socialism

  1. Noun.  Any of various economic and political philosophies that support social equality, collective decision-making, distribution of income based on contribution and public ownership of productive capital and natural resources, as advocated by socialists.
  2. Noun.  The socialist political philosophies as a group, including Marxism, libertarian socialism, democratic socialism, and social democracy.
  3. Noun.  (context, Leninism) The intermediate phase of social development between capitalism and full communism. This is a strategy whereby the state has control of all key resource-producing industries and manages most aspects of the economy, in contrast to laissez faire capitalism.

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.