Socio-economic organization system based on the full intervention of the state and the disappearance of classes
Socialism is a system of social and economic organization that is based on the collective or state ownership and administration of the means of production and it is proposed as a goal that social classes progressively disappear.
Also, it is designated by the same word to political movement that tries to establish the aforementioned system with the nuances that each one promulgates.
Developed by the German philosopher Karl Marx
The philosophical and political theory that Socialism promulgates was developed by the German intellectual Karl Marx in the mid-19th century. Meanwhile, Marx has been his main theorist along with his colleague Friedrich Engels. Staunch detractors of capitalism, they approached this system exhaustively to find an alternative that could overcome its weaknesses and achieve a fairer and more balanced model.
The creation of Marx was so influential that to this day it is still valid in almost every nation on the planet.
State intervention must be in strategic areas
Among its most outstanding maxims, socialism, stands out for promote the regulation of all economic and social activities by the state and the distribution of goods. Socialism believes that the best scenario for a society to progress is that administrative control must be in the hands of the producers themselves or the workers. and democratic control of political and civil structures, in the hands of citizens.
For Socialism, the state must play a predominant role and that is why it maintains that all important sectors of a nation's economy must be controlled by the state. This situation is also known as interventionism and it is precisely the antipodes of capitalist thought where the law of supply and demand will rule and the participation of the state in the economic aspect is relegated.
It promotes freedom and equality but has curtailed individual freedoms in many cases
Although the values that it has advocated since its birth have been altruistic, such as equality among citizens, universal public services, solidarity, and freedom, it is important that we highlight that some political regimes that adopted the colors of socialism have characterized by limiting the freedoms of individuals who did not follow the socialist proposal, even more, they have been persecuted and even imprisoned for dissenting. The state structures, in most of these cases, were put at the service of hunting down those who opposed the socialist regime.
Without a doubt, this point is one of its weakest and most questionable points.
Its other side: liberalism
The other side of socialism is Liberalism, a current that encourages state intervention to be minimal in order to achieve general progress. Freedom is above equality. Today this ideological dispute is reflected in many two-party systems of democracies.
Critics. Socialism today
Socialism is one of the political systems that has received the greatest criticism and detractors since its appearance on the scene and this issue has made the definitions that have been given about it very variable throughout these years. Although, for the most part, socialism has been related and associated with issues such as the search for the common good, social equality, state intervention, among others.
Basically, his birth was due to the need to propose a counterpart to the capitalist system. In any case, this situation has evolved in recent years and although there are still very intransigent positions, it is also a reality that some movements have emerged that express some nuances with respect to the original conception.
In political matters, the idea that Socialism supports is build a society in which there are no social classes subordinate to each other and to achieve this either through social evolution, a revolution or institutional reforms.
This softening of ideas and forms began to become evident after the Second World War, with the Cold War and later with the fall of the Soviet Union, a faithful exponent of this type of system.
Currently nations such as Cuba, North Korea, China, Libya and Vietnam, support this type of organization system.
