Socialism = advocate an economic system that is state-controlled or publicly controlled, meaning no private business or property, cooperation based production and shared wealth. Socialism as in a political movement basically push for this system to be implemented.

Leftism = a movement in support for social change, usually towards an egalitarian society (equality in society), as opposed to the right wing which is in favor towards maintaining the social order/rank. Leftism can include communism, socialism, liberalism, anarchism etc.

Leftism is a wider scope of political view, while socialism is more specific

Can we ever overcome the public school indocrtination that taught us fascism is right wing?
Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot, for example.

Reckless, saying it louder doesn’t make it true.

Eugene, I notice you didn’t provide ANYTHING to support your blatant assertion.

Hobbit, those Conservatives were DEMOCRATS.

At that time Democrats were considered the conservatives. The meaning of conservative and liberal have changed over time.

Funny how you conveniently left that out.

Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler are dictators. They killed left wingers to consolidate their power.

You need more education than media indoctrination.

True Communism calls for abolishment of central government.

instead of deleting the question of anybody who asks what the difference is?
C’est, I tried to read your answer, but my question got deleted before I could see it.

You could post it again, but I guess all you want to do is rant some more.

Dave, so are you suggesting that Obama and the rest of the left wing Democrats are actually fascists?

They have been in control of our government for quite some time now.

April, so are you saying Stalin and Mao were really fascists?

Werent’ they left wingers?

fascism is right wing extremism..when the corporations take over the govt…its the opposite of socialism when the worker takes over the govt

we’re in fascism now…and the only talk of "beware of socialism" comes from the facists

Agreed?

Hitler was on the Far Right. Stalin Who was Far Left was much worse though, he killed 20 million of his own people. You don’t hear about him though… Hitler did improve the country though.

The Wisconsin recall elections were an all out national effort by unions and leftists, 10s of millions spent and yet they still failed, will this failure continue as Americans continue to reject tax and spend leftism?

yes.

You know, like Bill Ayers.
Lance, do you find this question intellectually uncomfortable?

Why is that?

No, He would have to do more than that.

No wonder these loons are pushing people towards leftism.

The most conservative of the conservatives are the Amish people. These pacifists don’t even like their picture taken. They are far from a description of "loud" and the last time I checked conservatives aren’t the ones usually going around demanding the right for "free speech."

Leftism = Coercion.
I’d answer his recent question, but he has blocked me. Why don’t Leftists welcome dissenting viewpoints?

Newell is a left wing loon being paid to post his silly and mindless tripe. He has no idea what he is talking about. Notice he blocks anybody that even thinks about disagreeing with him. Typical left wing fool.

I know they have delved deep in looking at different attitudes between liberals and conservatives and even brain chemistry and genetics.

But what about the difference between radical leftists(left-anarchism, socialism, communism, marxism, primitivism) and mainstream leftism(social democracy, liberalism)? Anyone familiar with the literature is aware of the vast difference in political views here. Many socialists disavow the label "liberal" and reserve it specifically for supporters of capitalism and this is justified by the history. The word liberalism originally described a school of political philosophy started by John Locke that stressed property rights.
@Datz,

Everything in the universe is connected in some way. Our consciousness and hence everything in social science can be boiled down to material factors. Scientists have already found statistical genetic differences between liberals and conservatives(whether the genes lead to them being liberal or conservative or whether this lead to something else which actually reflects differences in attitudes between them is another matter).

So then there might be statistical differences between the mainstream and radical left too.
@Datz,

But sometimes genes code for things that in turn influence other things in which case there would be a correlation.

Maybe a gene codes for a certain temperament that increases the likelihood of the person finding a set of beliefs attractive but doesn’t guarantee it.

The genetics for liberals and conservatives obviously isn’t completely cut and dry and based on how scientists say it correlates I doubt I fit the mold. I am very left BUT I have a set of values, ethics, beliefs, morals I believe in I consider objective based on logic that coincide strongly with the left. Most people who believe in any kind of objective morality are right-wing. I believe in objective morality, I just think society today while it’s better than it used to be is far away from it, determining many good things to be bad, bad things to be good, and even where it gets that right not knowing the right priorities for how good and bad things are.

What do you mean by scientists and genetics? That has nothing to do with political philosophy or ideas. In fact, it is an absolutely ridiculous claim to make. So ridiculous that in fact don’t quite even know what it is that you’re trying to ask.

Left-wing philosophy is extensive. The general notion is that people are good and can make choices for themselves. Knowing this it can also be said that we are obliged to look out for each other, a society that looks after it’s own weak and supports itself, is a strong society. This is the general philosophy. For the sake of argument, I’ll talk about Anarchists, Communists, Democratic Socialists and Liberals.

The extremes of this philosophy are interesting because one tends to be libertarian and the other is very authoritarian. Anarchists are quite similar to communists. The difference is that they believe in voluntary co-operation. You have the choice to participate or not to participate in certain events of structures as you so choose. They believe that societies should be ordered so that people are treated fairly and are looked after by one another in small communities, such as neighbourhoods, workers’ unions and other possible structures where no one individual holds power over another. In the USA, people often ask if anarchists are right-wing because they support no government intervention in anything. The answer is no because they don’t believe that where the government is not, corporations should be. They see corporations often as more tyrannical than the State. An anarchist would support universal healthcare, welfare, and things of this nature, but they believe that a society without money and where the people carry out the functions of government is best.

