Socialism defined

What are the hallmarks of socialism, and specifically, what are the characteristics that separate it from other forms of organization, capitalism for example?

Democracy -- no. Both socialism and capitalism may be achievable independent of democracy. Pre-turnover Hong Kong, run by an appointed governor, is an example of a non-democratic capitalist system, while Saga-period Iceland is offered by David Friedman as a democratic capitalist society that verged on anarchy (a very light but popular government, with mostly local, consensus-based decision-making). Socialists today deny that the Soviet Union, its satellites, China, and other such nations are socialist, but they defended them decades ago and they still defend Cuba.

Racial and religious tolerance -- not necessarily. Capitalist societies may also be tolerant, perhaps even more so. While immigrants come to the US to work and many assimilate here, they go to France and Sweden to escape violence and possibly to benefit from the generous government benefits. But up until recently, few of those countries have been able to demonstrate their tolerance because there wasn't anyone different to tolerate. Now that they have their chance, they aren't looking all that tolerant. France and Germany have had their riots, usually based on the frustration the immigrants have had with their inability to assimilate. Turks can't get jobs or citizenship in Germany, Arabs can't get jobs in France, and so on. The Swedes don't want Lithuanian workers in their country, either. France may have voted down the European Constitution because of a few Polish plumbers. It may also be pointed out that the early eugenics movement had lots of support from George Bernard Shaw and W. E. B. Dubois, famous socialists. If anything, the more capitalist a country is, the more likely it is to be a globalist.

"Marx said" -- Karl Marx wrote a lot of things, but most of his ink was expended on critiquing capitalism and making predictions about it. In many respects, he was wrong. Treating the writings of one man like sacred religious dogma does not differentiate socialism from capitalism or any other system other than the fact that it was Marx. But what makes Marx the authority? He was neither the originator nor the main popularizer of socialism; many people contributed to the creation of what we regard today as socialism, and many since have contributed to popularizing it. So saying that "Marx said socialism is such and such" is an appeal to authority that is no distinction. Marx may have said that socialism is marked by its devotion to democracy, for example, but that does not make it so.

Equality -- Yes, socialists embrace equality, but so do dictators. Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Mao, Mugabe - all of them play on fears of inequality.

Lack of private property -- Perhaps. Critics of Joshua Muravchik's Heaven on Earth have pointed out that he overlooks the continued existence of the Scandinavian model. If it is fair to use that as an example of "actual existing socialism", then apparently private property is allowed in socialism. Nokia, Ikea, Saab, and Volvo are all private corporations, the owner of Ikea (Ingvar Kamprad) is now among the top 5 wealthiest people on earth, and in the late 1990s the Wallenberg family owned 40% of the value of companies listed on the Swedish stock exchange.

I don't intend to create an exhaustive list, but I would argue that the one thing that makes socialism unique is that no matters are purely private under socialism: everything is subject to some degree of public control, while under liberalism (as the term meant originally and still means in various contexts outside the US) some rights are reserved for individuals. That the socialist public has not exercised that control is an irrelevant detail; should speech or private property or anything else be determined to work against the state's people's interest, it may be prohibited. In socialist countries, everything is subject to public opinion, which in practice is a circular exercise in which the governors create opinion and then confirm it. Unfortunately, that doesn't make socialism very much different from authoritarianism. And socialists frequently use "democratic control" as a euphemism for public control regardless of whether the public voted on it, the bureaucracy (or technical experts in Hayek's terminology) decided to expand their authority to it unilaterally, or the judiciary made extra-constitutional declarations about it.

So perhaps the answer is that the mix of traits is what makes socialism unique. If so, then socialism exists nowhere. Perhaps there was no private property in the Soviet Union, but then neither was there democracy. Perhaps there is democracy, tolerance (doubtful), and equality in Scandinavia, but there isn't much evidence of Marxism (capitalism, final throes, withering of government, abolition of property, workers in paradise) either.

But the same can be said for capitalism (it doesn't exist anywhere), so even non-existence is not a unique attribute. Still, I would say that "subjecting all decisions to public scrutiny and reserving nothing for private decision-making" is the best definition of socialism that can be mustered.