Socialism refers to a broad array of movements which aim to improve society through collective action and to a
socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.
[1] This control may be either direct—exercised through popular collectives such as
workers' councils—or indirect—exercised on behalf of the people by the state. As an
economic system, socialism is often characterized by
state or worker ownership of the
means of production.
The modern socialist movement had its origin largely in the working class movement of the 19th century. The
Industrial Revolution had brought many economic and social changes. Factory owners became very wealthy, while long hours and impoverishment faced the factory workers.
[2]. Socialists criticised the suffering and injustices resulting from the concentration of property in the hands of the capitalist class.
Socialists have differed in their vision of socialism as a system of economic organization. Some socialists have championed the complete
nationalization of the means of production, while
social democrats have proposed selective nationalization of key industries within the framework of
mixed economies. Some argued that the 1945 post-
war socialist governments had abolished capitalism and that socialism was the practice of socialist government,
[3] while others have supported nationalising the "commanding heights" of the economy under democractic workers' control.
[4]
Some
Marxists, including those inspired by the
Soviet model of economic development, have advocated the creation of
centrally planned economies directed by a state that owns all the means of production. Others, including Communists in
Yugoslavia in the 1960s and
Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s,
Chinese Communists since the
reform era, and some Western economists, have proposed various forms of
market socialism, attempting to reconcile cooperative or state ownership of the means of production with
market forces, which guide
production and
exchange in place of central planners.
[5]
Anarcho-syndicalists and some elements of the U.S.
New Left favor decentralized collective ownership in the form of
cooperatives or
workers' councils. Others may advocate different arrangements.
The
Socialist International, the affiliate body for most of the world's social democratic parties, such as the
Socialist Party of France, describes socialism as "an international movement for freedom, social justice and solidarity"
[6]
Socialism: A Discussion
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