What is a simple concise way to explain the difference between socialism and communism to others

Question

I've seen many people refer to communism and socialism as if they are the same thing, when they clearly are not. I'm aware of the difference and know there are many sources that explain it, so I'm not just asking what the difference is. Instead I'm asking for a good concise definition, something short and sweet which I can give to rapidly explain the key differences without loosing someone's attention or confusing them when I try to correct the mistake.

I wouldn't mind likewise having a few simple and informative answers ready for follow up questions about key confusion between the two. for instance the difference as to who owns property and who regulates businesses; and why they can seem so similar to a capitalist point of view; preferably without having to go into detail about horseshoe theory etc.

So in short the question is not about explaining the difference between the two philosophies to me, but rather how I can quickly do so to other capitalistic, especially others who are only mildly interested that I don't want to lose the interest of with too much detail.

Answer 1

TLDR:

This assumes that the party you are looking at is already socialist or communist and you are trying to decide which:

• left-of-center and keen on taxes, regulation and wealth-redistribution => Socialist. Typically, a mainstream party that is the national alternative to its right or center-right opponent. Can be called Social Democrat, depending on the language and country.

• wants to nationalize private property, "tear up the system", and is keen on Marx => Communist.

Keep in mind that, as Communism's image has tarnished since the 60s and 70s and as highly state-managed economies have underperformed, parties that called themselves Socialist and were Marx-leaning have often moved to the center left, so the term socialism itself is in flux.

Basically, I know Communism when I see it and it is nothing like European style socialism.

Long version

Whatever other definitions everyone feels like contributing, I would like to remind people that Socialism, however it was used by Marx, is not a word limited to the English language. Nor was Marx writing in English.

It is important to differentiate actual political positions from terminology, especially when that terminology is multilingual, extremely complex and not rooted in the English language per se. Furthermore, attaching deep meaning to the names used by actual Marx/Communist-inspired parties mean little in practice as any of them is free to call itself Socialist, or Democratic, rather than Communist.

Parties like the French Parti Socialiste, PS or Spanish PSOE use the term to denote what (some) others insist on calling Social Democrat in English. They do not feel the need to add the social democrat bit, because Socialism does not automatically get equated to Communism in French or Spanish daily use, whatever English speakers claim. I.e. plain old socialism can mean social democrat, depending on the party, country and language. If you were to say Je suis un Social-Democrate in French, people would either not understand you or, if they did, assume you were a foreigner who didn't know French political terms.

Taking the Parti Socialiste, they've occasionally flirted with things like forced company nationalizations, under Mitterand. That didn't end well, so it's generally not proposed much nowadays. They've also allied with the PCF (Parti Communiste Francais) in its better days, but they were always distinct parties and left the PCF out of the juicy government posts under Mitterand. The PS also had no problem running fair elections and conceding defeats, something that tends to be problematic for Communist parties once in power.

In short, while they were well left of what, for example, a US conservative would prefer, they did not behave in any way shape or form like your typical Communist ruling party. They might, from a US viewpoint, be considered a tax and spend party, within a country, France, that is already more open to big government and taxes than the US. But Communist? Really???

On the other hand, the Partito Socialista Italiano seemed to flirt much more with plain old Communism. And the Dutch Socialistische Partij, when founded, was keen on Mao and Marx, but has apparently moved away from it.

Outside the US, calling someone a socialist seems a much more nuanced term than calling them a communist. And so it is when they self-identify.

UK's Labour party does not have Socialist in its name, but under Corbyn, expressions of sympathy for Chavez and Maduro would raise a red flag for me, much more so than any use of Socialism in the party's manifesto. The use of Marx or Communism in that manifesto would also bother me.

Answer 2

Communism is a society where the social production is not owned, where people give what they can and take what they need, where decisions about doing things together are made together.

Socialism is either:

Capitalism (that is a wage labour society with a small group of people dictating how things are made) with significant public or government ownership and strong workers movements, such as the UK or Soviet Union in the 1960s;

Or:

A society where organised bodies of workers own socially productive property, decide how to do things democratically, and decide who gets to enjoy leisure and goods democratically.

