Difference between Marxism, Communism, and Socialism

[Simon_Jester]

This question started, for me, when I was composing a post in the "Christian Fundamentalists Caught Torturing Children To Death" thread. Samuel, talking about Stas Bush, said "He isn't a Marxist, he's a communist."

Now, I am not an expert on the history of socialism in general, communism in particular, or Marxism in even more particulate particular. So I'd like to hear other people's views on the differences between:

-Marxism and communism
-communism and socialism
-(any subtypes of socialism they're familiar with)

With any luck, we might even wind up with a thread that can be used for future reference, when foolish people come charging in without realizing that there are multiple types of socialism, or that not all communists are Marxists, or whatever.

[Teleros]

Briefly:

1. Marx wasn't the only socialist or communist thinker. There are other varieties beyond his work, including Christian and anarchist models of communism. More specifically, Marx was a scientific socialist, and believed that socialism would be both inevitable and a bottom-up revolution.

2. Socialism is a political / economic system whereby either the workers or the public in the form of the government controls various means of production and resources. As such a broad term implies, there are lots of different types. Generally, that control has to be exercised under socialism: whilst the USSR had a centrally planned economy, here in the UK Channel 4 is a commercially-funded, government-owned broadcaster, and generally not considered (at least, in my experience) an example of socialism.

3. Communism is what socialism is supposed by many (including Marx) to eventually lead to - a classless, stateless and oppression-free society of equals. Even Ayn Rand's Objectivism is more likely to work than this, which says it all really.

[PkbonupePeter_Kcos8]

Samuel, talking about Stas Bush, said "He isn't a Marxist, he's a communist."

As Teleros pointed out, Marx essentially was the original "Communist" where our modern understanding of the word is concerned. Saying that someone is not "Marxist, but Communist" strikes me as being something of an oxymoron.

It is a bit like saying, "he's not a Conservative, he's a Republican." Granted, there may be more than one variety of "Conservativism" and "Marxism" out there, but it is hardly a stretch to use the two words mostly interchangably.

EDIT:

Most Republicans would probably describe themseves as "Conservatives," just as most Communists would probably describe themselves as followers of Marx in at least some fashion. The distinction really isn't large enough in these cases to be relevant to any but the most nit-picky of observers.

[Akhlut]

Samuel, talking about Stas Bush, said "He isn't a Marxist, he's a communist."

As Teleros pointed out, Marx essentially was the original "Communist" where our modern understanding of the word is concerned. Saying that someone is not "Marxist, but Communist" strikes me as being something of an oxymoron.

Notice that it was a lowercase-c communist, not uppercase-c Communist. It's the difference between being a republican and being a Republican. One describes a legal system, the other a political party.

Edit: For clarification, that means one can have a political ideology of creating a stateless, classless society without private property without following any Marxist philosophy about to obtain said society.

[K. A. Pital]

There was a sufficiently good explanation of Marxism both as a theory and practice in the Coliseum debate with Knobhead.

How can one be a communist and not be a Marxist? Well, that's pretty simple. Marx had a solid method and some observations that he regarded as basic tenets, which laid the foundations of his communism. Some of these observations are contestable (e.g. falling profit margin, etc.) There are other varieties of communism which do not follow Marx's social or economic theories.

Communism is a classless society and the ideology of achieving such (which includes Marxism as a subset).

[Teebs]

This question started, for me, when I was composing a post in the "Christian Fundamentalists Caught Torturing Children To Death" thread. Samuel, talking about Stas Bush, said "He isn't a Marxist, he's a communist."

Now, I am not an expert on the history of socialism in general, communism in particular, or Marxism in even more particulate particular. So I'd like to hear other people's views on the differences between:

-Marxism and communism
-communism and socialism
-(any subtypes of socialism they're familiar with)

With any luck, we might even wind up with a thread that can be used for future reference, when foolish people come charging in without realizing that there are multiple types of socialism, or that not all communists are Marxists, or whatever.

Maxism is a subset of communism which is a subset of socialism.

