Socialism and COMMUNISM - words often used to drum up fear and hysteria among voters. Its historical ties to authoritarian government, combined with propaganda from the 1900s which continues to this day in the western world, leaves a bad mark in people's minds. What we need to understand is that socialism is not a government, nor is it free things, or Bill Gates owning your house, or gun control, or riots 24/7.
No, socialism is just an economic system. An idea, really. Capitalism alienates workers from each other and from their own labor to the point that the common person often gets the short end of the stick to feed an ever-growing living market with deadly stakes and consequences for the world. The concept of socialism is pretty simple: the people, all people, own commonly the means of production - tools, machines, factories, delivery mechanisms, etc which allow goods to be produced and transported.
In Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto, he lays out what he imagines as the eventual goal of socialism, where every human being is given what they need to survive and thrive with their own unique skills and abilities, and are expected to work back into society only as far as their abilities allow. This eventual end-goal world, he calls a communist one. The idea is to ultimately have no middle-man or alienation from other people, abolish money, simply working a few hours a week (whatever it may end up being) to keep everything functioning for the good of all, then doing whatever your heart draws you towards, sharing and using resources freely as needed, without pointless excess.
Some socialists consider themselves Libertarian Socialists. This form of socialism generally advocates for the achievement of common good through voluntary contracts and direct democracy. They reject the idea of a state, many of them feeling that it directly contradicts the goals of socialism. Lib-Socs would argue that human needs are most important and the market economy in capitalism only serves to coerce people into doing the wishes of the majority.
Watch this five-minute video if you'd like to learn more about Libertarian Socialism!
Free Market Socialism can be traced back to anarchist and socialist economists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French socialist, philosopher and economist, conceived of the Mutualism philosophy and is well-known for being the first to declare himself an "anarchist". Mutualism is a theory breaking down current systems of property, banking, renting and corporations, envisioning a decentralized market where people could enter with equal power and have full agency over their labor.
Its detractors argue that the market is still flawed, incentivizing the groups and individuals to make poor choices for the climate to compete with one another. Another weakness may be that the managers, democratically elected ones in theory, could still use their stations to gain higher education and over time pull back power towards themselves.
State Socialism advocates for democratic control of the means of production through the intermediary of a state. State Socialists often argue that the organization and resources of a state protect it from threats from outside and in during the transition period from capitalism to socialism or communism. Due to the nature of capitalism and money, socialist ideas of sharing resources equally are often met with heavy resistance, and state socialists advocate for what they believe to be the most effective way to potentially achieve functional socialism.
Marxism-Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union and remains a primary ideology in a few countries around the world. Leninists generally believe in a revolution led by a vanguard elite which rises to promote collectivism and pave the way for an eventual communist society. Where previous socialist thinkers tended to think communism could only be achieved as a global initiative, Leninists put forth the idea that they could reach communism within one country. Lenin wrote, "To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense."
Libertarian Socialists have problems with the ML way of looking at problems. Obviously, this vanguard elite spear-heading the theoretical movement could be in positions of relative power. What incentivizes them to give that up when the time comes to dissolve the state into their ultimate goal of communism? Surely some people would try to hold onto power. Would it be enough to upset the whole thing and bring us back to where we started, or worse? Libertarian Socialists are wary of any kind of hierarchies which place people above one another.
Marxist Leninists, however, have solutions for this problem. They speak of a theory called democratic centralism, in which members of the revolutionary movement are allowed to express their concerns freely until a consensus is reached, but once that consensus is reached, the individual members agree to hold that line regardless of their feelings. Leninists argue this creates a stronger revolution with less division and separation caused by external influences.
As you can see, communists and socialists are a varied bunch of people.
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