Misconception Of Socialism

Socialism: What It Means Socialism needs to be clearly defined because the meaning of socialism gets confused with many other different classes of economic systems. The main mistake people make about socialism is that people confuse it with communism. Some people even think it is part of a capitalist form of economics. A good example of a socialist government, is the government of Cuba. In Cuba, the government owns the businesses, however the state hires the employees. As stated by Richard Dagger and Terence Ball in their article on Britannica.com about the origins of socialism, “The origins of socialism as a political movement lies in the Industrial Revolution. Its intellectual roots, however, reach back almost as far as recorded thought—even as far as Moses, according to one history of the subject”(5). Socialism reaches …show more content…
Socialism is a capitalist base with a communist control, meaning that individuals may own a company, but the government has more control over the regulations that the business has to follow to provide a more even distribution of goods and wealth to everyone. This extreme government control is good because everyone gets a piece of the luxuries, but it is bad because it starts to eliminate people’s drive to become more successful. The increased regulation may also make it more difficult for smaller family-owned businesses to thrive. This government control causes people to not want to strive as hard to do anything because they are being handed everything, opposite of what drives a capitalistic economy. This is also stated in Michael Howard’s article Basic income, liberal neutrality, socialism, and work, “More appropriate for socialism is distribution . . . . This amounts to a conditional reciprocity principle, and, if the fruits of social labor are to be shared equitably, would seem to entail a right to work but not an unconditional right to