Compare And Contrast Communism And Socialism

Many Americans tend to think of communism and socialism as synonymous. When either of these ideologies is mentioned, it invokes a certain sense of fear. Much of this fear stems from lack of understanding. Parker, Fournier, & Reedy (2007) defined communism as a society where the community jointly owns all the property and means of production instead of the individual, with the goal of abolishing states and social classes (p. 54). Parker et al. (2007) similarly defined socialism as the belief that the resources and production of a society should benefit the common good vice a select few individuals (p 237). Parker et al, posited that both communism and socialism have the common goals of reorganizing society using the guiding principle collectively controlling resources for a common good rather than being controlled by a select few(2007). Additionally, they observed that both seek to abolish private property and have everything owned by the community as whole. Parker et al pointed out that while both communism and socialism share similarities, such as collective control over resources, they also share several important differences. Some of these differences include models of distribution for wealth and resources, who makes the decision on how they are distributed, and how they come to that decision. These differences are critical to …show more content…
Contrarily, this kind of wealth distribution could also have the effect of giving the individual workers a greater sense of participation in the process. This comes out of the community ownership. Both of these ideals sound like they would be great systems, on paper. Unfortunately, society may never know what the long term effects might be due to failed implementation in every country that has tried to move to this