What are the differences between socialism aka a command economy and a capitalist economy?

Answer 1

Socialism is not a command economy. Socialism has no money or prices, hence no economy. Goods and services are produced to meet human need, and people have free access. Capitalism involves wages system, production for sale, exploitation, inequality and poverty.

Answer 2

Socialism is the command economy and capitalist is the Free market economy.

Socialism - Supply and price are regulated by the government rather than market forces. Government planners decide which goods and services are produced and how they are distributed.

Capitalism - Businesses and consumers decide on their own what they will purchase and produce without government intervention.

In simpler words, Socialism is where the government decides everything and Capitalism is the opposite, where the buyers and sellers gets to decide on wages, price, etc.

Answer 3

This British broad description is an overview within which many theoretic and practical issues are not addressed.

A capitalist system uses excesses of profit from trade/exchange processes to build a hierarchical society and relies on charity to prop up its short falls on personal opportunities.

It prefers to move away from govern ment economic intervention (laissez faire liberalism) ultimately maximising profit without restriction.

Some theorists believed that there should be private military and police forces along the lines of say the East India Company.

Governments in extreme theoretical capitalist systems were to play only a minimalist part in the trade/exchange process. concerning themselves only with legislature and international treaties and defence.

A major benefit was that profit could be used to support an expanding society and infrastructure outside of a localised agrarian community. Such societies could and have advanced the sciences and the arts beyond direct economic interest.

A major draw back is that rapid ascendancy to ungovernable national and international monopolies straining legislative powers and ultimately distorting democratic principles through credit/debt leverage structures and ultimately through disenfranchising oligarchies.

Essentially Capitalism is an economic concern guided by politics. Any theories and dabates concerned with capitalism are capitalist.

This broad description is an overview in which many theoretical and practical issues are not addressed.

A socialist system is an interventionist system and seeks to redress what are seen as social imbalances in the capitalist system. This it strives to achieve through maintaining societal biases which are believed to redress capitalisms' perpetually exclusive self interest systems. It strives to strongly address those issues which an extreme capitalist system ejects to the field of charity.

It tends then towards interventionist government in capitalist systems restricting the maximisation of profit to benefit the larger part of society.

It differs greatly from communism where the state has the monopoly on ownership and violence and gains the utilisation of benefits from economic activity for its own purposes.

The concerns of socialism are primarily health welfare and educational issues which it believes should be central to modern civilisations' societal structures.

A major benefit of socialism is that it strives to narrow the individual's economic wealth band and support a wider section of society from the inevitable consequences of life's struggles by widening an individuals' personal opportunities.

A major draw back is that its ideological interests have been seen by a traditionally reactionary conservative nation such as the UK to distort old values giving more political power to those who have in the past been excluded on the view that they have not warranted it.

Essentially Socialism is a political concern restricted by capitalism. Any theories and debates concerned with socialism are socialist.