ABSTRACT
"Socialism" is better understood as a self-proclaimed science-based post-Christian religion or as a novel cosmology to which diverse forms of politics were at different times attached. With regard to the history of socialism, the focal point for the history of religions cannot rest solely, or perhaps even chiefly, on the study of religious socialisms, even if this aspect of the history of modern ideologies and religions is surely understudied. Socialism manifests itself in the ways in which wage workers organize themselves under "capitalism", a word that came into circulation at about the same time as "socialism". The foundation for the socialist movement is said to be the common efforts by workers to assert their interests under the relentless whip of competition, to assert themselves by including all proletarian workers, who are subject to each other's competition, in a community ruled by equality and a spirit of solidarity.
