Capitalism Vs. Socialism

Historical examples of socialist countries include the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. Today's examples include Venezuela, Cuba and China. Due to its practical challenges and poor track record, socialism is sometimes referred to as a utopian or “post-scarcity” system, although modern adherents believe it could work if properly implemented.

There is a vast difference between the economic systems of capitalism and socialism. While both are ways to govern a country’s market, they vary tremendously when looked at in depth. Capitalism is more effective and it encourages business growth and economic risk.

Although socialism may have better benefits, capitalism has it perks as well. Such as producers and consumers being able to own their own business. The upside of this is that no one other than the government can take the business away from the owner. This results in more rights for the owner. An example of improved rights of the owner could include the owner making their own regulations, deciding wages for employees, choosing how to insure their business, etc. Now the big picture that this focuses greater upon is that it greatly promotes self-interest, rather than government control.

Socialism is defined as a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production. Basically, the government is in control of all business in the country that adopts it as an economic strategy, in our case, The United States of America. Now when we dissect this idea of socialism we find that there are to thought processes behind it. Some truly believe that socialism could truly be the answer to the problems of our nation, both economically and morally. These people try to push socialist policies in hopes of helping the nation and they are doing so with the purest of intentions. However, there are also the people who completely understand what socialism leads to, and want nothing more than to gain while others

     Throughout history, there have been many systems developed in order to have a better society. Two of the most analyzed, and debated systems that have tired to change an economy for the best are communism, and capitalism. Communism, and capitalism have been compared on many levels, such as why they will or will not work, and which one works better. Throughout this essay I will concentrate on the differences, and similarities of how each operates, along with the benefits, and problems that each of them produces.

According to The Week a magazine company socialism is “Broadly, it's a political and economic system under which the means of production are owned by the community as a whole, with government ensuring the equitable distribution of wealth.” The philosophical assumptions of socialism begin with the Latin root which is sociare and means to combine or to share. Throughout the beginning years of socialism, egoism was harming the communities while people were promoting the competitiveness of jobs and money leaving the poor to become poorer and the rich to become richer. Thus, the gap between the wealthy and middle class to this day is larger than ever. With the idealism of socialism in place, it will reduce the gap between the middle class and the wealthy as the “profits” are shared more

It is considered to be the transitional phase between the capitalism and communism. Thus, you would find all communists advocating for socialism because it lays the foundations for communism. It advocates an egalitarian society where everyone shares equal wealth and power. There is a considerable disagreement over how the distribution should take place. Hence, socialism can be said to be between extreme capitalism and extreme communism with it being nearer to communism.

In the United States, socialism is widely viewed as ‘bad word’, as an insult of sorts. There is no better example of this than in the last presidential election, when the right would routinely use the term to criticize president Obama and his peers. Despite the fact that many Americans still place a taboo on the term, socialist ideals such as universal healthcare, a merit based university system and stopping the greed of the upper class are becoming increasingly popular. Over the past few hundred years, capitalists have destroyed our planet and our people in search of a profit, and the need for change has never been greater than now. Thus, in order to guarantee fair treatment to all individuals and be able to live sustainably on

Socialism, according to Oxford Dictionaries, is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Everything produced will be equally shared among the people. Buying, currency, and selling would be eliminated from a socialist society.

Capitalism was a revolutionary idea born from the ideas and works of Adam Smith in the 18th century. It was an advancement to the ideologies of mercantilism* and feudalism*, however, despite being such an advancement, it still has many flaws. Of the main flaws of capitalism, there are three main ones that stand out. These are the allowance and promotion of worker exploitation, wealth inequality and strict social hierarchy, and degradation of natural resources. Thus, it is only necessary that we adapt and progress human society by adopting socialism, for as capitalism was an advancement from feudalism and mercantilism, socialism is the advancement from capitalism.

Socialism and communism are ideological principles that have many distinguishing features in addition to many shared characteristics; however, it is complicated to distinguish the accurate differences between them, as various societies have tried embarking on the dissimilar nature of both systems in innumerable forms, thereby, making many zealous supporter of ideology with different agendas defining both systems in a biased term.

If done right, socialism could be an effective form of government. In the past when socialism has been attempted it ends up being like a communism.

In seeking to highlight the key differences between socialism and capitalism, it would be prudent to first offer a concise definition of the two terms. Capitalism in the words of Brinkerhoff, White, Ortega, and Weitz (2007) "is the economic system in which most wealth (land, capital, and labor) is private property, to be used by its owners to maximize their own gain." As the authors in this case further point out, this particular economic system is largely founded on competition. Socialism on the other hand is defined as "an economic structure in which productive tools are owned and managed by the workers and used for the collective good" (Brinkerhoff et al., 2007). From the definitions, it is clear that unlike capitalism, socialism favors a situation whereby there is deliberate control as well as planning of economic activities on behalf of the entire community. In the case of capitalism, no attempt is made to have economic activities controlled from a central point on behalf of the community. Here, enterprises are allowed to compete in the supply of goods and services as they seek to rake in monetary returns. The key

Socialism has shown in the statistics that it works better than all of the other

Unlike socialism, communism cannot work in a capitalist society. It requires and authoritarian party who makes the decisions for the majority. In theory, communism seems to have the potential to be successful; it promotes equal rights and equal opportunity. However, true communism has yet to be successfully implemented.