Defining socialism and communism

Languages change over time, and many words change meaning or can mean different things in different communities. Therefore, it is important in any serious discussion to make sure everyone has a reasonably similar definition of key words.

'Socialism' and 'communism' are terms which are particularly open to misinterpretation for a variety of reasons, such as misunderstanding, informal usage, false intuition and propaganda. For many people, their exposure to these ideas is only from popular culture, mainstream journalism and the largest countries run by socialist governments, resulting in a wide range of incompatible common definitions.

These common definitions are unhelpful, because they are often used to dispute ideas that self-described socialists don't even support.

In political and academic communities, 'socialism' and 'communism' have reasonably stable definitions. While disagreements still exist, and while there are many variants, the core ideas generally remain the same, allowing them to be used to facilitate meaningful discussions. We use these definitions across the site, and most other people debating political ideologies will use them too.

Socialism
The generally-understood political definitions make it clear that:

Socialism is not a system where everyone gets paid the same.

Socialism is not the national redistribution of wealth.

Socialism is not when the government is powerful.

Socialism is not when the government plans the economy.

Socialism is not when there are high taxes or welfare or free healthcare or public services.

Socialism is not when other people can take your toothbrush.

Socialism is not social liberalism or the Nordic Model."Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a wide range of economic and social systems, which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. - Wikipedia (English)"Here is a list of various reputable dictionaries/encyclopedias, all with similar definitions. This fundamentally contrasts it against capitalism, which is based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. It should be noted that socialists, communists and some anarchists distinguish private property and personal property, so eliminating private property doesn't mean people can't have personal possessions.

Socialism is not defined by powerful government. It is true that many Marxist–Leninist states (Soviet Russia, People's Republic of China, Cuba, etc.) are characterized by a powerful dominant party, but Marxism–Leninism is just one subset of socialist ideology. Many other forms of socialism, including some currently existing in large socialist territories, have proven to be extremely democratic with citizens making decisions instead of any governing parties, with some socialist ideologies including anarcho-communism explicitly calling for abolishing of governments.

Socialists are often incidentally socially progressive, but tend to criticize modern social democrat parties (not to be confused with democratic socialism) as a coping mechanism which fails to address problems caused by capitalism, merely patching up its symptoms.

Did any actual existing modern economies implement socialism?
Yes, and many still exist today, including territories of hundreds and thousand of people, along with many individual towns and regions. However, it is debated whether any of the large state socialism economies (Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, Cuba and similar) truly established socialist economies, capitalist economies, or neither (e.g. mixed economy, which tends to be the prevailing answer). These governments aimed to use state socialism as a way to steadily transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production, a core part of Marxism–Leninism theory, so they often had state-managed planned economies with characteristics of both socialist and capitalist economic organization at the same time, or sometimes even socialism in some sectors and capitalism in others.

The question of whether an economy implemented socialism is distinct from the question of whether a country or government was socialist or not (which can instead mean whether their intent was to form socialism). This is a common source of confusion in discussions.

Communism
Communism is a political movement which aims to establish a communist society; a socialist, stateless, classless and moneyless society.

It is important to clarify that there is a major distinction between a communist society and the Western concept of a communist state (also called a Marxist–Leninist state). A communist party is one that aims to bring about a communist society, although they may attempt to do this either directly or through a transitional communist state, which by definition cannot be a communist society.

Some types of communist ideology (e.g Marxism–Leninism) form these transitional states while others (e.g. anarcho-communism) reject the strategy of forming a transitional state. Dozens of countries have been ruled by a communist government, or governments, but none claim to have established a communist society.

The generally-understood political definitions make it clear that:

Communism is not the societies that Soviet Union, China or any other country established.

Communism is not socialism with stronger government.

Communism is not a certain style of government."Communism [is a sociopolitical, philosophical and economic ideology within the socialist movement] whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society. Communist society also involves the absence of private property, social classes, money, and the state. - Wikipedia (English)"Communism aims to eliminate the exploitation of labour by establishing a socialist, stateless, classless and moneyless society. In Marxist theory, this is postulated to emerge from the technological advances in productive forces following the Industrial Revolution.