Socialism Rethought
SHUB, DAVID
WRITERS and WRITING Socialism Rethought The Future of Socialism. Reviewed by David Shub By C. A. R. Crosland. Author, "Lenin: A Biography"; Macmillan. 540 pp. $7.00. editor, "Socialism, Fascism,...
...Fourthly, a rejection of competitive antagonism and an ideal of fraternity and cooperation...
...This, Crosland remarks, was a wrong statement even in 1937, in light of the history of Nazism and Fascism...
...in Marx's own lifetime and for decades afterward, British Marxists remained a tiny sect...
...while even that of the managerial business class is significantly restricted by the new economic activism of government and the greater strength of organized labor...
...In any case, these detailed suggestions are probably of greater concern to British readers than to Americans...
...This is precisely what Crosland has done in painstaking detail...
...Any work which sets out to answer the question "what is socialism about?' must do two things," says Crosland...
...and thirdly, economic planning for full employment and stability...
...In the 1930s, Crosland says, all British Socialists, "whatever their disagreements on long-term questions, were united on the immediate objectives of a majority Labor government...
...Soviet Russia is even less of a socialist country than Britain...
...reactionaries call the New Deal, Fair Deal and even Eisenhower Republicanism "creeping socialism...
...editor, "Socialism, Fascism, Communism'' C. A. R. Crosland, one of the able young intellectuals of the British Labor party, an economist and former Member of Parliament, has written a penetrating and provocative new interpretation of the aims and ideas of democratic socialism...
...This can be achieved, he declares, only as a result of organic growth and the gradual widening of the rights of each individual...
...We no doubt want more nationalization than we now have, but I at least do not want a steadily extending chain of state monopolies, believing this to be bad for liberty and wholly irrelevant to socialism as defined in this book...
...The second Marxist premise which influenced much prewar Socialist thinking was that society was effectively controlled by a capitalist ruling class which held all or most of the important levers of powers...
...It must analyze the detailed changes since 1939 and reinterpret socialism in the light of them: and it must outline the practical policies to which this reinterpre-tation seems to point...
...for the interests of those in need or oppressed...
...Crosland rightly notes that one of the greatest Marxist errors was "absurdly to underrate the socio-economic consequences of political democracy...
...State ownership of all industrial capital, Crosland concludes, "is not now a condition for creating a socialist society, establishing social equality, increasing social welfare, or eliminating class distinctions...
...In fact, capitalism has been undergoing a slow change since the turn of the century—largely a result of the rebellion of the non-capitalist classes against the consequences of industrial laissez faire, and the growing political and industrial power of labor...
...The purposes of planning were defined as "full employment, higher production, a rising standard of living, social security and a fair distribution of income and property"—purposes, says Crosland, "which (at least if one omits the word "property') are either not peculiar to Socialists, or else are largely achieved already in Britain and Scandinavia...
...True, the British Labor movement had historically been free of dogmatism...
...Though the book is addressed in the main to the concrete problems facing Britain, it draws freely on the political and social experiences of other countries, notably Sweden and the United States...
...A substantial section of his book traces the changing notions of the word since it was first used 130 years ago (in the British Cooperative Magazine to describe the views of Robert Owen's followers...
...In Cros-land's opinion, Sweden comes much nearer to the Socialist ideal of a good society...
...Since then, it has been appropriated by men of various doctrines, including Lenin and Hitler...
...Britain today is not a socialist nation, though Crosland shows that it is not a capitalist country, either, in the sense that it was in Marx's time...
...Not being an economist, I cannot judge how practical are the detailed budgetary, taxation, investment and industrial policies Crosland suggests as means toward the attainment of these ideals, though the tone of his discussion struck me as modest, tolerant and sensible...
...Deprived of individual rights and subject to autocratic management, he may well envy the British worker his free trade unions and looser discipline he may similarly envy the American worker his shorter hours and greater freedom...
...Between 1948 and 1954, British national income, in real terms, rose 20 per cent...
...Yet Crosland maintains that British society today, though not pure capitalism, is not yet socialism...
...Part One analyzes the changes that have occurred since the prewar socialist programs were constructed...
...And today the policies and attitudes of Western governments are hardly the same as in 1937, let alone those of Marxist times...
...Today, says Crosland, Marx "has little or nothing to offer the contemporary socialist, either in respect of practical policy, or of the correct analysis of our society, or even of the right conceptual tools or framework...
...Part Four, of which the first four chapters constitute the essential case for socialism today, deals with how social equality should now be interpreted, how greater equality is to be justified, and how it is to be attained...
