Rachel asked:

How do Marxism and socialism differ? To me, they seem to be the same.

Can Marxism and Existentialism be allied?

============

I'll pass on the second. On the first, I would say that Marxism is a very particular form of socialism. Or
several forms — are we talking of Marxism as Marx wrote it, or as others have interpreted it (and
continue to interpret it)? Remember, Marx explicitly said that he was "not a Marxist".

Socialism is the view that we should cooperate in society in some (variously specified) way. We
should look after each other, and allocate goods in some sort of equitable way. How we are to
interpret 'equality' is a vexed question that underlies many of the doctrinal differences between
socialist factions.

Marxism (to simplify greatly!) claims that the way to this end is to hand over the means of production
(factories, capital etc) to the workers — the proletariat.

Tim Sprod