Socialism & Marxism
Discover socialism and Marxism — the ideologies that challenged capitalism by demanding collective ownership and workers' control of the economy.
Socialism — the broad movement advocating collective or state ownership of the means of production and a more equitable distribution of wealth — emerged as a direct response to the inequalities created by industrial capitalism. Marxism, developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, was its most influential and systematic variant.
Marx's analysis, articulated in The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867–1894), argued that history was driven by class struggle between those who owned the means of production (the bourgeoisie) and those who sold their labor (the proletariat). Capitalism, Marx argued, was inherently exploitative and would inevitably produce economic crises that would radicalize workers. The proletariat would overthrow the bourgeoisie, establish collective ownership, and eventually create a classless, stateless society — communism.
Socialism took many forms in practice. Democratic socialists advocated reform through parliamentary politics. Revolutionary socialists, following Lenin, argued for violent revolution. The Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first Marxist state; by the mid-20th century, communist regimes governed a third of the world's population. Whether in its democratic or revolutionary forms, socialism permanently altered the landscape of modern politics, forcing capitalist societies to address inequality through labor rights, social programs, and regulatory frameworks.