When did communism and socialism become the same thing?
Communism is the theory of Marx and Engels as put forward in the Communist Manifesto and is mainly an economic theory whereby labourers, rather than working for a company, actually own the means of production for themselves. This applies across all sectors so there is communal ownership of everything and no private ownership. Such a situation leads to a common ownership of wealth and so everybody has the same amount of food, clothing, housing etc. Marx described his theory as socialism and so communism falls under the wider umbrella of socialism. However, the other major ideology that comes under socialism is social democracy which, as its name suggests, combines socialistic ideals of the welfare state (free education, free healthcare, minimum wage etc.) within a democracy. Social democracy is what most mainstream parties described as “socialist” represent. Finally, liberalism has no connection to socialism but is characterised by relaxed laws and greater personal freedoms (social libe