Economic behaviour:

In socialism (1) economic behaviour is capitalist, with small public “goods” available for near infinite consumption: health, parks, education.

In socialism (2) economic behaviour is collective and based on solidarity. However this giving is planned in the context of scarcity of some desired resources. In particular work is plentiful but labour is scarce. To a certain extent workers collectives still view actual humans as an economic resource.

In communism scarcity and property don’t exist (who would need 19 fridges?) and as such economic activity doesn’t exist: leisure and pleasure in doing are indistinguishable. Enough people desire to do dentistry or nursing or sewer engineering that their pleasures and productivity are sufficient for others enjoyment.

Answer 3

TL;DR You asked for a short answer and a quick explanation, so I will give you one.

"Communism" is another name for "Marxism", which has its roots in "Socialism," but nevertheless is an offshoot from it.

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Here's the longer answer:

Communism is defined by Lexico (Powered by Oxford?) as (emphasis mine):

A political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

Therefore, Communism generally referrers to Marxism, that is, abiding by the writing of Karl Marx.

Socialism is defined as:

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.

Investopedia says the following about Communism:

Communism traces its roots to "The Communist Manifesto," which laid out a theory of history as a struggle between economic classes, which will inevitably come to a head through a violent overthrow of capitalist society, just as feudal society was violently overthrown during the French Revolution, paving the way for bourgeois hegemony (the bourgeoisie is the class that controls the means of economic production).

Following the communist revolution, Marx argued, workers (the proletariat) would take control of the means of production. After a period of transition, the government would fade away, as workers build a classless society and an economy based on common ownership. Production and consumption would reach an equilibrium: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Religion and the family, institutions of social control that were used to subjugate the working class, would go the way of the government and private ownership.

On the other hand, it mentions that Socialism actually pre-dates Communism:

Socialism predates the Communist Manifesto by a few decades. Early versions of socialist thought were articulated by Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), who was himself an admirer of ur-capitalist Adam Smith, but whose followers developed utopian socialism; Robert Owen (1771–1858); Charles Fourier (1772–1837); Pierre Leroux (1797–1871); and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), who is famous for declaring that "property is theft."7

And later:

Marxism emerged in this milieu. Engels called it "scientific socialism" to distinguish it from the "feudal," "petty-bourgeois," "German," "conservative," and "critical-utopian" strains the Communist Manifesto singled out for criticism. Socialism was a diffuse bundle of competing ideologies in its early days, and it stayed that way. Part of the reason is that the first chancellor of newly unified Germany, Otto von Bismarck, stole the socialists' thunder when he implemented a number of their policies. Bismarck was no friend to socialist ideologues, whom he called "enemies of the Reich," but he created the West's first welfare state and implemented universal male suffrage in order to head off the left's ideological challenge.

So it seems that Communism has some roots in Socialism, even being called "scientific socialism."

Wikipedia says the following about socialism:

By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production.

Communism, thus, has its roots based in Socialism. Consequently, the two are very similar. That's why the two are often used interchangeably. However, they are not the same.

In general, it might be helpful to think of Socialism as a more general philosophy and Communism as a specific offshoot (Marx's writings) of that philosophy.

As for the practical differences between the two, one source put it this way:

Under communism, the people are compensated or provided for based on their needs. In a pure communist society, the government provides most or all food, clothing, housing and other necessities based on what it considers the needs of the people. Socialism is based on the premise the people will be compensated based on the level of their individual contribution to the economy. Effort and innovation are thus rewarded under socialism.

The same source has a nice table breaking down the differences which is difficult to transcribe here, so I will omit it. But it has some nice differences.

One especially notable one is that in Socialism (emphasis mine),

Individuals own personal property but all industrial and production capacity is communally owned and managed by a democratically elected government.

whereas in Communism,

All economic resources are publicly owned and controlled by the government. Individuals hold no personal property or assets.

Another difference mentioned is in Communism,

Production is intended to meet all basic human needs and is distributed to the people at no charge.

whereas in Socialism,

Production is intended to meet individual and societal needs and distributed according to individual ability and contribution.

