Socialism is a form of an economic system under which majority of resources are owned by the government. Socialism can be understood with the help of an example, suppose 4 friends go on a picnic now if each friend brings food and supplies according to his or her wealth then there will be the difference between them where a rich friend will have good quality food and a poor friend will have the moderate quality of food. However, if all friends do not bring food from their home rather they all bring the same amount of money and then buy food from the market before going to picnic then every friend will have same quality food which is the idea behind socialism where everyone should enjoy benefits of the economic development of the country. In order to understand this better let’s look at some of the features of socialism –
Features of Socialism
Government has all the Resources
The first feature of it is that it is the government which has all the important resources with it and private companies or individual cannot use the resources for its own benefit rather it is the government which uses theses resources for the social welfare of the people.
Lack of Economics
Another feature of it is that it does not pay attention to economics in the sense that price is not decided by the demand and supply rather it is decided according to the government social welfare schemes.
Monopoly not Possible
Lack of monopoly is another feature of this economic system because it is the government which holds the majority of resources and chances of private companies or individuals forming a monopoly by taking over the important resources is very less under socialism.
Bureaucratic Work Style
The lackluster attitude of government employees towards decision making and bureaucratic work style is another feature of socialism which in turn leads to inefficient use of resources leading to the loss for a country in terms of economic growth and development.
Equality
Another feature of this economic system is the absence of class on the basis of money so upper, middle or lower class is not there in case of socialism because in theory all people are considered to be equal.
Limited Goods
In the case of socialism, the choice as far consumer is concerned is limited because goods are produced keeping in mind the necessities of life and not on the luxuries of life.
Lack of Entrepreneurs
Due to lack of competition and no reward for doing hard work chances of the country producing great entrepreneurs diminishes under socialism.
As one can see from the above that socialism has many features which are unique to this form of economic system and it is quite different from other economic system like capitalism and mixed economy.