¿Socialism or Communism? Differences between John Stuart Mill y Karl Marx

Abstract

Today the concepts of socialism and communism are handled as synonyms, which should not be. Karl Marx understood the transition from capitalism to socialism to communism and socialism as the product of historical development. That is, as the result of the development of productive forces in society that are gradually changing the social relations of production. Thought that can largely agree with the approach of John Stuart Mill as a result of dialogue and political consensus and parliamentary democratic result of universal education in social sympathies or civil consciousness. But Marxists wanted to get to communism through the violence of the revolution of mass men “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself†(Marx and Engels 1975, p.13). The process has involved the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, ideological fanaticism, not result of political consensus or social transformation as a product of the history of development of the means of production. Clarifies the historical difference of these theoretical and ideological approaches from philosophy milleana is the task to develop in this essay.