Socialism

There are two ways of looking at socialism: as a stage on the way to communism or as a competing ideology in a democracy, i.e. competing against liberals and conservatives for your vote.

Either way, socialism is an ideology that accepts democracy, at least in the here and now. And socialism represents the working class and seeks to make capitalism fairer.

As far as the economy is concerned, socialism accepts capitalism to an extent but would favour what has been called a ‘mixed economy’. This is part-capitalist and part-socialist. Material goods like televisions, cars, houses (though we will return to these) will be produced for profit. Food, too, though there might be price controls. Whereas, things that are essential for life (as well as for the economy to run), for example electricity or water, would be nationalised.

Socially, socialism seeks to ensure a fairer distribution of rewards. For socialism there is too big a gap between the rich and the poor. It seeks to do this by taxing the rich more, the very rich much more, and redistributing their wealth by pumping money into education so that everyone has a fair start in life, and in health care, so that nobody is impoverished because of ill health. Welfare support is given in other ways too, for example unemployment insurance or old age pensions. Whilst public housing will provide good housing for those who cannot afford to buy their own home. In all this, community is seen as more important than the individual though there is still room for the individual to do better materially.