A presentation about socialism, a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

1. Socialism

2. What is socialism?
• Socialism (from the French socialisme) is a social and economic doctrine
that favors public over private ownership or control.
• It holds that individuals collaborate with each other rather than live or work
in seclusion.
• Moreover, everything that people generate is in some way a social creation;
everyone who is involved in manufacturing a product is allowed a portion of
it.
• Society as a group thus should own or at least manage possessions for the
well-being of all its members.

3. Arguments against capitalism
• The principle of society owning or managing possessions for the well-being of all its
members positions socialism as a system opposed to capitalism, which is based on
private ownership of the means of production and allows individual choices in a
free market to regulate supply of goods and services.
• Socialists criticize capitalism for inevitably causing imbalanced and manipulative
absorptions of wealth and power in the hands of the relative few who end up
triumphant from free-market competition—people who then use their wealth and
power to enhance their dominant status in society.
• As such, they may decide where and how to live; their decisions consequently restrain
the possibilities for the poor.
• Terms such as individual freedom and equality of opportunity thus may have
significant meaning for capitalists but be meaningless for working-class individuals,
who are required to follow the will of the capitalists if they are to persist.

4. Arguments against capitalism
– cont.
• As socialists understand it, true freedom
and true equality need social control of
the means that bestow the foundation for
prosperity in any society.
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
established this idea in the political
pamphlet Manifesto of the Communist
Party (originally published in German as
Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei in
1848, shown right) when they declared
that in a socialist society “the condition
for the free development of each is the
free development of all.” (original: „Der
Zustand für die freie Entwicklung von
jeden ist die freie Entwicklung von
allen.“)

5. Arguments among socialists:
First disagreement
• This underlying belief still opens the
possibility for socialists to disagree
among themselves with respect to two
main arguments.
• The first disagreement deals with the
amount and the type of property that
society should hold or be in charge of.
• Some socialists have believed that nearly
everything with the exception of personal
items such as clothing should be
publically owned; this holds true, for
example, of the society predicted by the
English humanist Sir Thomas More in
his 1516 publication Utopia (right).
• Other socialists, conversely, have been
eager to assume or even embrace private
ownership of farms, shops, and other
small or medium-sized businesses.

6. Arguments among socialists:
Second disagreement
• The second disagreement deals with the method in which society is to apply its control
of property and other assets.
• In this instance, the major camps comprise generally defined factions of centralists
and decentralists.
• On the centralist side are socialists who want to subsidize public control of property in
some central government, such as the state—or the state under the supervision of
a political party; this was an extreme form of socialism practiced in the Soviet Union.
• Those in the decentralist camp believe that decisions concerning the use of public
assets and properties should be made at the local, or lowest-possible, level by the
people who will be most immediately affected by those decisions.
• This dispute has continued during the course of the history of socialism as a political
faction.

7. Famous socialists
• Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), first Prime Minister of India (1947–1964)
• George Orwell (1903–1950), English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic
• William Morris (1834–1896), British textile designer, poet, novelist, and translator
• Robert Owen (1771–1858), Welsh textile manufacturer and philanthropic social reformer
• Karl Marx (1818–1883), German philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist, journalist,
revolutionary socialist, and author of Manifesto of the Communist Party
• Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), German philosopher, social scientist, journalist, businessman,
author of The Condition of the Working Class in England, and co-author of Manifesto of the
Communist Party
• Michael Harrington (1928–1989), American writer, author of The Other America, political
activist, political theorist, Professor of Political Science, radio commentator, and founding member
of the Democratic Socialists of America
• Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926), American political activist, trade unionist, founding member of the
Industrial Workers of the World, and five-time Socialist candidate for President of the United
States
• Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), Polish-German Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist, anti-war
activist, and revolutionary socialist

8. Symbols of socialism: Red flag

9. Symbols of socialism (cont.):
Red rose

10. Symbols of socialism (cont.):
Socialist International logo

11. Symbols of socialism (cont.):
Raised fist

12. Symbols of socialism (cont.):
Socialist Party USA logo

13. References
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/socialism
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto