What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

[Gigi]

Basicly both of them looks the same but they are different. What's the different?

[dj]

Communist have guns

[Jim S]

Well, Communsim tends to be more intellectual honest than socialism.

But lets say in a socialist country, the dicatator tells the factories, they must sell the goods at these price, at this location, at this amount, these color, shape, and texture, but the rest of the decisions are up to you. In a communist society, the dictator and his burecrats simply make all the decisions.

[Deece 1]

Ask the democrats..lol

[steepmom793]

We live in a capitalist, semi-socialistic society here in America. Socialism is the natural progression of a society, but without capitalism can become problematic. Marx believed that socialism what a stepping stone to communism, but most scholars don't believe that. Communism erases individual ownership and has the power consolidated in one ruling party, called totalitarianism. Both control the means of production and distribution, but in communism they have total control with no chance of having the people elect better leadership.

[?]

Theoretically, Socialist believe the government should run and control everything and Communists think that the workers should own the means of production. This was a century ago.

In the real world today, Socialists use the democratic system to gain power and Communists are about using military and violent means.

So basically the answer that said that the Communists are the ones with guns is accurate.

[Wujoosay]

DJ said it all.

[Foxhound]

Socialism is the politico-economic theory of social organization advocating that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be regulated or owned by the community. Modern socialism originated in the late nineteenth-century working class political movement. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution, it being the transitional stage between capitalism and Communism.

Socialism is not a discrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and pro gramme; its branches advocate a degree of social interventionism and economic interventionism, sometimes opposing each other — especially the reformists and the revolutionaries. Some require complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; social democrats propose selective nationalization of key national industries in mixed economies; libertarian socialists advocate co-operative worker ownership of the means of production; Marxists (some inspired by the Soviet economic model), advocate State-controlled, centrally-planned economies; Anarcho-syndicalists, Luxemburgists, the U.S. New Left favor decentralized ownership via co-operative workers' councils.

In the 1970s and the 1980s, Yugoslavian, Hungarian, and Chinese Communists proposed market socialism combining co-operative State ownership and the free market exchange

Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production and property in general. It is usually considered to be a branch of socialism, a broad group of social and political ideologies, which draws on the various political and intellectual movements with origins in the work of theorists of the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, although socialist historians say they are older.[who?][citation needed] Communism attempts to offer an alternative to the problems believed to be inherent with capitalist economies and the legacy of imperialism and nationalism. Communism states that the only way to solve these problems would be for the working class, or proletariat, to replace the wealthy bourgeoisie, which is currently the ruling class, in order to establish a peaceful, free society, without classes, or government. The dominant forms of communism, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism and Trotskyism are based on Marxism, but non-Marxist versions of communism (such as Christian communism and anarchist communism) also exist and are growing in importance since the fall of the Soviet Union.