It's the result of human choice and human planning. So socialism as an intellectual construct began in France. How'd I do, Stan? Mmm, the border between Egypt and Libya. There were two branches of socialism in France, utopian and revolutionary. Utopian socialism is often associated with Comte de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, both of whom rejected revolutionary action after having seen the disaster of the French Revolution. Both were critical of capitalism, and while Fourier is usually a punchline in history classes because he believed that in his ideal socialist world, the seas would turn to lemonade, he was right that human beings have desires that go beyond basic self-interest and that we aren't always economically rational actors.