Marxism is very spefically concerned with Marx's philosophy and follows the idea of a revolution taking place in industrialised societies. In academic terms it's normally used to refer to political/sociological analysis that focuses on class as the big factor in whatever is being studied.

Communism in practice came about in non-industrial societies which in itself is a deviation from the Marxist philosophy. Marxism also envisaged something closer to anarch-communism in a post-scarcity society if I remember correctly while the applications of communism in the real world have been over-arching state mechanisms with massive central planning of the economy.

Socialism can include communism but also includes much more mild forms of left wing government. Generally it can be defined as the idea that the state/people should own the means of production but this conceals a massive range of levels of state ownership. I'd struggle to call any first world country socialist, but the closest is probably somewhere like Sweden.

[Channel72]

Marx's seminal work, The Communist Manifesto is essentially the canonical description of a communist state, and so I would argue that Marxism and Communism can legitimately be used interchangeably, even if there are variant theories of Communism.

Socialism, on the other hand, really refers to a wide spectrum of theories and policies between Capitalism and Communism. Socialism is difficult to define precisely, and any particular definition of it usually incorporates biases of some sort. Generally, the more a government oversees, funds, or regulates resource allocation, the more likely it is to be labeled a Socialist government. Also, Socialists tend to be sympathetic to certain aspects of Marxist theory, particularly wealth/resource distribution.

[Einzige]

Quite honestly, I think it best to discard the notion that socialism is merely "State control of industry". While in many respects this is true, socialism is not the only political ideology which advocates such; conservative notions such as mercantilism or the "American System" pursued by the early followers of Alexander Hamilton also propose such measures, and not for the ends advocated by socialists.

Rather, socialism in almost all its guises - Marxist and otherwise - advocate for worker control of the means of production, here defined as the factories and machinery required for the production of goods in an industrial civilization. In the 20th century this typically took the form of State ownership run ostensibly for the benefit of workers, but indirectly and with a tendency to simply obscure the class structure then in place.

[K. A. Pital]

Socialism is understood differently in Marxism and other trails of thought; in Marxism socialism is an intermediate social formation between capitalism and communism (and only this), where classes still exist, but the proletariat has taken control. In other schools, socialism can be thought of as merely a socially humane society (it can still be capitalist by Marx's criteria) or as a society where the working class is in control - those schools of socialism can have a critical difference from Marxism in that they assume socialism being the end goal, whereas communism is thought of as unattainable (or not discussed in principle).

Marx's seminal work, The Communist Manifesto is essentially the canonical description of a communist state

The Communist Manifesto actually very sparsely details what a communist state is; just like most of Marx's work. Outside of the baseline fact that by Marx, communism is supposed to be a (first and foremost) classless society, and next, a stateless one, the rest is very vague.

[aerius]

It can all be explained with cows. Ok, so it's not anywhere near serious but there's a surprising amount of truth in there when it comes to capitalism and US politics.

[Plekhanov]

This question started, for me, when I was composing a post in the "Christian Fundamentalists Caught Torturing Children To Death" thread. Samuel, talking about Stas Bush, said "He isn't a Marxist, he's a communist."

Now, I am not an expert on the history of socialism in general, communism in particular, or Marxism in even more particulate particular. So I'd like to hear other people's views on the differences between:

-Marxism and communism
-communism and socialism
-(any subtypes of socialism they're familiar with)

With any luck, we might even wind up with a thread that can be used for future reference, when foolish people come charging in without realizing that there are multiple types of socialism, or that not all communists are Marxists, or whatever.

Socialism refers to a wide range of political and economic theories which at their broadest advocate that the community should own and control the means of production (to use a marxist phrase) this can mean state control or direct worker control, some socialists oppose all state power. Socialism pre-dates Marx and many socialists both in the past and today are not Marxists or communists nor are they revolutionary. The co-operative movement in the UK for example is socialist but not marxist or revolutionary.

Communism is a subset of socialism whilst Marx popularised the term 'communism' not all communists (Christian and anarcho-communists for example) are marxists, rather like socialism 'communism' refers to a range of theories political and economic theories which at their broadest advocate that the community should own and control the means of production. It seems to me at least that communism is generally more radical that socialism and very often revolutionary.

