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Socialism
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Socialism is the view that the state is responsible for effecting an equitable distribution of wealth and for taking control of the means of production and distribution of resources in an economy. Extreme forms of this are commonly called [C]ommunism, though philosophers (particularly Marxist philosophers) reserve that to mean the final, stateless stage in the supposed progression of a socialist society. There are ... mixed governmental forms sometimes called socialism; while many who support these forms are happy being called socialists, others consider themselves to be, not socialists, but moderate capitalists. Communism is at one extreme, and at the other are those who wish to permit some amount of (moderately regulated) private enterprise and are called, for example in Germany, Social Democrats. Indeed, there have been dozens of different terms for different kinds of socialism.
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Socialism ... defined, what is the difference between socialism and modern American liberalism? The difference is rather profound, and lies in who owns the means of production. Liberals are capitalists, meaning they favor a system where private individuals can own productive wealth, choose their own management teams, and set their own industrial policy. Liberals would prevent business owners from abusing their powers through checks and balances like strong labor unions and democratic government regulations. Liberalism is a compromise between individual freedom and social responsibility: you can do what you want, as long as it's within the law.
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Socialism arose in the late 18th and early 19th cent. as a reaction to the economic and social changes associated with the Industrial Revolution. While rapid wealth came to the factory owners, the workers became increasingly impoverished. As this capitalist industrial system spread, reactions in the form of socialist thought increased proportionately. Although many thinkers in the past expressed ideas that were similar to later socialism, the first theorist who may properly be called socialist was François Noël Babeuf, who came to prominence during the French Revolution. Babeuf propounded the doctrine of class war between capital and labor later to be seen in Marxism.
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These main points in the history of Socialism lead up to an examination of its spirit and intention. The best idealism of earlier times was fixed upon the soul rather than upon the body: exactly the opposite is the case with Socialism. Social questions are almost entirely questions of the body -- public health, sanitation, housing, factory conditions, infant mortality, employment of women, hours of work, rates of wages, accidents, unemployment, pauperism, old age pensions, sickness, infirmity, lunacy, feeble-mindedness, intemperance, prostitution, physical deterioration. All these are excellent ends for activity in themselves, but all of them are mainly concerned with the care or cure of the body. To use a Catholic phrase, they are opportunities for corporal works of mercy, which may lack the spiritual intention that would make them Christian. The material may be made a means to the spiritual, but is not to be considered an end in itself.
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Under Socialism there would be a phenomenally more efficient system of rational planning and all land and tools are owned by the People. Every citizen has a responsibility to do their fair share of work and a right to have all the Benefits of Civilization as well as, of course, the Necessities of Life. Due to the overwhelming superiority of the new system to Capitalism all of these products would be in such abundance that every person would have everything they want, while only having to work for a relatively small proportion of their time.
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Socialism was invented in 1905 at half three in the morning by the comic Karl Marx. Marx was apparently seen downloading vodka porn with several notable drinking buddies, including Vladimir Nabokov, who was looking to pick up "biatches n hoes" as the official Socialist history states. (This event is memorialised in the Marx's introduction to 'The Communist Manifesto', which stated, 'Even in the dead of Russian winter, the young totty goes out in short skirts and little dresses. You've got to love it.') By 10p.m., the bar had been drunk dry. Enraged, Marx smashed an empty bottle on the table and used it to threaten the barman, asking, 'O, callous defender of the liquor, lined-face keeper of the drop, wherefore is our divine liquid?' Marx always talked a bit like that when he was wasted, so it's easy to see which bits of the Manifesto were written under the influence.
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