Socialism - Wikipedia
"
Socialism is a range of
economic and
social systems characterised by
social ownership and
workers' self-management of the
means of production[10] as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.
[11] Social ownership may refer to forms of
public,
collective or
cooperative ownership, or to
citizen ownership of equity.
[12] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,
[13] though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms."
Communism - Wikipedia
"In
political and
social sciences,
communism (from
Latin communis, "common, universal")
[1][2] is the
philosophical,
social,
political, and
economic ideology and
movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the
communist society, which is a
socioeconomic order structured upon the
common ownership of the
means of production and the absence of
social classes,
money[3][4] and the
state."'
Socialism is, more or less, the aim of having socialized production, socialized society. It varies.
You have state ownership, in which the government owns the production and the people benefit from this, rather than individuals. China has some elements of socialism. There are many companies that are state owned or part state owned. Revenues go into the state coffers, rather than into individuals pockets.
Collectives could be groups of people, all who benefit and they can range from dozens to thousands or millions of people within those collectives, depends.
Cooperatives are like companies, but the people who work in those companies benefit alike, rather than having a boss at the top, all employees are the boss.
Communism is a classless and stateless society. There is no government to control the means of production as there could be with Socialism. The people control things.
This is why the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and whoever else, are NOT Communist countries. At best the USSR was Socialist.
Now, there are Communists who might push for Socialism as a means towards Communism. But no Socialist would push for Communism as they wouldn't be a Socialist. Because they'd be advocating the end of the state, no state, no Socialism, so you advocate the end of the state, you can't really be a Socialist, but a Communist.