Marxism like communism and socialism refers to a range of theories political and economic theories which at their broadest advocate that the community should own and control the means of production. To me at least the main thing distinguishing Marxism is it's emphasis upon a "scientific" materialist interpretation of history.

These are all highly contested terms endlessly argued over by those within the movement and of course by those on the right some of whom cavalierly hurl the terms about as pejoratives with no concern for accuracy. Like many movements with an intellectual bent socialism is endlessly schisming leading to a confusing tangled web of sub theories using the terms terms 'marxism'. 'communism' and 'socialism' in different (and sometimes seemingly wilfully obtuse) ways which makes neatly defining the terms difficult. You'd probably be best off getting a book on the subject from the library or at least checking out the wikipedia articles on the subject which seem ok.

[Channel72]

Marx's seminal work, The Communist Manifesto is essentially the canonical description of a communist state

The Communist Manifesto actually very sparsely details what a communist state is; just like most of Marx's work. Outside of the baseline fact that by Marx, communism is supposed to be a (first and foremost) classless society, and next, a stateless one, the rest is very vague.

But it does describe a communist state, albeit in broad strokes. That's why I think it's legitimate to use the terms "Marxism" and "Communism" interchangeably.

[K. A. Pital]

Marx's seminal work, The Communist Manifesto is essentially the canonical description of a communist state

The Communist Manifesto actually very sparsely details what a communist state is; just like most of Marx's work. Outside of the baseline fact that by Marx, communism is supposed to be a (first and foremost) classless society, and next, a stateless one, the rest is very vague.

But it does describe a communist state, albeit in broad strokes. That's why I think it's legitimate to use the terms "Marxism" and "Communism" interchangeably.

Communism is a little broader than Marxism, but considering that non-Marxist communism is neglible in scope (unlike non-Marxist socialism, which is a fairly wide movement), yeah, Marxism and Communism are similar somewhat. However, they are different things.

Marxism is a certain theoretical base for Communism. Communism itself, in most simple terms, is - (a) classless society with common ownership of means of production (b) the ideology and corresponding movement advocating such society. This ideology can include non-Marxist currents, but Marxism is so far about the only sizeable theoretical base of Communism. Anarchist Communist theory is very sparse and non-influential; Christian communism is a religious movement, which has little theory outside a few Bible passages that advocate sharing everything, it has no theoretic base to speak of.

[Channel72]

Christian communism is a religious movement, which has little theory outside a few Bible passages that advocate sharing everything, it has no theoretic base to speak of.

As an aside, I always found it ironic that the early church described in Acts advocated common ownership of property, and redistributed wealth and resources to church members according to their need. So the only societal structure even remotely endorsed by the New Testament was similar to an early form of Communism - a fact you don't hear a lot from American pastors these days.

[Plekhanov]

The Communist Manifesto actually very sparsely details what a communist state is; just like most of Marx's work. Outside of the baseline fact that by Marx, communism is supposed to be a (first and foremost) classless society, and next, a stateless one, the rest is very vague.

But it does describe a communist state, albeit in broad strokes. That's why I think it's legitimate to use the terms "Marxism" and "Communism" interchangeably.

Communism is a little broader than Marxism, but considering that non-Marxist communism is neglible in scope (unlike non-Marxist socialism, which is a fairly wide movement), yeah, Marxism and Communism are similar somewhat. However, they are different things.

Marxism is a certain theoretical base for Communism. Communism itself, in most simple terms, is - (a) classless society with common ownership of means of production (b) the ideology and corresponding movement advocating such society. This ideology can include non-Marxist currents, but Marxism is so far about the only sizeable theoretical base of Communism. Anarchist Communist theory is very sparse and non-influential; Christian communism is a religious movement, which has little theory outside a few Bible passages that advocate sharing everything, it has no theoretic base to speak of.

What's so important about having a 'theoretic base'? Present day US conservatism is simply a mishmash of mutually contradictory slogans that doesn't stop it existing.

