All About the Socialist States and Country

Socialist states depict their unique set of political and socio-economic norms which supports common ownership of equity. Factor markets that distribute their profit to the private stakeholders cease to exist under social ownership. Apart from being a public entity, common ownership can also be cooperative or collective. Collective ownership allows all the members of the socialist state to openly access the assets. They may also deny their proprietorship whenever they want. The cooperative nature of the socialist mentality can be defined as the philosophy that supports an autonomous alliance of citizens to fulfil their common fundamental requirements in the economic and political realm.

Socialism is heavily dependent on the market functionality, managerial structure of state institutions, and ultimately on all the key socialism preachers who tend to influence the ruling political party of a country. 

Types of socialist systems

In a socialist system, the workers determine the quantity of output and revenue generated from the production process. Such a system is categorized under two brackets: non-market socialism and market socialism. 

Non-market socialism directly contradicts the concept of capitalism. Lands or capital are not assigned to the owners of all the productive resources. Instead of this, an economic strategy is designed to replace the factor markets by following a set pattern of repetitive procedures. Bulk accumulation of working capital and the economic profit ladder of the market affects the feasibility of all strategic socialist states. The mechanism tends to eradicate every possible disadvantage of capitalism which have been previously identified by the Marxist, socialist and religious approach. 

Market socialism intends to transfer the ownership rights of the business entities from their owners to the workers. The economic framework can either be entirely defined by the workers themselves or it can be a collective holding of the workers and the private companies. The scope of market socialism is only limited to resource allocation and production methodology. Depending on the nature of market socialism i.e., whether a company is a social, cooperative, or public enterprise, the profit amount is directly distributed among the workers. This method of remuneration is opposite to the democratic tendencies inside a capitalist market. 

What are the Socialist States? 

A socialist state is a monarchical administrative region whose Constitution is strictly subjected to socialism. Socialist states are also referred to as worker’s republics. In the West, many nations are continuously adopting the socialist mindset. However, when other European nations tag them as communist parties, they express outright denial. We notice many countries using the term ‘socialist republic’ in their preamble although the political and economic evolution of those nations is not at all influenced by socialism. A few examples of such nations include India, Nepal, Tanzania, Algeria, Guyana, etc. This again generates controversy regarding the definition of socialist countries in the true sense of the term. 

Fundamental Philosophical theories of Socialist countries 

Marxism: Critical theories of Karl Marx about politics and society are communally referred to as Marxism. The Marxist thinkers aim to bring socio-economic transformation using a materialist explanation of historical evolution. The theory studies the economic activities of a community to describe social events or the behavior of the majority of the population. Thus, socialism is a vestige of Marxism that inspires the emergence of a sovereign state. The main function of a socialist country is to draft a legal framework and plan modern infrastructure that will encourage capital accumulation and long-term business development. Emphasis is given to redesigning the capitalist functionality which will boost the production of a state. Society must be free from private ownership. This will stop the affluent class from disdaining the lower classes of society. Marxist ideology saves the workers from their deputies and bosses and also protects their interests. 

Leninism: This theory ushered in the concept of democratic centralism. Political decisions are to be made through free discussion. To pass a law majority of the members of the revolutionary vanguard organization must approve the draft. This opposes the political theory of bourgeois as mentioned in the Marxist theory. The primary aim of Leninism is not to promote socialism in a country but to firmly establish the control of the workers’ councils. In 1917, Russian political theorist Vladimir Lenin introduced this revolutionary propaganda before the October Revolution. This profoundly contributed to eliminating the civil wars in semi-feudal Russia. 

Trotskyist theory: Russian politician Leon Trotsky was an ex-member of the Constituent Assembly. He criticized Stalin’s monopoly and revolted against the static centralization of the ruling party. He pointed out that this directly hindered the workers’ role in the management of finance. Trotsky stated that by no means the Soviet Union will not be able to rise as a socialist state as democracy was lacking. Thus, in the modern world, countries depicting similar conditions where the economy is predominantly controlled by the state are said to follow Trotskyist theory. 

Conclusion 

A Socialist state is also referred to as a worker’s state. These countries are governed by revolutionary political parties that abide by Marxist – Leninist theories. In the West, such countries are termed Communist states. Private ownership of assets is not allowed in socialist states.