socialism
Socialism is a family of political ideas holding that land, factories and major industries should be owned or controlled by society as a whole, for fairer shares.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- In political theory: a set of doctrines that criticise the inequality produced by private ownership of the means of production and propose common, public or cooperative ownership in its place, together with planning or regulation of the economy for the benefit of all.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In politics: the programme and movement of parties that call themselves socialist, ranging from revolutionary groups to democratic parties that seek reform through elections and a strong welfare state.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In history: a social and economic system that a state describes as built on socialist principles, usually with state ownership of most industry and central economic planning.
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Examples
- The course compares the early socialism of Robert Owen with the later movements that grew up around trade unions.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Critics accused the government of creeping socialism after it took the railways into public ownership.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Her book argues that democratic socialism and a market economy can exist side by side.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In the nineteenth century, socialism was often a word of alarm in the newspapers and a word of hope in the factories.
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Usage
Socialism is one of the most disputed words in politics, so a reader should always ask which sense a writer has in mind. In the history of ideas it names a broad family of theories about property and fairness. In current affairs it may label a party programme, a set of policies such as public healthcare and higher taxes, or simply a political insult. Adding a qualifier such as democratic, utopian or state helps to avoid confusion.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Webster (1913) defines socialism as a theory or system of social reform that contemplates a complete reconstruction of society, with a more just and equitable distribution of property and labor. It adds that in popular usage the term was often employed for any lawless, revolutionary social scheme, and it points to communism, Fourierism and Saint-Simonianism as forms of socialism. A Britannica passage it quotes says the word was first applied in England to the theory of Robert Owen and in France to those of Saint-Simon and Fourier.
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Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceThe same Britannica passage observes that the word was used with a great variety of meaning, even by economists, and that people tended to call socialistic any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor. That remark still describes the word well. Today a measure such as a minimum wage or a public pension may be called socialist by its opponents, while many supporters of such measures would never use the label for themselves.
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Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceThe noun often goes with democratic, utopian, scientific, state, Christian and market, and people may embrace, preach, build or reject it. A supporter is a socialist, and the adjectives are socialist and socialistic. Socialism is usually contrasted with capitalism and, in debates about the role of the state, with liberalism and conservatism. It is often mentioned together with communism, but the words are not interchangeable: communism usually means a more radical programme aiming at the complete abolition of private property.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Word forms
Regular English noun, usually uncountable; the plural socialisms is rare and refers to different kinds or national versions of the doctrine.
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | socialism |
| plural | socialisms |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- democratic socialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - utopian socialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - state socialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Christian socialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - market socialism
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Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourcealso
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceRelated words
- socialist , noun for a supporter and adjective
- socialistic , adjective
- socialize , verb, in one sense to regulate by socialism
- social , base adjective
- society , noun from the same Latin root
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does socialism mean?
It is a family of ideas holding that the means of production should belong to society as a whole, with the goal of a fairer distribution of wealth and work; the word also names parties and states that claim those ideas.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)How did older dictionaries define socialism?
Webster (1913) calls it a theory or system of social reform aiming at a complete reconstruction of society and a more just distribution of property and labor, and notes that popular usage applied it to any lawless, revolutionary scheme.
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceWhere does the word socialism come from?
It comes from social plus the suffix -ism, and Webster compares it with French socialisme; Skeat traces social to Latin socialis, from socius, a companion.
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourceIs socialism the same as communism?
No. The two are related and often discussed together, but communism usually refers to a more radical programme of abolishing private property entirely, while socialism covers a much wider range, including democratic parties working within parliaments.