SOCIALISM is the name given both to a widespread body of doctrines and to a world-wide movement taking many different forms. It has a long history behind it ; and the word has been used in shifting senses as the ideas behind it have developed and the situations facing it changed. A short and comprehensive definition is therefore impossible. We can only say that Socialism is essentially a doctrine and a movement aiming at the collective organization of the community in the interests of the mass of the people by means of the common ownership and collective control of the means of production and exchange.
It is well to begin by ruling altogether out from the scope of this article certain popular uses of the term "Socialism" which were current, especially during the past generation. The well known phrase "We are all Socialists now," and the constant references to "socialistic legislation," only serve to obscure the real meaning of the word. "We are all Socialists now" only means that everybody in these days, whatever his politics, is ready to agree to a greater amount of Government intervention both in industry and in the affairs of society generally than most people even conceived as possible a generation ago. And "socialistic legis lation" is, as a rule, only a phrase indicating disapproval of any measure which increases this collective intervention or seeks in any way to promote a more equal distribution of income among the members of the community.
Again, almost any extension of local government activity, such as the taking over of a tramway system or an electric supply sta tion, or the establishment of a municipal bank, is liable to be referred to as "Municipal Socialism," even if the public body which does it consists mainly of persons who are strongly opposed to Socialism. Socialists certainly urge the extension of municipal trading; but so do many persons who are not in any sense Social ists. These and similar uses of the word are accordingly left out of consideration in this article.
We must, however, try to make our initial attempt at a definition somewhat more precise. Socialism, we have said, is the name
given at once to a doctrine and to a movement. In its early days, before there existed any widespread or clearly-defined Socialist movement, it was used chiefly as the name of a doctrine, or body of doctrines, and thus tended to be applied very widely to all social theories which stressed the need for collective political or economic action in opposition to the dominant individualist doc trines. The so-called "Socialism of the Chair," which had a vogue in Germany during the second quarter of the 19th century, was called "Socialism" mainly in the broad philosophical sense; and "Christian Socialism," in many of its manifestations, is Socialist only in the sense that it stresses, in opposition to individualism, the corporate nature of society and the need for social solidarity based on the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. In more recent times, as distinctively Socialist ideas have become embodied in a number of organized movements, national and inter national, the tendency has been to think of Socialism more as a movement than as a doctrine, and to sum it up rather as what the Socialists want than as a definite body of theoretical dogma. For there exists no canon of Socialist doctrines on which all Socialists would agree. Karl Marx came nearest to providing such a canon in his formulation of "Scientific Socialism" as contrasted with the "Utopianism" of his predecessors. But, while most of the Conti nental Socialist parties profess to base their policy on Marxism, and employ Marxian phrases and ideas for its expression, there are many different interpretations of Marxism, and, in any case, the fundamental doctrines of Marx himself form rather a philos ophy of history and a critique of capitalist industrialism and ortho dox political economy than a positive policy for Socialism to-day. Moreover, there are many Socialists, including the majority in Great Britain, who do not profess to be Marxists at all.