democratically elected government.
Distribution of Production is intended to meet Production is intended to meet
Economic All basic human needs and individual and societal needs
Production is distributed to the people at and distributed according to
no charge. individual ability and contribution.

Class Class is abolished. The ability to Classes exist but differences

Distinction earn more than other workers is are diminished. It is possible for
almost nonexistent. some people to earn more than others.
 Communism vs. Socialism
Religion Religion is effectively abolished. Freedom of religion is allowed.

Similarities: Communism and socialism both grew out of grass-roots opposition to the
exploitation of workers by wealthy businesses during the Industrial Revolution. Both assume that
all goods and services will be produced by government-controlled institutions or collective
organizations rather than by privately-owned businesses. In addition, the central government is
mainly responsible for all aspects of economic planning, including matters of supply and demand.

Differences: Under communism, the people are compensated or provided for based on their needs.
In a pure communist society, the government provides most or all food, clothing, housing and
other necessities based on what it considers to be the needs of the people. Socialism is based on
the premise the people will be compensated based on their level of individual contribution to the
economy. Effort and innovation are thus rewarded under socialism.

6. Socialism vs. Communism in Marxist Thought:

Both socialism and communism are forms of post-capitalism. Both feature social rather than
private ownership of the means of production. Both, within Marxist orthodoxy, reject market
production for profit in favor of planned production for use. But beyond these important
similarities lie significant differences. In the Critique of the Gotha Progam, Marx’s fullest
discussion of these matters, he divides post-capitalism into two parts, a “lower phase” (later called
“socialism” by followers of Marx) and a “higher phase” (communism). The lower phase follows
immediately on the heels of capitalism, and so resembles it in certain ways. As Marx memorably
puts this point, socialism is “in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually still
stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges” (Critique of the
Gotha Program 614). These capitalist “birth marks” include:

 Material scarcity: Like capitalism, socialism does not overcome scarcity. Under socialism, the
social surplus increases, but it is not yet sufficiently large to cover all competing claims.
 The state: Socialism transforms the state but does not do away with it. What was a “dictatorship
of the bourgeoisie” under capitalism becomes a “dictatorship of the proletariat” under socialism:
a state controlled by and for the working class. Workers must seize the state and use it to
implement, deepen, and secure the socialist transformation of society.
 The division of labor: Socialism, like capitalism, will feature occupational specialization.
Having developed under capitalist educational and cultural institutions, most people were
socialized to fit narrow, undemanding productive roles. They are not, therefore, “all around
individuals” capable of performing a wide variety of complex productive tasks.
 Finally, under socialism (many) people will retain certain capitalist attitudes about production
and distribution. For example, they expect compensation to vary with contribution. Since
contributions will differ, so too will rewards, leading to unequal standards of living. Turning
from distribution to production, many socialist producers will, like their capitalist predecessors,
regard work as merely a “means to life” rather than “life’s prime want”.

So in all of these ways, the “lower phase” of post-capitalism resembles its capitalist predecessor.
Over time, however, these capitalist “birth marks” fade, all traces of bourgeois attitudes and
institutions vanish, and humanity finally achieves the “higher phase” of post-capitalist society, full
communism. Marx never answered about full communism in detail—and indeed, he disparaged
as utopian those socialists who focused excessively on “drawing up recipes for the kitchens of the
future”—but from his brief remarks about communist society certain broad outlines can be
discerned. Marx makes all of the following claims about communism in Critique of the Gotha
Program:

 It has done away with the division of labor, especially that between mental and physical labor;

 Attitudes towards work have changed (perhaps in part because work itself has changed).
Communist producers regard work as both instrumentally and intrinsically valuable: they see
work not merely as a means to life, but also as “life’s prime want”;

 Human beings themselves have changed under communism, becoming “all-around”, highly
developed individuals (rather than the stunted, one-sided creatures that so many of them were
under capitalism and perhaps even under socialism);
 Material scarcity has been eliminated or at least greatly attenuated, as “the productive forces
have increased” and thus “all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly”;

 As a result of all these changes, communist society is able to conform to the famous principle:
from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs—thus severing the link
(found in communism’s “lower phase”) between contribution and reward.

Not only will communism (unlike socialism) do away with class, material scarcity, and
occupational specialization, it will also do away with the state. As noted above, the state begins to
wither away under socialism. In sum, within Marxist theory socialism and communism are very
different indeed. Although both eradicate private property and profits, only the latter also
eliminates the division of labor, the state, material scarcity, and perhaps even conflict itself. It is
only under communism that mankind completes its ascendance from the “kingdom of necessity”
into the “kingdom of freedom” (Engels 95).

7. Effects of Communism & Socialism on Society:

Effect of socialism on society:

 Creates a welfare society where all the basic needs of people (food, clothes, and shelter) are
fulfilled by the State at very affordable prices.
 Providing employment is the State’s responsibility based on capabilities, education, and skills.
 All the profits go to the State, which utilizes them for the well-being of the society by providing
them with free education, improving public health amenities, ensuring social security, etc.
 Establishes the supremacy of the State, which may lead to authoritarianism.
 Lack of check and balance in the bureaucracy leads to increased corruption in society.
 People lack the fundamental right of freedom to choose what they want to consume and what
and where they want to work.
 Socialism demeans their ability to grow economically in careers as people do not work for
personal growth but under the fear of the State.
Effect of communism on society:

 The philosophy of communism supports a society without rulers, but until it is achieved all the
power will lie with the dictator government, which will lead to oppression. For example, the
Rule of Hitler and the event of the holocaust during world war II.
 In communist nations, the difference between the official claims and societal realities is
different. The dictator government controls the information and every sort of communication
channel that cut-offs the society from the outer world.

8. Conclusion:

Consequently, we can say that socialism is an indispensable stage between capitalism and
communism. Socialism stage is a transition stage for transition to the perfect stage (communism).
Even though capitalism will not be traced in communism it will be traced in socialism. The
resistance of the capitalist will be completely broken in communism. In socialism, inequality of
distribution will still exist. It will continue by reaching communism. In socialism, state is needed
by the proletariat; however, it is not needed in communism. In communism, products will be
delivered according to people’s needs instead of their ability. In communism, society will get rid
of from traditions and traces of capitalism completely. Besides, communist society is classless
society. Moreover, there will be freedom in communist society because there will not be state in
communist society.

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Cam, T., Kayaoglu, M. (2015). Marx’s distinction between socialism and communism. International
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Ranjan, R. (2023). Political Philosophies: Communism, Capitalism, Socialism. The Times of India.

Longley, R. (2022). The Differences Between Communism and Socialism. www.thoughtco. com