Another source notes another difference between Socialism and Communism:

Another key difference between socialism and communism is the means of achieving them. In communism, a violent revolution in which the workers rise up against the middle and upper classes is seen as an inevitable part of achieving a pure communist state. Socialism is a less rigid, more flexible ideology. Its adherents seek change and reform, but insist on making these changes through democratic processes within the existing social and political structure, not overthrowing that structure.

So Communism seems to be associated with a violent revolution, whereas in Socialism this isn't the case.

Answer 4

Communism in its proper sense is an idealized (arguably utopic) vision of society that arises organically after all distinctions of class have been erased. It's the presumed end-goal of the Marxist trajectory: a state of perfect liberty unconstrained by accidents of birth and not limited by social strata. Like most idealized visions it is deeply under-theorized: Marx never spelled out exactly it would entail, socially or politically but held that would reflect the true nature of human interactions, which is suppressed under other systems.

Socialism is any of a number of systems in which the state controls, regulates, or commands the economy in the name and interests of the people as a whole, or of the working class in particular. Socialism can be right wing or left wing, depending on how such control and regulation is conceived and executed (e.g., the National Socialism of mid 20th century Germany, in which economic power was harnessed to the dictates authoritarian militaristic state). Marx saw socialism as an intermediary state where the power of private capital is dispersed or attenuated, and the state oversees production in order to ensure that workers are not exploited. However, Marx also thought that socialism would inevitable collapse into new authoritarian class structures — with the ruling cohort abandoning its role as steward for the people and setting itself up as a separate ruling class — which would themselves inevitably need to be overthrown. Socialism can include states that call themselves 'communist' or 'democratic,' where the actual practices of the state belie the aspirations of the name.

Answer 5

"Socialism" is any economic system in which the "means of production" (meaning factories, shops, transport systems etc) are controlled by the community as a whole rather than by a small class of owners. This is a very broad definition and there are lots of variations on the theme. Wikipedia has an overview.

"Communism" is one of these variations. It is based on the thinking of Karl Marx. Although Marx did not originate many of the ideas in communism, he was the one who first organised and systematised the ideas of other socialist writers.

Marx saw an inevitable historical progression of society through a number of stages, starting with "Primitive socialism" (i.e. tribal village life), through Feudalism, then Capitalism, then Communism. The transition from Capitalism to Communism would include a phase of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in which the workers would seize both the means of production and the machinery of the state, effectively replacing the current power structure with their own. During this phase the workers would see a great rise in their standard of living because the parasitical owner class were no longer taking the products of their labour. Because the workers were now working for themselves they would also be able to organise their own work instead of having bosses order them about, which would lead to a further increase in efficiency. This would in turn lead the mechanisms of state control (police, taxation, money etc) to wither away as they were no longer needed. Hence the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would evolve into a classless utopia in which people would only work when they wanted to at whatever they wanted to, and everyone would have as much as they needed.

Of course it didn't work out like that.

Marx expected that the advanced capitalist societies, notably the UK and the USA, would be the first to see revolutions and a transition to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In fact it was the feudal Russia and China that saw the big communist revolutions. These societies successfully instituted the dictatorship of the proletariat. However the expected evolution into a class-free worker's paradise failed to materialise, and "communist" countries remained stuck in the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is this phase that most people equate with the word "communist".

Answer 6

In communism there are no money or shops. Ressources are divided so everybody get what is needed. Communism have never existed, but if it did, in its optimal form it would be like Star Trek.

Socialism is capitalism with high taxes where the income from taxes is used to benefit everybody.

Answer 7

As demonstrated by the answers that have crystallised so far, there is no single, clear definition of either Communism or Socialism. This isn't surprising, since we are talking about ideologies and opinions, and it isn't limited to that end of the spectrum either; just think of the way a word like 'conservative' is used. So, since this is about opinion, here's mine:

Socialism and communism are more or less interchangeable - they both describe ideals about what is assumed to be the best way to organise society, things like owning most or all things in common, caring for the most vulnerable, running things that are important to all, together etc. Very vague, and that is the way it ought to be, otherwise it ends up being a dogmatic religion. From these opinions spring certain principles for how the economy should be arranged, of course, but as anyone with a bit of sense will point out, one must first and foremost be pragmatic about what actually works in the real world.

