Socialism, Communism, and Capitalism

Introduction

Socialism

Socialism is defined as a system that grants the ownership of production to the public and provides the public with a social welfare system while pursuing material abundance, equality, and sharing for its people. The third world refers to the countries that were “peripheral to the center of world capitalism and subordinated to through colonialism or various forms of imperialist or 'neo-colonial' control and penetration, and where indigenous capitalism was weakly developed.

First, the adoption of socialism reflected the desire of the intellectuals in the third world to explore a model for improving economic development. According to Kautsky (1968), it was the modern elite (or intellectuals) in the third world, and not the general population, that was attracted to communist models. In contrast, traditional elites (including aristocratic rulers, big landowners, and the clergy) tended to regard communist models as a threat, and the masses (including peasantry, urban petite bourgeoisie, and a modern working class) were not broad-minded enough to understand the communist models. The modern elites, as a group, absorbed their values, not from their native traditional society, but from other industrially advanced societies. The adopted values mainly include an emphasis on enhancing the economy; increasing wealth; and improving social equality, education, and political participation. Further dispersion of these values started prevailing in developing countries via universities, armies, bureaucracies, and trade unions.

Second, although the goals set by the intellectuals in the third world were adopted from the Western world, according to Desfosses and Levesque (1975), the Western way of achieving these goals was slow compared with the communist model. The modern elite believed the socialist model was more applicable because it provided an economic growth plan that promoted much faster economic development.

Third, communist models promoted rapid industrialization under the lead of the intellectuals. Communist regimes share similarities with the regimes in other developing countries because in both cases, intellectuals led similar social sections, had similar opponents, and were pursuing similar values. Another reason the socialist model appealed to intellectuals in the third world is the potential opportunities it offered for the intellectuals to obtain power and prestige.

Communism

Communist ideology, in the form of its various “brands” (Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism), has had a powerful impact on shaping political realities throughout the 20th century. In fact, the most consequential political events of the past century can neither be explained nor understood without a clear reference to communist ideas and the most significant attempts at their implementation. It is important to understand that the political slate was not just wiped clean with the turn of the millennium. The need for furthering scientific analysis of the communist ideology and the variety of its implementations certainly are required

Today, the term communism is most often used with reference to either the theory by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels or the politico-economic regimes that claimed to use Marxian theory as their foundation. This chapter has four objectives. The first is to briefly summarize the most essential principles and concepts of the original theory as developed by ...