Socialism is highly ambiguous term It is used not only in broad as well as in a narrow sense but also stands for theory and movement. It is on one side a theory at the functions of state and is opposed to individualism on the other side.
It is an attack on the principles of capitalism and a movement for the establishment of new social order based on principles radically different from those on which the present society is based. It is in this later sense that the terms in generally used.
Thus understood socialism is the best regarded as an indictment of the existing economic organization society which rests upon the two closely connected institutions of private capital and free competition. In indicts capitalistic order of society for (1) having created serious inequalities in the distribution of wealth, (2) being wasteful and inefficient in its working for being indifferent to consideration of jesuitic and humanity.
All these evils follow from the private industry. The socialist supplements his criticism of capitalism with suggestions for the removal of the evils inherent in the system. He recommends that ownership of means of production should vest not in private individuals but in the democratically organized society basis.
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Socialism thus stands for the socialism of industry. Social ownership by means of production would ensure that industry would be organized for good of society and not for private gain. In other words socialism wants to substitute the motive of social service for that of personal gain in industry.
This may be regarded as the second main principle of socialism. ]n the next place, socialism wants to remove the great and serious inequalities in the distribution of wealth. It is from the nature of case impossible that the incomes of all the members of community should be equalized but what can and should be attempted is a more equitable distribution of wealth.
The socialism of industry and the eradication of the motive of private gain from industry would bring about a more equitable distributions of wealth. Lastly, it may be pointed out that socialism wants to emancipate the workers from the bondage of the capitalist and enable them to live a life the worthy of human beings.
At its root is the desire to give the individual the maximum amount of liberty to pursue and promote the spiritual value of life. It aims at a new organization of society with that end in view it wants to place the requisite a good and happy life within reach of all.
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Collectivism or state socialism, syndicalism, guild socialism and communism are important schools of socialism. They differ in regard to their attitude to the state, the role of the workers in the new social order, and about the means to be employed in the attempt to usher in the new social order.
Collectivism wants to preserve the state while the other three are more or less anti-state. The latter wants to vest the control over industry in the workers engaged in it and not in the state. They also recommend the use of the direct and violent means for the realisation of their ends as against collectivism which is wedded to the employment of constitutional means only.