Socialism: What It Means

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Socialism: What It Means Socialism needs to be clearly defined because the meaning of socialism gets confused with many other different classes of economic systems. The main mistake people make about socialism is that people confuse it with communism. Some people even think it is part of a capitalistic form of economics. “The origins of socialism as a political movement lie in the Industrial Revolution. Its intellectual roots, however, reach back almost as far as recorded thought—even as far as Moses, according to one history of the subject”(P.5), was stated by Richard Dagger and Terence Ball in their article on Britannica.com about the origins of socialism. Socialism is an economic system where the means of production, distribution, and …show more content…
Similar systems that can be grouped with socialism are capitalism, communism, Feudalism, and mercantilism. One way these economic systems are alike is that they all have something to do with how economies are regulated. Capitalism has individuals owning the businesses resources, socialism has the community, or state, owning the businesses resources, feudalism, which was part of medieval times, was nobles holding land for the king, and mercantilism was the federal government regulating international trade for profits. Socialism is unique because it is in between capitalism and communism as far as how businesses and the economy are run. In a socialist economy the means of production is controlled by the community, such as the state, instead of an individual, which means the state has a little more control over what is produced and how much of that product is produced, and what the product is made of. The state has more control over how the product is distributed, which means that the state could decide who transports the product and how, which could save the state money by choosing a company that they favor and could cut the state deals. The state could also decide if the product is transported by truck, plane, train, or boat. The state would also have a little more control of where these products can be purchased, and whether it is a retailer or just in a general …show more content…
Communism destroys competition by creating a monopoly of businesses, and the drive to make money and buy anything and everything someone wants or needs disappears. With communism, the government makes the choice of who gets what job and no one gets to compete for anything and advance to higher positions. Socialism starts to remove the desire for accomplishments and high success rates because it eliminates competition which is what people need to become profitable and famous. With socialism, the government has a hand in more business decisions which can also destroy a business with poor decisions causing it to go bankrupt or raising the state’s debt by using a bailout to keep the business alive which would be another big disaster, but socialism does not control businesses and the people as much as communism because socialism still has the capitalist base with people still able to compete for some jobs and
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