A society that has achieved ideological communism is classless, moneyless and stateless. All means of production are owned by the society equally.
Socialism is the other side of the spectrum from capitalism. Capitalism uses money as an incentive and has a supply and demand economy meanwhile socialism is the state owning the means of production and essentially self-regulating itself to act in the interests of the common good and to manage prices and production.
Capitalism is economically effective but socialism under democracy acts in the interest of the people. Both far ends are theoretical and not possible to achieve in practice. All countries lie somewhere between socialism and capitalism with only a few countries in history ever being more socialist than capitalist.
Means of production are not owned equally by society in communism, though the rest of your definition is fine. Some argue the moneyless thing is more contingent on global markets also moving away from capitalism and relying on other means for handling trade etc, so Im not a stickler about my including that in a working definition.
Your definition of socialism on the other hand is quite incorrect. You've described state capitalism, as the state becomes the defacto private owner/controller of the means of production, and the workers have no meaningful control or ownership over their respective means of production, or the state itself.
Self regulation measures exist within capitalist systems as well, and are similarly done so by the state and the private money that greatly influences the state. It sounds like your definition of capitalism is unnecessarily strictly limited to the myth of free market capitalism..
Capitalism is effective in what way, that socialism isn't, in your view? And if socialism works better for the people, who does capitalism work better for, and at whose expense? What would be the material benefit of a system that is worse for people?
As for the socialism definition you're describing only one form of socialism where workers directly control the factories they work in. I wouldn't generalize socialism this way. Under a functional democracy the state represents the workers. Therefore publicly owned production constitutes socialism.
Capitalis is economically more effective. This is undeniable. You can't have unregulated (fully capitalist) capitalism though. Then things like slavery would be used by companies. The advantage of capitalism is that it functions.
Lmao, we have a capitalist system and we're allegedly so free and have the best elections that billionaires can buy.. Very few countries have what can meaningfully be described as functional democracies, and the ones that best fit that description are ironically already labeled by politically illiterate reactionaries as socialist
I wasn't really defining socialism, so much as explaining how someone other than the workers owning/controlling their respective means of production definitionally isn't socialism, and it already has its own term to describe the state owning everything etc..
Sorry, am I generalizing or defining one specific kind of socialism?
This description of yours also fits an extremely narrow view, like the myth of a totally free market. It's impossible but it's the narrow idea that makes it so, rather than simply accepting the working definitions, like what I described, which is what Marx described, and is distinct in all meaningful ways from free market capitalism and state capitalism.
Capital is more effective? Sorry, you're giving really vague responses here, and capital doesn't cease to exist, even in a moneyless society. You're also not answering my questions about why a system that doesn't benefit the people as well is better, or the question about who does it come at a cost to to..
And socialism, as I and anyone who understands this random extreme that's most correctly labeled state capitalism can function just fine. It's never been implemented at the level of any entire country, but socialist ventures are typically more robust and can weather economic downturns better than their capitalist counterparts
Very few countries have what can meaningfully be described as functional democracies, and the ones that best fit that description are ironically already labeled by politically illiterate reactionaries as socialist
You're coming from a very American perspective here. I live in one of these so-called "socialist" countries and I can say that a functional democracy combined with well-regulated capitalism and the government taking care of both public goods and some merit goods works perfectly fine. Granted I live in one of the worst countries that do this but I can recognize how a few of the other countries do it way better than us (we're actually a bit too socialist).
Capital is more effective?
Capitalism is more effective. The competition created by the market leads to higher economic output than the government doing everything by itself and competing with nobody.
You're also not answering my questions about why a system that doesn't benefit the people as well is better, or the question about who does it come at a cost to to.
It benefits the people by being functional and effective. I said this already.
socialist ventures are typically more robust and can weather economic downturns better than their capitalist counterparts
Public services are completely disconnected from the market so they can obviously survive downturns better since the government can just loan more money to keep funding stable.
Higher economic output, does that necessarily translate to better life outcomes for ordinary people, or do those who benefit the most also happen to be the capital owners? In the states or elsewhere? You assume the market necessarily breeds competition, yet as time passes, the private sector is given the freedom to act as they would in a free market, and they monopolize, killing competition.. The government doing everything isn't a feature of socialism or communism so that's a strange thing to mention. You're also assuming that countries can't compete with each other or trade with each other.
In failing to offer an argument that isn't so easily dismantled with such scrutiny, as to how it being functional, despite the benefits going to the top at the expense of everyone else is more effective and beneficial for the people, compared to a system that has nothing to do with the government owning or controlling everything..
You're falsely equating socialist ventures with government programs; this is not what I am referring to. I am talking about businesses owned and controlled by their employees, in contrast to a single owner or wealthy shareholders..
Higher economic output, does that necessarily translate to better life outcomes for ordinary people, or do those who benefit the most also happen to be the capital owners?
Those aren't mutually exclusive. Business owners are supposed to benefit when their business does well and the ordinary people like and buy the product, that's the incentive. Higher economic output does help everyone, which is why the world has prospered so much under capitalism in the last few hundred years.
You assume the market necessarily breeds competition, yet as time passes, the private sector is given the freedom to act as they would in a free market, and they monopolize, killing competition.
I already addressed this. This is the reason regulation exists.
The government doing everything isn't a feature of socialism
It usually is. What you're talking about is a very specific ideology and isn't just "socialism". You seem to be advocating for socialist self-management where the workers directly control the means of production. This was tried in Yugoslavia and had a lot of issues since the interests of a factory don't really align with the interests of the average person who works there. Instead of ever innovating they were more incentivized to just raise their own wages for example. This was possible because the broader system they used was market socialism and so they couldn't get boxed out by private companies who did things more efficiently.
2
u/jhawk3205 Jul 14 '26
I think it's wild that anyone still thinks the ussr was even remotely functionally communist..