Socialism and communism both have publicly owned means of production, but differ in distribution of resources. Socialism allocates based on contribution, while communism allocates based on needs. Both aim to prevent negative effects of capitalism. Communism seeks statelessness and classlessness, while socialism sees capitalism as a stepping stone to the ideal state.
Socialism and communism are ideological doctrines that have many similarities and many differences. One point that is often made to distinguish socialism from communism is that socialism generally refers to an economic system and communism generally refers to both an economic system and a political system. The means of production are publicly owned in both systems, but the ways in which money and resources are distributed are different. In socialism, each person is allocated resources based on his or her contribution, or amount of work, and in communism, each person is allocated resources based on his or her needs. Many people consider communism a “superior” or more extreme form of socialism.
As an economic system, socialism seeks to manage the economy through deliberate and collective social control. Communism, however, seeks to manage both the economy and society by ensuring that property is collectively owned and that control over the distribution of resources is centralized to achieve both statelessness and classlessness. Under communism, all people are considered equal and are provided equally, regardless of their contributions to the economy or society. This is different from socialism, but both socialism and communism are similar in that they try to prevent many of the negative effects that are sometimes associated with capitalism, such as economic inequality.
Socialism and communism are based on the principle that the means of producing goods and providing services – such as all factories and businesses – should be publicly owned and controlled and planned by a centralized organization rather than being controlled by members of a small wealthy class of people. Socialists claim that rich people who own the means of production are able to exploit workers to make more money and become even richer, thereby increasing their power over workers. By eliminating private ownership of factories and businesses, socialists believe, workers can be paid more.
Another difference between socialism and communism is that communists claim that both capitalism and private ownership of the means of production must be done away with as soon as possible to ensure that a classless society is formed – the communist ideal. Socialists, however, typically see capitalism as a stepping stone to the ideal state and believe that socialism can develop out of a capitalist society. Indeed, one of the ideas of socialism is that everyone within society will benefit from capitalism as much as possible as long as capitalism is somehow controlled by a centralized planning system.
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