SOCIALISM

The word socialism was coined in 1832 by Pierre Leroux, editor of the Parisian journal, Le Globe. The doctrine of socialism took on many different meanings as it grew and expanded from western Europe to Russia, the United States, Asia, and Australia. In the days of the Soviet Union, it was a common popular misconception that Russians invented both socialism and communism and exported them, when in fact they borrowed these creeds from western Europe and developed their own versions.

All socialist theories are critical of wealth and the concentration of wealth in private hands; all of them advocate the elimination of poverty by equalizing the distribution of wealth, most often by some degree of collective (i.e., public) ownership. The most extreme socialist creeds have advocated the total elimination of private property. Because socialism also advocates some form of collective action, it can be defined not only as a theory but also as a movement.

The many varieties of socialism evolved in part from the disagreement on the means by which a more equitable distribution of wealth in society is to be achieved. Marxist socialism proposes the forceful establishment of a workers' dictatorship; conservative social democrats advocate parliamentary reform and trade unions; syndicalists favor a general strike of the workers; Christian socialists advocate a stringent application of the principles of the Bible.