Where capitalism supposedly promotes equal opportunity, socialism sets out to hold all people on equal standing through shared wealth and power. The arguement against capitalism, and a fair one, is that although it states that there should be equal opportunity, wealth and power are concentrated in pockets. Socialism would want to “share” this out. There is a greater emphasis on community in socialism rather than hyper-individualism promoted by capitalism.

When socialism has been put into action it seems that there is increased central control of society and a greater lack of freedom. In fact it seems to often fall in step with totalitarianism. It could be said that the wealth and quality of life does not increase but there is a slowdown of technological advances and a lack of creativity in society.

Does it always need to be this way?

Socialism can only work if it is able to promote freedom and creativity. The only way I can see that is if we were organized into smaller communities that have ownership of their means of production and work like co-operatives - applied on a national level and you have de-personalised nationalisation of economies that would lead to people not really having that sense of ownership and freedom of enterprise. Scale it down and you have co-operative collectives.

Perhaps working together across collectives is about increasing the quality of life of all but not for private self gain - so technological advances, ways of capturing or generating energy, sharing products and produce (spices, potatoes, wood, oil etc), support in times of famine or natural disaster… Collectives would not need to be entirely self-sufficient in terms of resources but would need to entirely sustainable in terms of their impact on the natural enviroment.

Of course I suppose the nature of people would need to change first…