Critical thinking on liberalism and socialism

Liberalism and Socialism

One of the basic components of a liberalist government is accountability in every position in the government. Every person elected to play any role in the government must be accountable to the civilians during service in that government (Rooksby, 2012). Another major component of a liberalist government is equality in terms of the services that are offered to the citizens. A liberal government does not discriminate on the basis of gender, social class, or disability but instead offers the same kind of services to all its citizens regardless of the above mentioned factors. In addition, a liberal government must be able to protect the rights of all the civilians in the country. The goals of a liberalist government are making provisions for a free and fair election to be held, at the same time, upholding some of the fundamental rights of every citizen (Rooksby, 2012). This is all in a bid to creating a society where every individual is equal without any kind of discrimination. An example of a government that is liberal is the New Zealand government, which was the first government to transform to become a liberalist government in the 17th Century. This government has been able to effectively meet its goals by promoting equality in the country and protecting the rights of every citizen (Matt, 2010).
As opposed to this, one the components of a socialist government is state ownership. A socialist government owns most of the facilities, such as hospitals and markets, that offer basic commodities in a bid to fully satisfying economic demands and human needs. Through the state ownership of these facilities, goods that are produced are directly directed towards consumption instead of creating profit for individuals (Matt, 2010). Another major component of a socialist government is the citizen ownership of equality where the government does not get involved in trying to create equality but instead leaves it up to the citizens to create their own equality amongst themselves (Matt, 2010). The first basic goal of a socialist government is regulating the wealth that is created by private individuals through creating a common ownership of private institution. Therefore, no institution should be privately owned but instead the government should have a share in the institution. The next basic goal of a socialist government is to develop a system of production and distribution that is directly controlled by the government leading to the accumulation of capital. An example of a country that practices this ideology of socialism is Egypt whereby all the institutions that offer services to the citizen are either wholly or partly owned by the government. The Egyptian government, on the other hand, regulates the wealth that is accumulated by individuals in the country to prevent cases where some people are very wealthy while others are very poor (Matt, 2010).
In conclusion, the main difference between these two ideologies is that for liberalism, the main idea is to reduce the poverty levels by offering equality to all while for socialism the main idea is to reduce the wealth levels for individuals to prevent the development of a huge gap between the poor and the rich. Another distinctive feature between the two ideologies is that a liberalist government is mainly focused on protecting the rights of all the individuals regardless of their class in the society while the main focus a socialist government is to offer quality services to its citizens by owning the institutions that offer these services.

Matt, P. (2010). Liberalism and socialism political ideologies in modern governments, Journal of Political Science, 102(3), 150-116.

Rooksby, E. (2012). The difference between liberalism and socialism, Science & Society, 76(4), 495-520.