one of my oldest and most popular videos
is the quick explanation of the
differences between socialism communism
and fascism it's also gotten a lot of criticism
I've learned a lot since... 2012!
good lord this is an old video
there are some good criticisms of the last version
and some questions it didn't answer this
new version tries to take care of all of
that it still tastes great and it's less filling
the goal here is to give people
information and not start arguments but
I go where the evidence leads me so I
look forward to a spirited debate in the
comments and hopefully not having to
delete too many of them for being abusive
first what's socialism
what socialism is or should be has been
argued over since the 1800s it's not
possible to cover every single version
so let's stick with the general ideas
and some of the best known versions to
give you the basic flavor
socialism wants less economic competition and
fewer people getting rich in exchange
for some sort of plan in society that
makes sure everyone gets everything they need
the goal is to end the capitalist
exploitation of workers and make everyone equal
if you think that sounds a little vague
you are correct
socialism is half a criticism of what is--
capitalism--and half a suggestion of what
to do instead
the only thing all socialists agree on
is that anything used to produce goods
or services--the means of production--
would be owned by all of society
some socialists want to keep markets and let
people sell their own labor
some socialists want to get rid of profit altogether
some socialists say that an
economic plan by society will mean too
much central power so they want to
decentralize everything and find a way
to make important decisions as a group
other socialists want democratic control
of the economy the way democratic
control the government works
as you might imagine not all of these systems
have been tried in the real world
though some European countries today
consider themselves democratic socialists
to give a real-world example
from the same time period as the Nazis
communists and fascists we have the 1932
German Social Democratic Party's platform
they wanted to keep a republic
unlike the Nazis and the Communists who
wanted to replace it with different things
and they supported free speech
unlike the Nazis who wanted to attack communists
they also wanted to build
public works to create jobs
to cut the size of government and
reduce taxes and had the rather
unpopular view that Germany should pay all of its war debts
so that's socialism in a nutshell
what's communism?
basically communism is an extreme version of
socialism it falls in the camp of
socialism which says violent revolution
is needed to get to peaceful equality eventually
not just needed but inevitable
because capitalism sucks so much
as Marx says all history is the
history of class struggle it also comes
down on the side of needing a central
power to reorganize things into a fair
system so more government versus the
socialists who want to go straight to less
the Communist Manifesto says that
the proletariat the workers will use its
political supremacy to wrest by degree
all capital from the bourgeois meaning
the rich to centralize all instruments
of production in the hands of the state
Marx also says that communist ends can
be attained only by the forcible
overthrow of all existing social conditions
though to be fair he said
that in the 1840s when things were
pretty miserable for workers who often
couldn't vote in their own country's
elections and only getting worse
as a result communist revolutions and
takeovers always come with a lot of
violence and every communist country has
had a lot of internal repression
communism is also, in theory at least,
trying to completely eliminate markets
and private sales of goods and services
rather than keeping them under some form
of collective management
though most communist countries have had to
back off from that at some point because
they would run out of stuff like food
the goal is the famous line from each
according to his ability to each
according to his needs
that's the general picture of communism though
there are a lot of specific differences
between different communist countries
like China versus the Soviet Union
most of those differences boil down to
different approaches to creating
communism or how much of a free-market or
democratic government to allow part of
the reason not to say more is that
they're kind of boring
then there's the complaint that
communism as set out by Marx has
never actually been tried
every communist state that's come into existence
has argued that they're fulfilling communism
in the real world so you'll have to
decide for yourself if the outcomes
communism has gotten so far truly
represent the idea or if there's some
other way to do it that comes out differently
so that's communism
what's the difference between socialism and communism?
get used to hearing that
something is argued about because I'll
be saying that a lot but no one exactly
agrees on where socialism stops and communism starts
there are some differences
mostly about how much state
control and aggressive action would be required
also socialists might still let
people have some differences in property
and status while communists supposedly
wanted to end all personal property and
class differences, though that never
actually happened in any communist country
Marx seemed to think that
socialism of some sort would happen
after capitalism and then communism
would happen after that
many socialists have criticized communist
countries saying that they just replaced
capitalists with the government
basically historic socialism is like communism's
hippie cousin--that's one reason it stayed more
popular even after World War II and the
Cold War with people like Albert
Einstein and more recently Bernie
Sanders arguing for it
both of whom had crazy hair... coincidence?!?
yes yes it is