Introduction: The Debasement of Socialism

Abstract

Socialists, over the years, have spent much time and labour discussing what they mean by socialism. Many have held that socialism is concerned above all with the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Some have said it is ‘about equality’. The man in the street has felt, more vaguely, that socialism is rather like communism, only not so much: a kind of mid-point between the systems of the Soviet Union and the US, with more public ownership and more equality than in the US, but less of each than in the Soviet Union.