What YOU Need To Know About SOCIALISM

Socialism refers to a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic freedom, equality and cooperation.

Socialism is a type of Collectivism. The key assumption made is that the individual belongs to the community, and therefore his/her labor belongs to the collective. There are various offshoots of the core ideal.  

One common feature is the assumption that people are inherently bad, and if left to themselves, will let their neighbors starve. It is argued that to prevent this, everyone must give all they have to the government, who will benignly distribute it to the needy. Forgotten is this : if men are inherently bad, then how will setting inherently bad men over them help? And if men are not inherently bad, then why set anyone over them?

According to Daniel DeLeon, socialism "is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at an end. That is socialism, nothing short of that." Mr. DeLeon forgot that as "the people" are an abstraction, that a leadership class will evolve to speak "for" the people.

Other theories have it according to degree of public good, where industries are seized in some countries where it was felt a direct effect on the welfare of the citizens as whole would result. Such vital sectors such as Military, Border Control, Customs, Public Health, and Police are normally under control of the state. Universally, Socialism could be considered as a tool of modern governance. It has been overused in the past to disastrous result [some still present to this day]. It has morphed into a matter of degree rather then a thing unto itself.

Pure socialism can only work in small communities, ideally with a strong sense of identity and perhaps family ties. As socialist societies grow, they can foster even more corruption among officials than capitalist ones. Also, in the absence of force the more able in society will limit their labour if they don't benefit from their efforts directly.
One thing the above gets a bit confused with is that in modern-day academic usage, socialism is mostly an economic idea, not a political idea. When talking about political socialism, usually it is referred to by another name, which specifies how the socialist economic policy is to be implemented; see things like Marxism, Communism, and Maoism. Economic socialism by itself says nothing about the way that wealth should be distributed per se - that is, a socialist economy does not have to have one particular form of political system structure. It is entirely possible to run a socialist economy mated with a republican form of government.

Commonly, Socialism (with the capital 'S') is a shorthand for Marxism, while socialism (with a lower-case 's') refers to the socialism economic theory.