What is Socialism: Definition and Types

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What is Socialism Definition and Types

• About 200 years ago, when industry was
  revolutionized and new inventions and
  developments were made, it brought a drastic
  change in the economic and political world.
  People who owned the industries or who were
  wealthy started to become wealthier day by day
  whereas the workers and poor started getting
  poorer day by day. That was the time, when a new
  concept, Socialism was emerged and as the name
  itself suggests, it aimed at achieving equality
  for all of the society. This concept advocated
  the distribution of means of production among
  everyone and talked about an egalitarian society.
• Definition- Socialism may be considered as a
  political philosophy which says that all people
  in a society share equal status and they shall
  be given equitable ownership of the means of
  production in the state. It is an ideology
  preferring shared ownership of resources over
  individual ownership and it believes in the
  collective development of society.
• Types of Socialism- Socialism has been given
  dozens of names over the past few years, however
  only few of them remain to be remarkable-
• Utopian Socialism- This was the kind of Socialism
  that was presented before any other type of
  Socialism in front of the world. This type is
  based on a presumption that if the

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• wealthiest agree to renounce their wealth to
  distribute among the poor, world will achieve
  the best version of Socialism.
• However, this is not practically possible to
  achieve, therefore it is coined as Utopian
  Socialism.
• Democratic Socialism- Democratic Socialism
  believes that the socialism must be achieved
  democratically. In simple words, it states that
  the means of production and economical resources
  should be managed by the government elected by
  people.
• Market socialism- This socialism advocates that
  the means of production must be managed by
  market forces instead of the
• government and their allocation must be done
  among the market itself.
• Revolutionary socialism- It says that Socialism
  can only be achieved after revolution. This
  socialism refuses to believe that equality can
  be achieved peacefully.
• Green Socialism- This kind of Socialism strives
  to protect green resources and advocates
  preservation of natural resources.
• Advantages of Socialism- Socialism tends to
  benefit society in a very vast perspective.
  Major advantages are listed below-
• A Society Free of Exploitation- When we talk
  about Socialism, we talk about distribution of
  resources among the society. The system of
  Socialism ensures that no one in the society is
  exploited and everyone gets a chance to speak in
  the economical matters. Everyone who has the
  portion of resources, benefits from it,
  therefore it helps in creating a welfare
  society.
• Economic Growth- Socialism helps in rapid
  economic growth and economic stability in the
  country. The concept is to give collective
  growth to everyone in the society so that no one
  remains untouched of the wealth. Socialists
  divide the resources among everyone it helps to
  bring stability in the economy.
• Trustworthy- This kind of economical and
  political system is trustworthy because everyone
  participates in the decision

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• making and it has a transparency. People tend to
  believe that they are getting equal say in the
  matters of importance and they feel motivated.
• Disadvantages of Socialism- Every coin has two
  sides similarly, Socialism also has some
  advantages with some disadvantages.
• No Economic Freedom- The idea of Socialism
  depends upon a cooperative pooling of resources
  by many people. Now, the fact remains that
  people in a society feel competitiveness in
  respect to others therefore, sometimes it is
  different for those people to show
  cooperativeness.
• Lack of Recognition- When a society achieves
  something
• collectively, the credit goes to everyone
  collectively. The people, who contribute more
  than others are not given their due amount of
  recognition which somehow demotivates those
  people.
• Lack of Authenticity- Socialism, as told before,
  distributes the
• resources among everyone. But sometimes, there
  are people who have negative intentions or there
  are people who are not
• so authentic in their functions, it strives lack
  of authenticity.
• Socialism in India
• In India, after Independence the makers of the
  constitution choose a socialist society model
  over the capitalist society model. Because India
  had recently gained independence from the
  capitalist colonialism. Also, India was
  extremely poverty ridden. Thus, for the welfare
  of the masses, the socialism was chosen.
• The Constitution of India included the Directive
  Principles of State Policy to show the direction
  in which to governments to come had to work. It
  pointed towards the welfare socialism.
• However, due to license raj and depleting forex
  reserves, the policy of socialism could not
  survive for long. And in 1991, the policy of
  Liberalisation Globalisation and Privatisation
  was adopted.

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Since then, Indian government has adopted a mix
of socialism and capitalism. For example, there
are government hospitals but there are private
hospitals as well. Both work in
tandem. Conclusion Socialism came in response to
the bad repercussions of the capitalism.
However, in modern times, it is seen that
countries that adopted socialism faced
stagnation in economy some years later. Thus,
there is no single remedy for the complex nature
of the society. Instead, the governments should
make use of every possible theory for the
welfare of the masses, especially the poorest of
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