Socialism involves socializing the means of production, distribution, and exchange for social benefit. It is both a political theory and economic philosophy that seeks to structure a national economy through cooperation rather than competition, social service, public enterprises, and socioeconomic equality. Varieties include utopian, communist, guild, Christian, and state socialism. Proposed benefits are abolition of private ownership and prevention of economic waste, while drawbacks include opposition to human nature, loss of initiative, consumer adjustment to production, and lack of ethics.