Definition of "socialism"

socialism

/ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/

noun
usually uncountable, plural socialisms
1. Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
  Quotations
  Soil improvement often involves the movement of large quantities of earth, but the Chinese peasants face this task with a high degree of enthusiasm for socialism.
  1976 August, “Land Improvement in China”, in China Reconstructs‎, volume XXV, number 8, China Welfare Institute, page 29, column 2
  1. A system of social and economic equality in which there is no private property.
    Quotations
    …Americans as a rule have no faith in the fundamental doctrine of socialism — no private property. To be sure, that fundamental doctrine is not expressly maintained in this program of the British Labor Party ; but all its proposals lead straight to the adoption by the nation of that doctrine…
    1918, National Economic League Quarterly, page 19
  2. A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.
    Quotations
    Socialism is usually defined as "common ownership of the means of production". Crudely: the State, representing the whole nation, owns everything, and everyone is a State employee. This does not mean that people are stripped of private possessions such as clothes and furniture, but it does mean that all productive goods, such as land, mines, ships and machinery, are the property of the State... One must also add the following: approximate equality of incomes (it need be no more than approximate), political democracy, and abolition of all hereditary privilege, especially in education. These are simply the necessary safeguards against the reappearance of a class-system.
    1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. II
    As Gorbachev understood perestroika, the Soviet Union would retain the principal components of state socialism (state control over the means of production and centralized planning), meaning that state control over the economy and the labor force were to be maintained.
    2005, Louise Shelley, Policing Soviet Society: The Evolution of State Control, Routledge, page 57
2. (Marxism-Leninism) The intermediate phase of social development between capitalism and communism in Marxist theory in which the state has control of the means of production.
  Quotations
  For me, socialism is not statism, or the collective ownership of the means of production. It is a judgment on the priorities of economic policy…the community takes precedence over the individual in legitimate economic policy. The first lien on the resources of a society therefore should be to establish that "social minimum" which would allow individuals to lead a life of self-respect, to be members of the community.
  1978, Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Basic Books, page xii
3. Any of a group of later political philosophies such democratic socialism and social democracy which do not envisage the need for full state ownership of the means of production nor transition to full communism, and which are typically based on principles of community decision making, social equality and the avoidance of economic and social exclusion, with economic policy giving first preference to community goals over individual ones.
4. (chiefly Western, often derogatory, colloquial) Any left-wing ideology, government regulations, or policies promoting a welfare state, nationalisation, etc.
  Quotations
  I have used the term "liberal solidarity". It needs to stake out its ideological territory and to debate not only with socialism and conservatism, but with other varieties of liberalism.
  2019, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Is Socialism Feasible?: Towards an Alternative Future, Edward Elgar Publishing