Ideology is very close religion, and that is what seems to have gone so spectacularly wrong with most of the so-called Communist regimes, that have mostly failed: those in power chose faith in their ideology over reality. We have seen the same pattern in religion - the Christian religion produced some of the most abusive and repressive periods in history, but more recently there has also been Christian societies that were open and tolerant: those were the ones that were willing to change with the circumstances. I suppose it also illustrates that for religion (or ideology) to be beneficial, it must be the servant, not the master.

Answer 8

Quick and short answer:

Socialism is both a function of the state/government and political movement advocating for it. Social function of the government is part of its redistribution function, used to redistribute wealth to (often vulnerable) large groups of people. Pensions, unemployment aid, free healthcare, state provided education, free public transport, free kindergarten etc... those are all part of the same redistribution. Basically, if your government is providing some service or product to the population (without expecting direct returns in the form of work, such as paying firemen/ government bureaucrats/military) but is paying for it from taxes and other budget sources, that's socialism. Those policies are called socialist policies. Politicians advocating for them can be called socialists.

Communism is much more than that. Communism is political ideology which does use socialist policies a lot but is more concerned with class warfare, ownership of the means of production and so on.

Basically:

socialism - cares about how does government/state redistribute wealth to society, no matter how produced/ the sources or it

communism - how do we produce wealth/things in society (+ how do we decide what needs to be produced+ ) + how does government redistribute wealth to society

Thing in () is optional. Only the third part (redistribution) is the same for socialism and communism. Difference is, communism advocates that for proper redistribution, it is not enough to just redistribute products of labor, but state should control means of production as well.

Answer 9

TL;DR: There is no simple and concise way... Sorry.

Like even when these terms originated in their modern sense about 200 year ago, there were already countless of definitions of these terms which sometimes were synonyms sometimes, different, often overlapping and so on. Also literally "commune" and "social (society)" aren't really all that different so depending on the language either term could have taken the cake...

Essentially the liberal Revolutions like the French Revolution with their claims of "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood" got a lot of people inspired, but also somewhat disappointed. As the hyper-individualism essentially meant that the "liberty" still only applied to the rich and the rest of society was largely still where they were unequal and not exactly treated like (close) family either...

So lots of people got thinking about how a better society could look like which you could all somewhat gather under socialism. But who could vary on reform, revolution, state or stateless, commonly owned resources or personalized, markets or share economies and so on and on and on.

Though apparently it was plenty obvious that the new ordering system of society was no longer a church mandated social hierarchy of hereditary monarchs, but a capital based system where the owners of the means of production where the new rulers.

As a consequence of that socialism was largely the demand that those means of production should be owned by those who work them. Either each their own means of production or larger ones by worker collectives.

One variation of that would be communism where you'd build a society around that idea, where the community owns the means of production and conversely everyone owns them equally thus everyone shares the political power that arises from that ownership equally and people share the workload and outcome according to their needs and abilities.

Which is obviously utopian in an age where kings and queens are still a thing, where the means of productions are owned by a handful of rich people and where workers don't produce their own outcome but have to prostitute themselves (sell their bodies, workforce or mind) for a rich person or... die.

And which comprises the ideas of political liberation and self-determination up to the point of reclaiming anarchism as a positive (the deliberate lack of leadership in favor of self-determination of the individual and mutual groups of individuals), the idea of bringing democracy and republican ideas to the workplace (which to this day often follow a model that is closer to monarchism, aristocracy or in the worst case tyranny rather than democracy) and which gains lots of traction and was partially synonymous with the general workers movement, because you know early capitalism really sucked for workers. Like look up how long the battle for the 8 hour work day had been, that healthy work environments weren't really a thing, that without health insurance wasn't a thing, retirement wasn't a thing, even building a deposit of money at the end of the month might not have been a thing. So you wage slaved to your grave and it became harder with every day, also due to child labor competing with your job...

So mixture of tl;dr: Quest for political self-determination society in particular for the groups forgotten by classical liberalism (the vast majority...), democratization of the workplace, worker movements in general.

So those are the rough outlines mid 19th century, but again utopian idea and literally hundreds if not thousands of ideas on specifics and how to implement that.

