Socialism: Dreams and Reality
Mark Bevir reports on two books which look at western socialism in the twentieth century.
The Christian Socialist Movement had 500 members in 1875; today it has 4,000, including forty-two MP's and half of the shadow cabinet. The resurgence of Christian socialism reflects a decline in other forms of left-wing politics. Tony Blair wrote, in 1995, that 'since the collapse of Communism, the ethical basis of socialism is the only one that stood the test of time'. Christian socialism benefited also, however, from the callousness of Thatcherism. With the Conservative Party denying the very idea of society and effectively excluding ethics from economics, the Labour Party could reclaim as its own themes like the social nature of the individual, the need for social as well as individual responsibility, and the importance of bringing a social morality to bear on economic activities. Socialism, as its early advocates well knew, is not about state ownership of the means of production: it is about defending a moral society against individualism gone mad.
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