...He has no free trade unions to protect him, no right to strike, no freedom to change his job, no elaborate system of arbitration, and no political party to represent his interests in a democratic parliament...
...Thirdly, a belief in equality and the "classless society' and especially a desire to give the worker his 'just' rights and a responsible status at work...
...The question of industrial ownership, which half a century ago was thought all-important, is now secondary...
...In 1951, the reborn Socialist International placed the emphasis on democratic planning, declaring it to be the basic condition of socialism...
...Ownership of the means of production," Crosland shows, "is no longer the essential determinant of the distribution of incomes...
...In the second half of the 20th century, the keys to such equality of opportunity do not all lie in the industrial sphere...
...Crosland's own ideal in this respect "is a society in which ownership is thoroughly mixed up—a society with a diverse, diffused, pluralist and heterogeneous pattern of ownership, with the state, the nationalized industries, the cooperatives, the unions, Government financial institutions, pension funds, foundations, and millions of private families all participating...
...we could still have more social equality, a more classless society, and less avoidable social distress...
...Part Three discusses the welfare objective and methods of its implementation...
...Fifthly, a protest against the inefficiencies of capitalism as an economic system, especially its tendency of mass unemployment...
...Workers in Russia work for wages in mass factory units, just as in Britain and the United States, and the mere fact that the factories belong to the state is not important...
...What really matters," writes Crosland, "is the degree to which management is autocratic or democratic, the extent of joint consultation and participation and the freedom of the worker to strike or leave his job...
...But individual freedom is not enough...
...G. D. H. Cole once said before the war that "the Socialist has two main enemies to fight—poverty and enslavement...
...It should follow from this definition, says Crosland, that Great Britain and especially Scandinavia are nearing socialism, since there is little poverty or enslavement in those countries...
...Whatever the forms of state," wrote Harold Laski in 1937, "political power will, in fact, belong to the owners of economic power...
...His prophecies have been almost without exception falsified, and his conceptual tools are now quite inappropriate...
...Historically, writes Crosland, the socialist movement came "first as a protest against the material poverty and physical squalor which capitalism produced...
...In his treatment of town and country planning, the communications media and even industrial relations, he points to many social factors making for inequality which are cultural and psychological in nature rather than economic...
...In order to reformulate socialist doctrine, Crosland believes it necessary first to redefine the concept of socialism...
...Marx's belief that the "inner contradictions" of capitalism would lead first to the pauperization of the masses and ultimately to the collapse of the whole system has been rather obviously disproved...
...But due to Marx, says Crosland, the word socialism "came to be applied to policies for economic or institutional transformation of society instead of to the ultimate social purposes which that transformation was intended to achieve...
...The ideal of socialism is to achieve equal opportunities for each and every member of society...
...It gives a higher priority to social welfare and to social services, it has a greater equality of wealth, it enjoys a more harmonious and cooperative pattern of industrial relations, it is characteristically ruled by Socialist governments, and its cultural record is exceptional...
...These aims were, first, the abolition of poverty and the creation of a social-service state...
...In his discussion of social inequalities in Britain, Crosland lays great stress on radical reforms of an educational system that is still largely class-oriented, more so than America's...
...Part Two seeks a meaning for the concept of socialism in the light of these changes, and defines it in terms not of nationalization or state planning, but of social welfare and social equality...
...The book consists of five parts...
...In these respects, the Soviet worker is more proletarianized than the British worker...
...Working-class living standards in all more or less democratic countries have risen steadily...
...Most Socialists of former generations, Crosland notes, could not for a moment imagine any meaning for socialism except in the framework of freedom for the individual...
...The economic power of the capitalist (i.e., industrial property-owning) class," writes Crosland, "is enormously less than a generation ago...
...Part Five analyzes the economic implications of socialist policy in other fields...
...Secondly, it denoted "a wider concern for social welfare...
...national income 22 per cent...
...But many Socialists thought that these aims could not be achieved within the existing economic system, and that capitalism would have to be forcibly uprooted...
...Yet with the onset of the Great Depression of the 1930s, Marxism "made a profound impact" on Crosland's generation...
...In Marx's phrase, the state was "the executive committee" of the capitalist class...
...But all will agree that The Future of Socialism is an outstanding contribution to socialist thinking, a work in which liberal democrats as well as democratic socialists can find ample food for thought...
...private ownership is compatible with a high degree of equality, while state ownership, as the Russian experience has demonstrated, may be used to support a high degree of inequality...
...secondly, a greater equalization of wealth...
Vol. 40 • September 1957 • No. 39
