Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production; as well as the political ideologies, theories, and movements that aim at their establishment. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective, or cooperative ownership; to citizen ownership of equity; or to any combination of these.Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.

Socialist economic systems can be divided into both non-market and market forms.Non-market socialism involves the substitution of factor markets and money with engineering and technical criteria based on calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing an economic mechanism that functions according to different economic laws from those of capitalism. Non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and crises traditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system.By contrast, market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets, and, in some cases, the profit motive with respect to the operation of socially owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend. The feasibility and exact methods of resource allocation and calculation for a socialist system are the subjects of the socialist calculation debate.