[Illuminatus Primus]

There was a sufficiently good explanation of Marxism both as a theory and practice in the Coliseum debate with Knobhead.

How can one be a communist and not be a Marxist? Well, that's pretty simple. Marx had a solid method and some observations that he regarded as basic tenets, which laid the foundations of his communism. Some of these observations are contestable (e.g. falling profit margin, etc.) There are other varieties of communism which do not follow Marx's social or economic theories.

Communism is a classless society and the ideology of achieving such (which includes Marxism as a subset).

A good example might be say Noam Chomsky and Mikhail Bakunin, famous theorists or proponents of an eventual classless society (termed communism by Marx, but the idealized outcome is essentially similar under both Orthodox Marxism and anarchism). However, they and other anarchists and other libertarian socialists (left-Marxists of the Luxemberg variety, etc.) may be deeply antagonistic with many varieties of Marxism, especially Marxism-Leninism. Anarchists of the classic variety were proponents of radical social transformation, but deeply skeptical of Marxism (Bakunin in particular predicted Marxist states would become tyrannical by their very nature).

Like Plekhanov (ironic name in this context), I am skeptical of the need for some comprehensive theoretical basis for communism or socialism. This kind of doctrinaire theorizing and vacuous ad hoc hypotheses are the basis of some fair comparisons of Marxism as a quasi-religious movement. As Chomsky has said, we didn't need to know exactly what mature liberal democratic societies would like today to articulate classical liberal opposition to feudalism, nor was the correct question of the time "what is the best kind of feudalism?"

[Illuminatus Primus]

To throw my hat in the ring, here is how I would differentiate the terms:

Socialism

Socialism is fundamentally the idea that the workers or people as a whole should more or less control the economic sphere of society. This is a relatively old idea, and has cropped up in various forms. Schisms from this basic concept occur along every possible point of debate on details. Who are the workers or people? By what means or according to what design should they structure their control? Is it necessary to completely replace pre-socialist labor relations and property rights? Should the workers' control the economy via the state? By state ownership? Of how much of the economy? All of it? The "commanding heights" (big finance, heavy industry, utilities, etc.)? By direct workers' control over the individual enterprises? How will these methods be implemented? On what grounds are they justified or morally or historically obligatory?

Communism

A specific subset of socialist thought, communism described both the concept of a classless, stateless society where hierarchies of power relations and management have been eradicated, and the theories on how this will or could be accomplished, and the theories of how it is morally obligatory or historically inevitable or likely.

Marxism

A subset of communism growing out of the specific moral philosophical, economic, political, and historical writings and theories of Karl Marx (and Friedrich Engels). A basic definition is that all history is essentially composed of competing class relations and dominations over the means of productive economic activity, that these antagonisms resolve themselves in a systemic and historically deterministic fashion, and eventually this process will conclude with the working class becoming conscious as a class, overthrow of the domination by the capitalist class over the state and the economy, institute a workers' dictatorship (class-domination and dictation of major institutions, not one-man autocracy), and finally the state will 'wither' away with class dictatorship being obviated by the final and fundamental resolution of dialectical class antagonisms, leaving the final state of communism. This too has endless schisms, over the means of accomplish this historical inevitability. The best known is Marxism-Leninism, which deviates by claiming the working class in the West is kept propped up and seperated from the working class elsewhere by higher living standards based on imperialism, and that the working class cannot achieve spontaneous class consciousness. Rather, the working class in alliance with peasants or farmers will be led by a small core of disciplined and most class-conscious members who will form the "vanguard of the proletariat" and carry forward the revolution in the global periphery which will then spread inward to global core. The elitism inherent to Leninist vanguardism was opposed by libertarian Marxists of the Luxemberg variety (already noted) and by anarchist socialists and communists who regarded it as inevitably divorcing the working class or people from their own destiny in favor of a new and not at all numerous dominating class.

[Iosef Cross]

This question started, for me, when I was composing a post in the "Christian Fundamentalists Caught Torturing Children To Death" thread. Samuel, talking about Stas Bush, said "He isn't a Marxist, he's a communist."

