No Stupid Questions

Communism is an eventual end goal, a classless, stateless society. Socialism is a system that aims to progress towards that goal.

These terms have become muddled due to social democrats dropping the pretense that they want to establish communism (early social democrats like Eduard Bernstein argued for using reformism to establish communism), while still holding on to the "socialist" label. So there are some people who would use "socialist" to describe social democracy and reformism while reserving "communism" for Marxist-Leninists. This is quite strange considering that it was called the USSR and not the USCR, but what are you gonna do?

Since it's often controversial whether a state that claims to be socialist is actually aiming to establish communism, some people use the term AES of "actually existing socialism" to describe modern states that call themselves socialist, because, whether or not they are "truly socialist," they bear enough similarities and are distinct enough to warrant having a term to describe them.

My take on it is that socialism is still fundamentally a capitalist approach to resource distribution, while Communism does away with most private property. Some people like to try and dress it up more with ideals, but that's the basic difference in practice -- it doesn't make sense in this context, from my pov, to talk about the imaginary "ideal" of communism, rather than the realistic implementations of it that have occurred.

So, like under communism everything is basically state owned. People who've lived under communism will hear things like "state owned grocery stores" and think "Oh shit, I've lived this -- you get food stamps/allocations of food assigned by the govt, and that's what you're allowed to 'buy'/'eat'. And the govt workers will get better stamps/allocations, cause it'll be inevitably corrupt. This is bad!". (I've heard this very sentiment from people who fled communist states, when topics like Mamdani's govt run stores comes up). Applied communism isn't some idyllic fairytale, it's more "The state has declared the university system too elitist, so we're forcing you all to do back breaking labour in the fields. Refusal means firing squad".

Under a socialist approach, you get things like private stores, honoring things like food stamps that are provided to people in need, but most of the transactions are done without government involvement. The talk of setting up government run grocery stores, is viewed more as "We want to provide a baseline that can sell food at cost, but we still want private stores too, especially for more luxury/foreign goods and other options/competition in the market. Having a market option that is providing cheap generic products should have a stabilizing effect on food prices, and downward pressure on cost of living in general for folks". To provide these services, socialist regimes typically have higher tax rates on private citizens -- but those taxes are still fundamentally driven by a capitalist system of private property and individual choice/freedom.

Socialism: If you have two cows, you give one to your neighbor.

Communism: If you have two cows, you give them to the government and the government then gives you some milk.

TL;DR:

Socialism: maintains monetary system. You earn and spend money like usual, except you are restricted from using the labor of others to generate profit for yourself (example: maintaining a large business). Key formula: from each according to their abilities, to each according to their labor.

Example of a socialist country: USSR, Eastern Bloc, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba, Allende's Chile, pre-1986 Vietnam, North Korea

What socialism is not: Nordic model, capitalist states with social support.

Communism: no monetary system. Everything is free. Communism assumes one of three ways to make it happen: either everyone understands the intrinsic value of labor and does it for the sake of it, or labor is mandatory, or all of the unlikeable jobs are automated. Communism is normally considered not as an immediate outcome, but a future goal. Key formula: from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs

Example of a communist country: War communism period in Soviet Russia, Khmer Rouge

What communism is not: socialism (although it's a development of one), capitalism with state support.

In my mind, pure communism would use no money, just job assignments and resource distribution. In Socialism, money is still used but it is used for the benefit of all, not just a few.

Socialism is a broad idea which includes a lot of different ideologies. Some believe in a state, others don't. Some believe in markets, others don't. Some believe in currency, others don't. Many believe socialism is a step on the way to communism.

Communism is the end goal for some of the most radical. "A classless, stateless, moneyless society. Where goods and services are distributed from each according to ability, to each according to need."

Soulism is communism's material liberation, plus a spiritual liberation. We ditch the material mechanisms of capitalism, AND the mind prison of capitalism. One of the reasons the USSR failed to enact socialism is because the workers who seized the state remained inside the capitalist mind prison. Giving them power just turned them into capitalists.

I made this just because I want to say that the easiest way to think about it is precisely that.

Communism = perfect, pure socialism, and perfected pure capitalism is Laissez-faire capitalism.

But more people personally prefer diluted forms of communism or pure-capitalism.

Back in the 19th century—before the working class was split into the factions of socialism, communism and anarchism—these words and their movements were often used interchangeably, with socialism meaning something along the lines of "the people own the means of productions", communism describing a society that follows the paradigm of "each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" and anarchism meaning that no instance of anything should rule over others.

As you can see, these ideas were not contradicting each other but rather focussing on different aspects of the liberation of the working class

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Socialism is the public ownership of the means of production. Communism is the freedom of the means of production.

Both words are complicated, debated, co-opted, etc., so it's hard to come up with a definition and relationship that'd be universally accepted. But Socialism, broadly speaking, is the ownership of the means of production (things that, when work, generate money like factories, etc.) by the workers. Different variants of socialism call for that ownership by different means, usually either by a government as a proxy for the workers, or by industrial unions, or by the workers' directly.

Communism is a variant of Socialism that, broadly, assumes that socialism will eventually progress to a classless and stateless society.