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In our current political climate, Socialism has become a bit of a buzzword, largely due to the work of the Sanders campaign in de-stigmatizing the word within the American discourse. While this has been good for many leftist groups (leftist here defined as any groups that explicitly advocate for some form or another of socialism, i.e. not the Democrats), there has been a large amount of confusion about what socialism is, even among those who advocate for supposedly socialist programs and policies.

The bane of the left has been this confusion about the term. We have been called alt-left with a high level of frequency by ultraconservative groups, a term that is intended to equate us with the fascist and proto-fascist movements of the alt-right, which is a movement that we have nothing in common with.

So, for the sake of clarity, lets try and make exactly clear what socialists are, what we believe, and what the terms we are discussing mean. To begin, a few points of admission and clarity:

I am a communist. That is the position this piece is written from.

All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists. Socialism is an umbrella term for a wide range of political theories, whereas Communism is a particular one.

No, socialism isnt a system in which the government necessarily runs the economy.

No, socialism isnt a system in which the government regulates the economy, taxes the rich heavily, and has a high level of social investment.

No, communism isnt necessarily a dictatorship in which the government has unlimited power.

Many of these claims are difficult to accept for an American or western audience, as the spectre of the Cold War still haunts us and distorts our view of politics. However, it must be made clear that whether or not the USSR was even a good example of socialism is one of the most divisive questions of the left, and that we cannot let decades old discourse and rhetoric cloud our understanding of what is happening today.

Disclaimers aside, this brings us to our central question: what is socialism? Socialism is a theory pioneered by many philosophers and thinkers, notably Proudhon, Marx, and Bakunin (although, even this selection of early socialists is misleading, incomplete, and arbitrary) in the mid-to-late 19th century. These theorists encompass ideologies ranging from mutualism, anarchism, to communism.

The central component that links these ideologies as socialist is their basic conception of how the workforce and industry should be organized. To be explicit and brief, this organization is defined in opposition to capitalism, with the two systems being defined as thus:

Capitalism: a system in which some people own businesses, factories, and the means by which goods and services are produced (the means of production), and then buy labor from those who cannot afford to privately own these properties. That is, you have those who own the labour of others, and those who sell their labour and what it produces to others.

Socialism: A system in which workers collectively own the means of production and own all that they produce.

The interpretation of what socialism looks like is a massive contention on the left. Some, such as the mutualists, defend the existence of a free market, with all individual businesses being collectively and equally owned by those who work at them. Some, such as the Anarcho-Communists, believe that capitalism cannot be abolished without abolishing the state. And some, such as the communists, believe that the conditions that cause capitalism cannot be abolished without seizing the power of the state.

But what binds them is a search for a classless society in which the workers directly control government and industry. It is not defined by dictatorship- although there are those who advocate dictatorship- it is defined by working class control.

So, when socialists talk of policy, we dont talk of greater government control- we have a capitalist government that we do not wish to hand any more power to. What we speak of is the working class. We speak of workers rights. We speak of workplace agitation. We speak of power to the working class!

As the Industrial Workers of the World, the radical union that earned us much of our workers rights in the early 20th century, says in their preamble, The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. What we seek is an end to socio-economic relations that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

This is why we do not feel comfortable working within the structures of the Democratic party, and see the Democrats as the enemy every bit as much as the Republicans- both are capitalist organizations with capitalist donors, capitalist aims, capitalist structures, and capitalist leaders. Nancy Pelosi even admitted as much at a public forum when confronted with growing youth support for socialism. In her own words. We are capitalists. Thats just how it is. However, this is why socialism has never been the mythical academic ideology it has been portrayed as. We do not sit in ivory towers trying to decide the fate of society. We are your coworkers. We are your friends. We are sometimes your family. One thing that I promise, however, is that we are not your boss.

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Decoding Buzzwords: What Is Socialism? - LemonWire