Then a guy named Marx entered the scene and wrote a manifesto for one of those obscure socialist groups somewhat claiming the label "communist". Delivering an analysis of history based not on king a did stuff b, but ignoring specifics and sketching it only on the basis of how the structure of society follows the mode of production. So according to him agriculture and the limited means to control people created feudalism, where people were so far apart from each other that they had autonomy over their workplace but were busy all day everyday with their survival and where ownership of farm land was the source of power. To capitalism where exchange of goods and services was the power that you could use to gain more goods and services and thus power and where the source of that power is to be able to build commodities and where the road to that is having the means of production.

Long story short he thought society would progress with it's production and that it would basically inevitably go from feudalism to capitalism to communism and from rule of few to rule of more to rule of all (or no rule at all). So Marx wasn't really an enemy of capitalism, he just thought of it as one necessary stepping stone, better than feudalism in some regards, worse in others, but in general lots of room for improvement.

And similar to the liberal revolution he thought the next revolution would be by the proletariat, so the industrial workers, who would soon be the majority, who would be able to work those machines and who would be able to create a society of their own with the need to subjugate another class. Unlike the kings who needed peasants and the capitalists who needed workers, they could literally DIY.

Though again, for Marx capitalism was necessary to develop the means and the mode of production, a premature revolution in peasant society might change who is king but would not change the mode of production or the makeup of society as people would still work 24/7 not having time for politics and self-determination.

Which lots of people found pretty cool and called themselves Marxists much to the dismay of Marx himself who apparently spend quite some time roasting other socialist because they didn't get his ideas and didn't share his passion for actually gaining political power for the working class and forming a more equal society not just better working conditions. Again that was a huge issue that likely has taken up more space than the ideology stuff in many programs...

So he was a fierce opponent of those trying to be on friendly terms with those in power, who gave them improved working and living conditions, but kept the distribution of the means of production and the political disenfranchisement. Though which still might have called themselves socialist, because, you know workers movement, "social" or maybe still in for the political power but more of reformers.

So communists according to Marx (again that term predates Marx): Those in who work to establish the communist (which by definition is also socialist), by organizing in a political mass movement of the working class to seize the means of production and thus overcome the class division and usher in a new era of self-governance. He largely left open how that would look like because self-determination.

Now not much happened for the foreseeable future. The French pivoted between republic and monarchy, Europe mostly took a step backwards and restored absolutism and when Paris tried a commune in 1871 during the war with Germany, it was shortlived, chaotic and gunned down. Which apparently prompted Marx to better organize that shit, which the anarchists within his circle were not a fan of, so he bullied them out of that until people thought he was going to much into authoritarian and also quit and "the first international" collapsed.

Though in the meantime and after that workers movements were getting tracking, things often headed towards revolution and even conservatives like Bismark implemented the first social programs (healthcare, retirement, social security, etc) just to defuse the situation and take the wind out of the sails of the socialists.

So again depending on whom you ask that is either a major accomplishment of socialism, fighting the man until they give them what they want or it's a pyrrhic victory as it meant a decrease in revolutionary potential while still being a long way from democratization of the political and economic landscape.

Now again Marx: Mass movement -> do revolution -> get control of the means of production (dictatorship = government) of the proletariat -> transition into communism.

However while Marx apparently used that dictatorship of the proletariat a whopping 4 times in his writing and basically in the sense of government of the workers, there were others that had the idea of "one would just need to seize government power and then transform top down". Marx's fellow Engels was already not a fan and argued that failed in the Paris Commune already.

Nevertheless in early 20th century Russia, Lenin convinced the social democratic party of Russia to exactly such a plan given that Russia didn't even have a successful liberal revolution, was lacking behind in industrialization and that the most industrial countries weren't developing according to Marx. So he formed a vanguard party and called it Bolsheviks (="majority" after the one election he was able to get one), burned through several fake identities and got himself and his professional revolutionary vanguards imprisoned and exiled... Missing out on the 1905 revolution (which established a parliament, but which was stuffed by the czar and thus made insignificant), the 1917 revolution that got rid of the czar and only after that was able to return to Russia with the help of the German military who though bringing trouble to an enemy country would help them with the war (partially successful, Russia is the only WWI ally who lost the war).

