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The denomination of the socialism It is a specific concept to define the economies in which the property of goods is collective, and therefore the mode of production does not consider people as sellers of their labor power but precisely that workforce as a means at the disposal of the common good.
Marxism and the critique of capital
The idea of socialism comes from the theoretical contributions of Karl Marx, who throughout his work during the nineteenth century devoted himself to characterizing the way of capitalist production explaining the separation that this system produces between people and the product of their work, between people and the activity they perform, and between people and their own human potential, as a result of the previous two.
It is by virtue of this that Marx proposes the collectivization of all means of production, and the replacement of societal life in classes, which implied the overcoming of the capitalist mode of production and with it the suppression of the State.
See also: Examples of Alienation
A global mode of production
Marx's work, one of the most important of his century, concentrates almost solely on characterizing capitalism and explaining its tendency to collapse, rather than proposing the alternative situation. The collectivist mode of production (called communist) is characterized by being global, but there are no further clarifications regarding its implementation, which will be through the fight between the two classes into which people are divided within capitalist society: businessmen (or bourgeoisie) and workers.
The truth is that, once capitalism is consolidated as a global system, The visions that considered the communist exit as opportune had to adapt their program to some categories of the capitalist world, such as the unity of countries or democracy: so it is that the socialist experiments that have been carried out throughout the 20th century were limited to one country or a handful of them, without acquiring the indispensable world character under Marx's criteria.
Socialism in the 20th century
The fact that collective economies have been an exception in a capitalist world implies, in part, that they have not fulfilled their original mission: although within these economies the productive relations were not those of class during capitalism, the goods produced there were exchanged under capitalist criteria with the outside, joining the totality of human production in the capitalist sense, but with centralized state production.
Anyway, there were several countries that opted for socialism throughout the 20th and 21st centuriesFew ties could really be established between all of them: the majority had to use authoritarian and repressive political regimes, canceling free elections. Most received an aggressive response from nearby capitalist blocs, and had to face by way of armed violence or other. The limited nature of socialism meant that most had to face the limitations that the persistence of ambition and private selfishness give, such as corruption and exaggerated bureaucracy.
See also: Examples from Developed Countries
Here are some examples of socialist experiences in different countries, clarifying the type of socialism used:
- China, a socialism with a single party since 1949. (Although with components of the market economy)
- Vietnam, with a single party since 1976.
- Nicaragua, with a government tending towards socialism within capitalism, since 1999.
- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the experience that came closest to expanding the socialist program around the world, between 1922 and 1991.
- Chile, under the democratic presidency of Salvador Allende, between 1970 and 1973.
- Bolivia, with a government tending towards indigenous socialism within capitalism, since 1999.
- Cuba, single-party socialism since 1959.
- Venezuela, with a government tending towards socialism within capitalism, since 1999.
- Laos, with a single party since 1975.
- North Korea, a socialist dictatorship since 1945.
- Denmark
- Norway
- Sweden
- Finland
- Iceland (the last five, with market economic models but that have a state involved in the organization and financing of well-being in a very high way).
See also: Central, Peripheral and Semi-peripheral Countries
