Socialism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for property and natural resources to be owned and controlled by the whole community, rather than individuals or a centralized body. The opposite of socialism is capitalism.
As a concept, socialism can be traced back to 500 CE or earlier. However, the term and idea of "socialism" in its modern sense arose around the 1820s. Western European social critics such as Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Robert Owen, Louis Blanc, and Claude Henri de Saint-Simon theorized that socialism would solve the social ills of poverty and inequality exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution.
Talk of socialism grew in intellectual circles throughout the 19th century. In 1884, a group called the Socialist League formed in the UK as an offshoot of the Social Democratic Federation. William Morris, author of News from Nowhere, was a member of this group. However, the members of this league were never ideologically unified, and by 1887 a majority of the members favored anarchism over socialism. The group disbanded fully in 1901.