So Lenin fired against anybody, presented himself as supporter of the soviets (not a group but an organization form of direct democratic worker councils, which organized the revolution of 1905 and 1917) something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_confederalism

He dropped out of WWI and held election, but as he didn't like the results he seized power regardless of that and engaged in a several year long civil war. But as Russia wasn't satisfied with the war and the situation anyway he was still able to win that civil war. Though not with a mass movement, but with a minority government, that engaged in state terrorism to secure it's power and which implemented capitalism with some social security and whatnot to attract foreign grands and industrialize further (yeah by a communist party...). Still the U.S. and capitalism was majorly scared of dissatisfied workers rebelling.

Meanwhile in Germany, the end of WWI also faced a socialist revolution. Though this time the social democrats teamed up with the conservatism and the protofacist parts of the army and gunned it down. They nevertheless managed to force them into a republic and not a constitutional monarchy and some more democratic and social advancements, a modern constitution and lots of other stuff that would have been great for the time, ... unfortunately progressively fewer people were down for that as the left felt cheated by their former social democratic allies and the right still thought that this whole "Marxist" nonsense was to be disposed of and so the system was struggling from day one, the communists fought the social democrats, the conservatives tried to bring the system down and ultimately the fascists profited from all of that, the rest is a sad part of history...

Though in the west this model of social democracy and trying to amend the system, fighting for better conditions and participation but not necessarily revolutionary and through redistribution often was already branded by conservative parties in waves of "red scare" as "SOCIALISM!". So in some countries socialism is ... "just not being in favor of social darwinism and weeding out the poor and working class"....

Meanwhile in Russia Lenin died of a stroke and a charming fellow called Stalin took over. He developed Lenin's power grap, the terror and attempt to industrialize into Stalinism and called it Marxism-Leninism. Ended that capitalism and the idea of a world revolution and advanced the idea of socialism in one country, putting all means to industrializing his counters, argued that Lenin was right and that dictatorship of the proletariat really means dictatorship (by him), he also used his knowledge as a former theology student and replaced Jesus pictures with himself and developed a cult of personality and he also redefined terms, so "socialism" is now the transitioning state between capitalism and communism, which is when the communist party has government control and used that to lay the foundation of communism in countries not yet able to transitions because of a lack of development.

That is basically the blueprint the USSR brought to many other countries which are so called "communist". Which is in quotes because if you recall the definition of communism from earlier or even the one you find on wikipedia of a classless stateless society in which people people own the means of production, produce for their own consumption and share the workload and outcome based and contribute according to their abilities and receive according to their needs... Well there's some distinct discrepancy between that and whatever the hell these countries were doing.

Though given the U.S. and capitalists where still massively scared of workers being dissatisfied with their subpar situation under capitalists labor system, they nonetheless never got tired of calling that communism and labeling everything not in favor of "work or die" as "socialism"/"communism".

Though depending on what perspective you take when looking at it. This "communism" either dragged poor and underdeveloped countries out of poverty and helped them industrialize. Seriously many countries were in such a bad shape that there was only one direction in which any government could have been going. Or you could compare them with western countries and argue they are still largely underdeveloped dictatorships, but also the kind of dictatorships that you don't want to trade with as they would like keep your investment for their people rather than suppressing their people and selling the mining rights to western countries... Just kidding they also suppressed their people massively but yeah weren't that keen on selling mining rights to western countries.

So yeah depending on whom you ask "communism" is either that ideal of a mutual community of people living free and equal sharing co owning the means of production and sharing their output or and that is unfortunately also very likely either whatever a raging conservative doesn't like or a soviet union hardcore fan who thinks the appropriate reaction to democratic protests are to send in tanks...

While "socialism" ... is essentially the same + some social democrats, so incremental social progress, better working conditions, pushing for more democratic and social participation of working class and low income people and so on.

So whether there is a distinction or not depends largely on the context and what the "No I don't want [that]... I want [this]" concretely refers to.

Could be it's the same thing, could be something vastly different, again even 200 years ago people could largely agree on the goals and still spend their time roasting each other for how utopian their ideas are...

So TL;DR There is no simple and concise answer, that largely depends on the context.