Socialism The term socialism is commonly used to refer both to an ideology--a comprehensive set of beliefs or ideas about the nature of human society and its future desirable state--and to a state of society based on that ideology. Socialists have always claimed to stand above all for the values of equality, social justice, cooperation, progress, and individual freedom and happiness, and they have generally sought to realize these values by the abolition of the private-enterprise economy (see CAPITALISM) and its replacement by "public ownership," a system of social or state control over production and distribu