The word socialism tends to mean different things to different people. But as a basic definition, we can describe socialism as an economic system in which capital is owned collectively, in contrast to other systems which allow private or individual ownership of capital.

When socialism is mentioned, we often think of oppressive regimes, such as the Soviet Union or communist China, that implemented state socialism, a system in which productive assets are controlled by the state.

But proponents of socialism would argue that the totalitarian systems created by Lenin, Stalin and Mao are not what Marx and Engels intended. They would say that power originates from the people and not the government.

Karl Marx saw the political and economic system as a natural progression over time. He was influenced by Hegel’s philosophy of dialectic.

He believed that class struggle would lead to socialism – an egalitarian society. In a socialist system, the economy is managed by the people via the state. But eventually the need for the state would fade, giving way to communism – a classless, stateless society.

There are some advocates of socialism who would prefer to avoid government intervention and go straight to the stateless, classless society. Proponents of libertarian socialism and anarchism fall into this camp. This group would argue that socialism does not depend on power to achieve its objectives. They would say that Lenin and Stalin took things too far and were not representative of true socialism. For some people, worker ownership or cooperativism is socialism by definition. If this is true, then what I’m calling the Ownership Economy is really just libertarian socialism.

When we consider various theories of socialism that are not dependent on the state, the line between socialism and other economic systems (such as Georgism or distributism) starts to get a bit blurry. I believe that those who choose to use the word socialism do so because they are motivated primarily by the desire for equality. This underlying motivation is a distinguishing characteristic which separates socialism from other economic systems.

While equality may be the outward objective of socialism, at its heart, it’s about acceptance and love of all humanity, despite our flaws.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. ~Che Guevara

Considering this motivation, it’s hard to fathom how a system based on love can possibly lead to the horrors that we associate with communism – the gulags, the Great Purge, genocides, mass deportations, etc. Shouldn’t socialism be able to exist without all the oppression and tyranny?

It’s hard to understand how love turns into militancy, but this is precisely what happens when equality is pursued as a primary objective. I believe that socialism depends on power. Any group of people setting out to implement socialism will be forced to turn to power to achieve its objectives or else fade out of existence like the utopian societies of the past.

Let’s consider the French Revolution and Maximilien Robespierre. The revolution in France predates communism, but given the underlying motivations – the desire for liberty, equality and fraternity – we could make the case that the French Revolution was the first socialist revolution. Lenin admired Robespierre, calling him a “bolshevik avant la lettre” and even commissioning a statue of him. The Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in a speech:

One might have thought that the experience of the French revolution would have provided enough of a lesson for the rationalist builders of “the people’s happiness” in Russia. But no, the events in Russia were grimmer yet, and incomparably more enormous in scale. Lenin’s Communism and International Socialists studiously reenacted on the body of Russia many of the French revolution’s cruelest methods–only they possessed a much greater, a more systematic level of organizational control than the Jacobins.

Robespierre’s name will forever be associated with the Reign of Terror that occurred shortly after the French Revolution. Considering the blood on his hands, it’s surprising to find out he was opposed to the death penalty. After completing law studies, he was appointed as a criminal judge. But he soon resigned because he didn’t feel comfortable ruling on capital cases.

He seemed to view capital punishment as something to be used only in emergency situations. Such a situation occurred when the Convention was trying to figure out what to do with Louis XVI. Robespierre argued that he should not be given a trial.

To propose to have a trial of Louis XVI, in whatever manner one may, is to retrogress to royal despotism and constitutionality; it is a counter-revolutionary idea because it places the revolution itself in litigation. In effect, if Louis may still be given a trial, he may be absolved, and innocent. What am I to say? He is presumed to be so until he is judged. But if Louis is absolved, if he may be presumed innocent, what becomes of the revolution? If Louis is innocent, all the defenders of liberty become slanderers.

The exceptional nature of the revolution, he argued, necessitated capital punishment for the king:

Yes, the death penalty is in general a crime, unjustifiable by the indestructible principles of nature, except in cases protecting the safety of individuals or the society altogether. Ordinary misdemeanors have never threatened public safety because society may always protect itself by other means, making those culpable powerless to harm it. But for a king dethroned in the bosom of a revolution, which is as yet cemented only by laws; a king whose name attracts the scourge of war upon a troubled nation; neither prison, nor exile can render his existence inconsequential to public happiness; this cruel exception to the ordinary laws avowed by justice can be imputed only to the nature of his crimes. With regret I pronounce this fatal truth: Louis must die so that the nation may live.

What happened afterwards is, of course, well known. Louis XVI was executed, along with Marie Antoinette. In the period following, discord and paranoia grew. The Committee of Public Safety began executing anyone who was considered to be an enemy of the republic. Robespierre justified the terror, claiming that it was necessary to maintain virtue. Eventually thousands were guillotined. The situation got out of control until the Thermidorian Reaction, in which Robespierre himself was executed by guillotine.

The rise and fall of Maximilien Robespierre teaches us an important lesson. He became the person that he originally set out to fight against. He opposed the death penalty but became a mass murderer. He participated in a revolution to end oppression, but then he himself became the oppressor. He became his own worst enemy.

We can find a similar story of contradiction in Animal Farm, George Orwell’s allegory describing the Russian revolution. The animals in the farm joined together and drove Mr. Jones, the farmer, off the land. They formed a new society based on “animalism.” They adopted new principles, the most important of which was: “All animals are equal.”

But over time, the egalitarian ideals of the animals gave way to class distinctions and oppression. The pigs terrorized the other animals and started acting more like humans. Eventually they scrapped the old principles and adopted the self-contradictory maxim:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Despite these lessons, there are plenty of people (and George Orwell was one of them) who would say that totalitarianism is bad, but we can still have democratic socialism. We just have to implement it peacefully. But can socialism possibly exist without a form of power and oppression?

The real problem is that the underlying motivation for socialism – the desire for acceptance and love – tends to be externalized. When the needs of the individual are subsumed into the needs of the collective, nothing can enforce the objectives of the group. Someone has to step up and become the enforcer. An egalitarian society can only come into being when every individual within the group has internalized acceptance and has developed a strong sense of personal morality. When individuals have this sense of morality, the pursuit of equality is not their primary objective; equality is simply a side effect. Without internalized values and moral principles, egalitarian societies will always depend on power to achieve their objectives.