Title :

Socialism Vs Communism

Category: Miscellaneous

Socialism is commonly mistaken for communism, yet they have two completely different effects. Economic strategies are all related and usually preceding strategies determine the outcome strategy. Karl Marx states that Capitalism must exist before socialism, and socialism must exist before communism. Feudalism is the source of capitalism from which it grew and developed out of. Unfortunately the United States, is forgetting its moral values and is focusing its strategies in the wrong places; this is slowly leading us to develop our own communist country which we may be tricked into appreciating. Socialism is a more efficient and compassionate economic strategy that proves to be better according to modern days proof of a functioning socialist Europe.
America chooses to use capitalism as an economic strategy, and as great as America may be there are some flaws that lie in using this economic system that which we have based our country. It is designed to create the fastest and most efficient means of fabrication by making competition between companies strenuous to motivate production, unfortunately it doesn't consider the workers respect. this will lead to quantity over quality, In a capitalistic society the means of production are privately owned which creates decisions regarding supply, demand, price, wages, and production to be made by the private owner. Profit is distributed among private owners and investors. Since all the means of production are privately owned, this allows the workers, who run the production, to be exploited by the employers. This also allows a large gap between classes to take place creating both poverty and the super rich.
Socialism is an economic strategy to create equal opportunities for everyone. It strives to tear down exploitation and create fairness in the work place because there are many more workers then there are employers. In a socialistic society people are paid according to their quantity and quality of labor. The workers own the means of production so the decisions regarding supply, demand, price, wages, and production are unanimously made by the workers. The profit is evenly distributed amongst the workers instead of one private owner. It is not completely classless society but poverty is extinguished along with the exceedingly rich. Even though major class differences are smothered, motivation still exists because one needs to try hard to be successful.
Communism is a more technical form of socialism but is both an economic and political strategy. In a communist society the government owns all means of production and all items within that society. Everyone is paid according to what they need, such as if you live with somebody or how many children you have. It does successfully create a classless society but this alone strips moral motivation.
Unfortunately communism is an unrealistic idea for running a utopian society, but we are dealing with anything but that. Motivation does not exist is a society like this because for communism to work everyone must feel morally obliged to do their job well and efficiently. It is also meant to strip exploitation of the worker, but it only exploits more because in communism everyone is a worker for the dictator who exploits them. Everyone being in the same class is unfair because a lavish life does not exist in a communist society; such words like prolific have no meaning. There is no reason to try as hard as possible and do better than everyone else because that is impossible in a communist society. Freedoms are completely stripped away from everyone in the nation making it a strict work camp.
Many people mistake socialism for communism because of the faulty leaders that claimed to be “socialist” but were in fact, communist. Leaders such as Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky claimed that they needed Karl Marx's socialism to save their people and country. They ruined the name of socialism by doing this because their strategies were the furthest from socialism; they were all disguised communist efforts attempting to rebuild a better society. Majority of communist nations have proven to be unsuccessful in governing their countries. The Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea are some of the oppressive communist countries that have proven to be nothing but a problem in the world today. The red scare during the fifties showed Americans how dangerous communism is. The red scare was a scare of eastern European communist leaders that were trying to influence the American Government.
Socialism and communism do have some similarities though. They make an equal attempt to rid the workers of their exploitation and create equal classes amongst the people. Socialism does not attempt to create one large social class though; it simply diminishes the large gap in between social classes. Socialism is a more realistic effort because it is an economic strategy where as communism is an economic and political strategy that looks to set straight both the economy and civilization. But is everyone being in the same social class fair when your intrinsic motivation is much greater then everyone else's, so you work much harder? How could one strive to be the best in a communist or socialist Country? In a socialist country it is much harder to separate the hard working from the lazy, but in a communist country it is impossible. Socialism destroys the poverty class and ultra rich class so things are more ethical in a socialist Country but communism doesn't lessen the severity of the classes, it destroys them. This factor makes communism a hard strategy to work with because it would only be successful in a utopian society where every human listens and works because they want to. In the examples we have seen communism take place, humans were just treated like animals hoarded up, creating a good profit.
Capitalism strives to let the best of the best surpass all others by letting individuals create the means of production making competition and easy profit a shared aim. Socialism on the other hand gives the common worker a better opportunity to live a more lavish life by not allowing the rich to get even richer. Socialism sounds like a reasonable ideal that America cooperatively works towards, but awareness should never be lost. America must be careful that the socialism everyone is working towards is not turning communist. Karl Marx, the most knowledgeable about socialism because he essentially discoverded it, said that socialism is a precondition of communism. That warning should be taken carefully into consideration because a country can easily fool its members, so it is the people of the lands responsibility to regulate its government.
In an attempt to make America a little more fair, America is trying to incorporate socialism. Unfortunately America is taking the wrong approach and is forgetting the key points about socialism. Socialism is an economic strategy, not a political strategy; its ideals apply to creating a better economy that is fairly distributed amongst the people, it is not meant to govern the people of the country. This is closer to what communism is used for. America is trying to progress towards socialism with things such as, health care bills, increasing taxes, military, education, strict gun laws, lawsuits, unions and government funding and assistant programs.
America has tried enforcing communism in more than one way. Every American is losing his or her freedom of speech slowly; since when should one be fined for saying something in public? Since when should everything one says or does on their phone or computer be illegally monitored? Since when should the main intentions of a police officer be intimidation instead of hospitality? Some may say that these are just attempts to make a safer and fairer country, but socialist ideals are not meant to be used to govern the people of the land.
Greg Swank wrote an interesting document in nineteen sixty three called "The Communist Take over of America- the 45 Goals." It is supposed to be a list of tasks to complete in order to turn America into a communist country. Surprisingly quite a few of these goals are already in progress or completed. Some of the goals Greg Swank explains are Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. Eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms. Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat],” Swank.
It is undeniable that the United States is trying to change; Barack Obama's whole political campaign was strictly about "change for the better." America has been trying to do something different. The bailing out of the banks and car companies was anything but capitalist. In a real capitalist country we would have let those companies deal with their problems on their own. Instead we chose to bail these companies out of their debt and let them continue to strive, on one hand you could say it still gives a particular group more money so it is not socialist at all, but it still was essentially socialist.
Having socialism run America's economy will not be a bad thing. It is something we can look forward to, its America's unique attempts towards socialism the country must be aware of. America is in the midst of change and whether it be good or bad, we the people must manipulate it to better ourselves. Hopefully we can make a positive change towards socialism and fix up some of the pockets of poverty around America. Barack Obama will go down in history remembered for something; the question is what will he be remembered for? He recognized we needed to fix our country and so he attempted to; the ways he chooses to fix our country will determine whether he will be remembered as the greatest or worst person to influence America on a large scale.

Swank, By Greg. "The Communist Takeover Of America - 45 Declared Goals." Jeff Rense Program. Web. 15 Dec. 2010.
http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm.