What is the difference between Marxism and Socialism?

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The word Socialism was first used in the early 1830s by the followers of Owen in Britain and those of Saint-Simon in France. By the mid-nineteenth century it denoted a vast range of reformist and revolutionary ideas in Britain, Europe, and the United States. All of them emphasized the need to transform capitalist industrial society into a much more egalitarian system in which collective well-being for all became a reality, and in which the pursuit of individual self-interest became subordinate to such values as association, community, and cooperation. There was thus an explicit emphasis on solidarity, mutual interdependence, and the possibility of achieving genuine harmony in society to replace conflict, instability, and upheaval. A critique of the social-class basis of capitalism was accompanied by the elevation of the interests of working class or proletariat to a position of supreme importance, and in some cases the principle of direct workers' control under socialism was invoked as an alternative to the rule of existing dominant classes and elites. Images of a future ‘classless’ society were used to symbolize the need for the complete abolition of socio-economic distinctions in the future: an especially important idea in the Marxist tradition. However, socialists rarely agreed on a strategy for achieving these goals, and diversity and conflict between socialist thinkers, movements, and parties proliferated, especially in the context of the First and Second International Working Men's Associations (founded respectively in 1864 and 1889). Increasingly, as the nineteenth century developed, socialist aspirations focused on the politics of the nation-state (despite much rhetoric about socialism as an international and even global force) and the harnessing of modern science, technology, and industry. Yet other, alternative visions of a socialist future—emphasizing, for example, the potential of small-scale communities and agrarianism rather than full-scale industrialization—always coexisted with the mainstream tendency. In addition doctrines such as anarchism, communism, and social democracy drew on the key values of socialism, and it was often difficult to separate the various schools and movements from each other. Thus Marx and Engels regarded themselves as ‘scientific socialists’ (as opposed to earlier ‘utopian socialists’), but saw socialism in the strict sense of the term to be a transitional phase between capitalism and full economic and social communism.
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Difference Between Marxism And Socialism...Show more

In general. Marxism - theoretical idea of a government that is controlled by citizens, controls all of the country's money, property, and other assets, and redistributes it among citizens as the gov't sees fit. ( key difference between this and the USSR's communism is that it is supposed to be controlled by elected representatives, and many things would be put to a vote ) (absolute) Socialism - Where the gov't controls all means of production, and redistributes all the money between citizens, does not include property. (When people talk about socialism in america, they're usually referring to socialist policies, which are essentially anywhere the government gives money to certain people, not absolute socialism) Communism - in theory, pretty much the same as marxism, in practice it was essentially a totalitarian dictatorship that completely controlled every aspect of citizen lives....Show more

Socialism is a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism...Show more

Marxism points to the name of Carl Marx who theorized the socialism....Show more