Now, I am not an expert on the history of socialism in general, communism in particular, or Marxism in even more particulate particular. So I'd like to hear other people's views on the differences between:

-Marxism and communism
-communism and socialism
-(any subtypes of socialism they're familiar with)

With any luck, we might even wind up with a thread that can be used for future reference, when foolish people come charging in without realizing that there are multiple types of socialism, or that not all communists are Marxists, or whatever.

Marxism is a set of theories that were glued together by a men called Karl Marx. They are not a single idea or a type of social organization. These theories reached the conclusion that capitalism exploits labor and that capitalism is historical and will end in the future. Modes of production before capitalism like feudalism also involved exploitation, but capitalism was special in the sense that it was the last exploitative mode of production. It would collapse naturally and be substituted by another mode of production called socialism were labor won't be exploited, for the first time in history.

These theories were kinda off religious in nature: They predicted that the day would come were the current unjust world will end and another much better world would take it's place. That's like the second coming of Christ.

A good description of Marxism can be found in Schumpeter's Capitalism Socialism and Democracy: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=6eM ... q=&f=false

Socialism is a type of economic system were the state is the owner of the means (or factors) of production. Hence, economic activity is organized along a single plan, instead of capitalism/market economy were millions of individual plans are coordinated trough the price system.

Communism is more problematical. It doesn't have a clear cut definition, but it's more like a evolution of socialism. Some say that after Socialism, in the Marxist system, we would have a state of anarchy were "the people" will own the means of production (anarco comunism).

[Formless]

So I'm confused about something. What distinguishes socialism from social programs like universal healthcare, welfare, the education system, etc.? When confronted with people who decry that universal healthcare or welfare are socialist and thus anti-American/evil I often tell them that the utilities or the post office are socialism in action yet they don't decry them as evil or anti-American; how does this rebuttal fit into these more formal/rigid/historical definitions of socialism?

[Teleros]

Healthcare, social security etc are big, expensive programs compared to the post office, which probably explains a lot of it. You can fund the post office on a tiny tax, but you'll need a fair bit of money to fund an American NHS or what have you (which is what we're talking about after all, NHS = inefficient, bloated, money-wasting... where these debates are concerned).

[Patrick Degan]

So I'm confused about something. What distinguishes socialism from social programs like universal healthcare, welfare, the education system, etc.? When confronted with people who decry that universal healthcare or welfare are socialist and thus anti-American/evil I often tell them that the utilities or the post office are socialism in action yet they don't decry them as evil or anti-American; how does this rebuttal fit into these more formal/rigid/historical definitions of socialism?

Americans are used to the post office and I'll bet some think that because Benjamin Franklin established the first post office in colonial times, it just can't possibly be anything as all-consumingly evil as Socialism™.

[Formless]

I understand the mental blocks the right wingers have that keeps them from understanding the fundamental similarity between the post office and UHC, but that doesn't really answer my questions.

[Simon_Jester]

So I'm confused about something. What distinguishes socialism from social programs like universal healthcare, welfare, the education system, etc.? When confronted with people who decry that universal healthcare or welfare are socialist and thus anti-American/evil I often tell them that the utilities or the post office are socialism in action yet they don't decry them as evil or anti-American; how does this rebuttal fit into these more formal/rigid/historical definitions of socialism?

Classically, socialism is far more ambitious than baseline government services, involving major government control over a much larger fraction of the economy.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Iosef Cross

These theories were kinda off religious in nature: They predicted that the day would come were the current unjust world will end and another much better world would take it's place. That's like the second coming of Christ.

While they later degenerated to this kind of dogmatism and immanentizing the eschaton, originally it would be better to regard it as pseudoscience. Marx and his followers had pretensions that their vague, qualitative assessments of history and society identified fundamental interactive dynamics and components which could be deterministically modeled. Clearly this was completely unscientific and accepted as a matter of faith as it was, as Karl Popper noted, unfalsifiable.

Socialism is a type of economic system were the state is the owner of the means (or factors) of production. Hence, economic activity is organized along a single plan, instead of capitalism/market economy were millions of individual plans are coordinated trough the price system.

