Socialism

ocialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership and control of the means of production,[1][2][3][4][5] as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.[6] "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative ownership, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.[7] Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[8] social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.[9][10]

Socialism can be divided into both market and non-market forms.[5] The latter encompasses the initial concept of socialism, which involves substituting factor markets, money and financial decisions for managing the economy with engineering and technical criteria centered around calculation performed in-kind, indicating that socialism would operate according to different economic laws than those of capitalism. The goal of this approach is to provide an economic mechanism that avoids the inefficiencies and crises traditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] By contrast, market socialism retains the use of monetary prices and factor markets--and, in some cases, the profit motive--with respect to the operation of socially-owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them, with the profits generated by these firms variously being used to directly remunerate employees, accrue to society at large as the source of public finance, or be distributed among the population in a social dividend.[18][19][20] The feasibility and exact methods of resource allocation and calculation for a socialist system are the subjects of the socialist calculation debate.