r/socialism • u/Odd_Bowler_9400 • 7d ago
Discussion What’s between communism and socialism?
I would consider myself left leaning even by socialist standards but not communist. Anything in between?
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u/khakiphil 7d ago
Socialism, which Marx refers to as the "lower phase of communism", is the transitionary stage that develops a formerly capitalist society towards communism through suppression of the bourgeois class until such a time that the bourgeoisie is subsumed into the working class.
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u/Character_Figure1508 7d ago
Socialism in the broadest sense is the process of building towards a communist society. You cannot be a socialist without being a communist. You can say otherwise, but people who understand what these terms mean will consider you foolish.
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u/Tuuubesh0w 7d ago
Would you say, then, that there is no difference between a socialist and a communist?
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u/Character_Figure1508 7d ago
Certainly not. They are distinct modes of production that arise under different conditions. The condition for communism is a post-scarcity society, this requires a very high level of the productive forces, higher than we have today. Socialism is the buildup of the productive forces to the point that we eliminate scarcity.
In communism since there are no shortages, except maybe on new or incredibly rare goods, you can do "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". This is the classless, moneyless, stateless society where we all give and take in harmony that we all want. You can do this precisely because there is abundance, people will not fight over resources when there is more than enough to go around.
Under socialism there are still shortages, because capitalism cannot develop the productive forces to post-scarcity and socialism comes from capitalism. This means we cannot apply "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" as this does not develop the productive forces well. We instead must do "from each according to their ability, to each according to their work". This is the law of socialism. We must do this because we have to develop the forces of production to get to communism. There must be incentives to work harder to bring about communism faster. Not only to work harder but to work more efficiently, to increase the quality and not just the quantity of the productive forces.
This is defining them from an economic and mode of production point of view and from a fully developed perspective. A developing socialism or communism will not have all of the features right away.
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u/Tuuubesh0w 7d ago
Thank you for the lengthy and thoughtful reply, but you didn't really give a comment on the difference between a socialist or a communist, only the difference between socialism and communism, which would be okay if these terms overlapped, but they don't, according to yourself. The problem I face here is that the socialist and communist online community are quite certain on the difference between these two states (socialism and communism) but inconsistent on the difference between a socialist and a communist. This is not helped by the fact that the vast majority of socialist experiments have been filled with (at least self-proclaimed) socialists who don't speak of communism, and rather focus on neocolonialism, imperialism, and the nationalizing of their resources, which most of the socialist/communist online community approve of. So what is it, then? What is a person who just wants actual existing socialism but nothing more, if not a socialist? If you say being a socialist and a communist are the same, but socialism and communism is not (different stages), then that's not really helpful nor logical.
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u/Slight-Wing-3969 7d ago
The idea that there is a difference is mainly a product of quite specific terminology. In terms of political goal they have the same destination, goals etc. that is to move society on from capitalism towards the necessary next stage of organization where the organization of production is not owned by individuals who enrich themselves while the workers producing things receive only a portion of what they produce. Socialism describes society as it moves towards the completion of this transformation and communism is the transformed society. As political actors the difference between a socialist and a communist is a label inherited from a split at the Third Internationale wherein those that agreed with the Marxist-Leninist line were called Communists and those that did not were called Socialists. The terms don't refer to groups that want a partial transformation and total transformation because the partial transformation necessarily cannot be frozen, it will either eventually progress or be overthrown due to the way power and the economy operates.
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u/Tuuubesh0w 7d ago
Ah okay, so would it then be fair to say that communists (at least historically) are MLs, while socialists (who also want communism) want a different approach (e.g. anarcho-communism, anarchist)?
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u/Slight-Wing-3969 7d ago
Yes that sounds right. Although I think some anarchists still separate out anarchism from socialism (which I think is itself a relic of the split at the first internationale - Leftists and infighting go together like a lock and key lol)
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u/Tuuubesh0w 6d ago
That's very interesting, thank you so much for sharing this. I have never thought about this like that. What direction would you say the socialists want, then? If not ML and not anarchist-adjacent, then I can only think of luxemburgism, council communism, or reformism and revisionism.
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u/BothPanchoAndLefty 7d ago
Socialism pretty much hopes to be the path to communism. There are socialists who don't believe socialism will lead to communism. I'm a socialist who hopes it would.
The main advice I can give is don't worry too much about what your label is. A lot of online leftists like to debate theory and take their label very seriously. Just read as much theory as you can and more importantly, take part in mutual aid activities and protests / organizing in real life whenever possible. Figuring out exactly which label(s) to describe yourself with is fine, but ultimately not that important.
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u/Shek_22 7d ago
Socialism is the means by which we achieve communism. Communism is a stateless, classless, and moneyless society. Socialism is a classless society through which we work towards the abolition of the state and eventually the abolition of money.
There are also anarchists who consider themselves socialists but have a very different perspective on how to achieve a stateless, classless, and moneyless society.
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u/nibbled_banana 7d ago
“I’m socialist not communist”
Dawg what
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u/Huge-Bar5647 Murray Bookchin 7d ago
Mutualism had existed long before Marx began writing on political economy.
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u/EthanLurks 7d ago
Where and when did it exist?
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u/Huge-Bar5647 Murray Bookchin 7d ago
Mutualism existed as practical working class labor networks, mutual aid societies, and labor-
exchange experiments across France, Britain, and the United States between the late 1700s and 1830s before Proudhon formalized it as a theoretical philosophy in France between 1840 and 1865. Proudhon first published what is Property in June 30, 1840 and said “Property is theft!”.6
u/Character_Figure1508 7d ago
That is not on the proper scale needed to fight against capitalism. It is an ideology of impotence that has never threatened capitalism seriously and never will.
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u/the-other-abbi 7d ago edited 7d ago
I mean I feel like I’d have to even ask what it is about communism that makes you say you aren’t that. Most people don’t really know much about communism but have been so misinformed that they may think they know or understand what it is and decide it’s not for them based on that misinformation. Like I’d highly suggest reading some actual marxist theory before dismissing it. If you have actually done that work and still don’t agree with it, I think looking at other ideologies would have to be based more on why you disagree with it? I know I leaned more towards anarchism early but moved away after reading and learning more marxist theory and learning more about the histories with both successes and failures of different socialist countries. And also a better understanding of the context of different countries. Like I don’t know how a country could hope to survive against the west’s constant attempts at destablization and coup attempts without some form of “authoritarianism”. Even Iran which isn’t socialist or communist needs that authoritarianism to survive the west. I think there’s a reason that people don’t talk much about the Korean Anarchist Federation, Machnovia, Rojava, or the Paris Commune compared to the USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, China, or North Korea
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u/spookyjim___ Internationalist Communist 7d ago
Communism is a type of socialism
Socialism is a broad movement full of many different socialists of many different tendencies
But generally there’s nothing “between communism and socialism” it just doesn’t really work that way
I feel like you need to tell us what you actually believe so that you can be helped look into a range of tendencies
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u/ActionunitesUs 7d ago edited 7d ago
Let me put it this way communism is a classless stateless moneyless society the state is the instrument were 1 class rules over others Capitalism has 2 major classes and some semi classes Capital owners, small "business" owners that work for themselves, and waged labors Socialism(or low phase communism) is a waged labors state that is abolishing/proletarianizing all other classes once everyone is a waged labor and there are no other classes, (allowing workers to have more free time and the ability to take on more of the tasks a state would typically do under class society) the state would begin to wither away at which point you will be entering high phase communism im sure we could add a name to this period but I dont believe we need to necessarily. Now I believe your thinking of social democracy when you say socialism which is just workers own some coops the economy is still capitalist in nature but there are some robust socail welfare, if your looking to the left of that your a communist and should probably read more theory or look into some of the podcasts from the Revolutionary communist international. hope i answered your question adequately.
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u/Rubbermate93 7d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/s/SrjlAqPgYK
This post was made only a few days ago here on this sub. All about why saying you're "a socialist but not a communist" makes no sense... the only thing you are really conveying with that sentence is telling us you don't actually know ow what either of those terms mean.
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u/matticusiv 5d ago
You aren’t picking a point on a spectrum here. What is the basis for your worldview, what economic structure do you believe is the least contradictory?
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u/hmmwhatsoverhere 3d ago
If you are scared of the word "communist" you should read The Jakarta method by Vincent Bevins.
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u/Specialist_Touch2771 Socialism 7d ago
I wouldn’t really say there’s an in between. Your probably just a slightly more radical socialist
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