This is an inaccurate definition. The classic and dictionary definition is workers' control of the means or factors of production. Several schools of socialism explicitly deny or even oppose state involvement in the economy, even as a mediatizing force or institution of workers' control. Including classical anarchism, libertarian Marxism, other schools of anarchism, various branches of syndicalism are opposed explicitly to the state as the tool of workers' control, denying that a hierarchical and collectivist state can even serve as such a tool. Nor is central unitary state planning even a uniform characteristic of Leninist states: consider the USSR under the New Economic Policy, the post-Mao People's Republic of China (which most independent observers would probably keep under the overall Leninist socialist family in the early years before the radical liberalizations later on), the regional planning initiatives under Khrushchev, decentralization under Gorbachev, and worker cooperative management in the perestroika USSR and Tito's Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia.

I think Wikipedia does a good job of summarizing the socialist concept:

Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization which advocate either public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources.[1][2][3] A more comprehensive definition of socialism is an economic system that has transcended commodity production and wage labor, where economic activity is carried out to maximize use-value as opposed to exchange-value and thus a corresponding change in social and economic relations, including the organization of economic institutions and resource allocation;[4] often implying advocacy for a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended.[5]

Most socialists share the view that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital and derives its wealth through exploitation, creates an unequal society, does not provide equal opportunities for everyone to maximise their potential,[6] and does not utilise technology and resources to their maximum potential nor in the interests of the public.[7]

Formless

So I'm confused about something. What distinguishes socialism from social programs like universal healthcare, welfare, the education system, etc.? When confronted with people who decry that universal healthcare or welfare are socialist and thus anti-American/evil I often tell them that the utilities or the post office are socialism in action yet they don't decry them as evil or anti-American; how does this rebuttal fit into these more formal/rigid/historical definitions of socialism?

Going by the plain English definition of socialism, everything. These public service institutions and means of production and service are not controlled by the workers who operate them and the stakeholders affected by the workings of said institutions. Rather, they are operated by the state for the benefit of the public, and in a sense, mimic the ends and purposes of socialism within a corporate capitalist economy. In the American experience, state involvement in the economy is socialism if and only if it is directed in ways and for purposes which benefit unprivileged sectors of society and/or the population. Its purely ideologically-shaped rhetoric. The massive state intervention and support to the private sector through "races to the bottom" in labor standards, public regulation, and tax burdens, massive transfers through state-sponsored research and development, profligate military-industrial spending, and direct transfers in the form of bailouts (public insurance against the market) for favored firms does not qualify. Its called socialism because that's what the USSR called its totalitarian state control and direction of the economy, though since it completely excluded and disenfranchised the population in general and the working class in particular as a whole as well as through organized institutions, it hardly qualifies. It only does in the cynical formulation that the Communist Party really was a magically representative force of workers through declaring the correct ideological values, or in the cynical formulation that any state intervention in the economy for the express purpose of the welfare of the general public is socialism, such as on the part of the propaganda in the West.

I suppose if one wanted to stretch, one could claim since we've allowed health care to become such a parastically hypertrophic sector of the national economy, state control of it would amount of state seizure of one of the "commanding heights" of the economy in the state-ownership socialism paradigm. Various moderate reformist and statist varieties of socialism claim socialist ends can be achieved by state ownership of major sector (frequently termed the "commanding heights" of the economy) and redistribution in an overall market-pricing and distributive system.

[K. A. Pital]

Clearly this was completely unscientific and accepted as a matter of faith as it was, as Karl Popper noted, unfalsifiable.

Popper was an opponent of all historicism, not just the Marxist variant of it, though. I personally prefer Kuhn's explanation of scientific theories to Popper's.

Also, the Marxist variant of historicism seems to fail testability, not falsifiability

Various moderate reformist and statist varieties of socialism claim socialist ends can be achieved by state ownership of major sector (frequently termed the "commanding heights" of the economy) and redistribution in an overall market-pricing and distributive system.

From the SFRY to Lange to Deng Xiaoping, this school actually made significant progress in developing a theory of market socialism, where worker ownership* coincides with market pricing.

* - ideally.