Communists one the other hand believe that this sort of society needs a central government to keep functioning. Instead of decentralizing power, they believe that power needs to be maintained in order to force the necessary changes and to effectively govern a nation.

The mainstream left is far from that radical. They believe that a democratic government is the best means for social change. Slow and evolutionary is the best way to make a better country. They don’t believe that capitalism is evil. But they do think that unbridled capitalism is dangerous and reckless. So liberals believe in things like socialized firefighters, healthcare, food safety, universal education, and pensions for retirees.

I believe there may be some genetic correlation but I highly doubt causation. Human consciousness and ideas are strange and are not linear. The various political ideologies are varied and come in huge ranges. I don’t think that it could be said that anyone has the exact same politics. Not only this but people often change their politics. Genetic mechanisms usually stay the same or develop in a constant pattern. Your eye colour doesn’t change on your whim, you can’t be convinced to change the shape of your eyes and you don’t elect polydactyly. But you do vote your politics, you can be convinced to explore or accept other ideas, and you can change your politics. I used to be a moderate conservative and now I’m on the libertarian left. However, my eye colour has always been blue.

I know they have delved deep in looking at different attitudes between liberals and conservatives and even brain chemistry and genetics.

But what about the difference between radical leftists(left-anarchism, socialism, communism, marxism, primitivism) and mainstream leftism(social democracy, liberalism)? Anyone familiar with the literature is aware of the vast difference in political views here. Many socialists disavow the label "liberal" and reserve it specifically for supporters of capitalism and this is justified by the history. The word liberalism originally described a school of political philosophy started by John Locke that stressed property rights.
@Datz,

Everything in the universe is connected in some way. Our consciousness and hence everything in social science can be boiled down to material factors. Scientists have already found statistical genetic differences between liberals and conservatives(whether the genes lead to them being liberal or conservative or whether this lead to something else which actually reflects differences in attitudes between them is another matter).

So then there might be statistical differences between the mainstream and radical left too.
@Datz,

But sometimes genes code for things that in turn influence other things in which case there would be a correlation.

Maybe a gene codes for a certain temperament that increases the likelihood of the person finding a set of beliefs attractive but doesn’t guarantee it.

The genetics for liberals and conservatives obviously isn’t completely cut and dry and based on how scientists say it correlates I doubt I fit the mold. I am very left BUT I have a set of values, ethics, beliefs, morals I believe in I consider objective based on logic that coincide strongly with the left. Most people who believe in any kind of objective morality are right-wing. I believe in objective morality, I just think society today while it’s better than it used to be is far away from it, determining many good things to be bad, bad things to be good, and even where it gets that right not knowing the right priorities for how good and bad things are.

What do you mean by scientists and genetics? That has nothing to do with political philosophy or ideas. In fact, it is an absolutely ridiculous claim to make. So ridiculous that in fact don’t quite even know what it is that you’re trying to ask.

Left-wing philosophy is extensive. The general notion is that people are good and can make choices for themselves. Knowing this it can also be said that we are obliged to look out for each other, a society that looks after it’s own weak and supports itself, is a strong society. This is the general philosophy. For the sake of argument, I’ll talk about Anarchists, Communists, Democratic Socialists and Liberals.

The extremes of this philosophy are interesting because one tends to be libertarian and the other is very authoritarian. Anarchists are quite similar to communists. The difference is that they believe in voluntary co-operation. You have the choice to participate or not to participate in certain events of structures as you so choose. They believe that societies should be ordered so that people are treated fairly and are looked after by one another in small communities, such as neighbourhoods, workers’ unions and other possible structures where no one individual holds power over another. In the USA, people often ask if anarchists are right-wing because they support no government intervention in anything. The answer is no because they don’t believe that where the government is not, corporations should be. They see corporations often as more tyrannical than the State. An anarchist would support universal healthcare, welfare, and things of this nature, but they believe that a society without money and where the people carry out the functions of government is best.

Communists one the other hand believe that this sort of society needs a central government to keep functioning. Instead of decentralizing power, they believe that power needs to be maintained in order to force the necessary changes and to effectively govern a nation.

The mainstream left is far from that radical. They believe that a democratic government is the best means for social change. Slow and evolutionary is the best way to make a better country. They don’t believe that capitalism is evil. But they do think that unbridled capitalism is dangerous and reckless. So liberals believe in things like socialized firefighters, healthcare, food safety, universal education, and pensions for retirees.

I believe there may be some genetic correlation but I highly doubt causation. Human consciousness and ideas are strange and are not linear. The various political ideologies are varied and come in huge ranges. I don’t think that it could be said that anyone has the exact same politics. Not only this but people often change their politics. Genetic mechanisms usually stay the same or develop in a constant pattern. Your eye colour doesn’t change on your whim, you can’t be convinced to change the shape of your eyes and you don’t elect polydactyly. But you do vote your politics, you can be convinced to explore or accept other ideas, and you can change your politics. I used to be a moderate conservative and now I’m on the libertarian left. However, my eye colour has always been blue.