What is the difference between capitalism and socialism

Question

What is the difference between capitalism and socialism

Answer 1

In a laissez faire capitalist society there is no government meddling in economic demand. The prices of all goods and services depends primarily on supply and demand. However there is one inherent flaw in this system which seems all fine and dandy. It is that large buisnesses will eventually control all of the market. It does not accomidate small buisnesses well and caters to large, transnational corperations. The problem in this arises when the supply is not diversified and is in the hands of a few large companies, this allows them to "gouge" prices so they can essentually control the market. Since there is NO government intervention nothing can be done about this, the workers essentually become slaves to mega-corperations. Sure they could quit but they and their families starve to death in the streets.

Socialism attempts to fix this problem by diversifing the supply with many small buisnesses. It also imposes many government regulations that say what the buisnesses can and can't do. This will protect against the monopolies of large corperations. However by controlling the supply they are eliminating competion, which drives improvement. They are essentually forcing the progress on people which can only work for so long.

One can sit and argue these systems their whole lives and not say everything, however I hoped this helped if you were confused.