BRITISH LIBRARY 
OF POLITICAL AND 
ECONOMIC SCIENCE 


LONDON SCHOOL OF 
ECONOMICS AND 
POLITICAL SCIENCE 


10, PORTVGAL STREET, 
LONDON WC2A 2HD 


Tel. 01-405 7686 



~tt~~·v~/l 

\-\-'I Fabian Society no. 509 
:l~rt11


1<>\ 

THE FUTURE OF 

SOCIALISM 

Neil Kinnock 


Fabian Tract 509 


The Future of Socialism 


6 Democratic socialism in Britain is built on parliamentary democracy. It is 
an essential implement for democratic socialism. It is our preferred and 
deliberately chosen system of government. It is our basic tool for change and 
we are committed to using and improving it. 9 

6Now, more than ever, we must present and win the moral and economic 
argument because the alternatives in British politics are variants on 
disaster.9 

This is the text of Neil Kinnock's Fabian Society Autumn Lecture on The 
Future ofSocialism delivered on 12 November 1985 : 

Neil Kinnock is MP for Islwyn and leader of the Labour Party. 

Front cover photo: Stefano Cagnoni (Report) 

This pamphlet like all publications of the Fabian Society represents not the 
collective view of the Society but only the views of the individual who prepared 
it. The responsibility of the Society is limited to approving the publications it 
issues as worthy for consideration within the labour movement. 

January 1986 
ISBN 0 7163 0509 7 
ISSN 0307 7523 
Typeset by Character Typesetting Ltd 01-253 1766 
Printed by Black rose Press (TU) 01-251 3043 
Published by the Fabian Society, 11, Dartmouth Street, London SW1H 9BN 


The Future of Socialism 


For over a century the Fabian Society has 
contributed to the appraisal and analysis 
which is essential for the confidence and 
the relevance of socialism in theory and 
practice. Like us, the early Fabians were 
part of a society which was turbulent, 
economically depressed, politically divided 
and confronted by great and speedy 
change. Yet they were neither dismayed 
by the scale of the problem nor unsure of 
the priorities dictated by the condition of 
their times. 

That is a temper which we need now, 
believing as-in their own words-they 
did "that socialism may be most quickly 
and most surely realised by utilising the 
political power already possessed by the 
people". But if that "political power" is 
older, wider and stronger now than it was, 
so too is the challenge which it confronts. 

Those who are aware of the depth and 
breadth of poverty in our own country and 
those who are conscious of the scale of 
want in the world must be shocked and 
saddened by the continuing relevance of 
the opening sentence of the first Fabian 
Tract published 101 years ago:


"We live in a competitive society with 
Capital in the hands of individuals. 
What are the results? A few are very 
rich, some well-off, the Majority in 
Poverty and vast number in misery. Is 
this a just and wise system worthy of 
humanity? Can we or can we not 
improve it?" 
(Why Are The Many Poor? Fabian 
Tract no. 1, 1884) 

There are now fewer people in our own 
country "in poverty" -certainly the 
poverty of the 1880s -and we might 
argue that a more appropriate question a 
century later might be "Why are only the 
few rich?". But Britain obviously remains 
a capitalist country with a society that is 
competitive without being meritocratic. It 
is a place of contests which are grossly 

unequal from the start of life, a place 
where the combined inefficiencies and 
injustices of the system still cause " moral 
revolt" to be a main chord in the tone of 
British socialism. 

We still therefore ask " Is this a system 
worthy of humanity?", "Can we improve 
it?" and as democratic socialists we have a 
responsibility to answer the questions 
without defensiveness, and without evasion. 
Indeed, it is our prime responsibility 
to do so and to do so quickly and 
convincingly, employing at all times the 
advice of Antonio Gramsci to "combine 
pessimism of the intellect with optimism 
of the will". Now, more than ever, we 
must present and win the moral and 
economic argument because the alternatives 
in British politics are variants on 
disaster. Our opponents know this. 
Democratic socialism is under attack from 
the right because it is socialism; from the 
ultra-left because it is democratic. That 
combined assault requires us to examine 
and re-examine truths which we have held 
to be self-evident, to look again at the 
variety and form of democratic socialism 
and our prescriptions for the future-not 
least in order to create that strong body of 
opinion which as Tawney described it 
"knows what it fights for, and loves what it 
knows" . 

We are making progress with that 
assessment and redevelopment. Slowly 
but satisfyingly there is growing realisation 
that democratic socialism cannot be 
established on the basis of either the old 
social democracy or on the "new" ultra-
leftism. Nor can it be constructed on an 
amalgam of the two, any more than a wit 
can be fashioned from two half-wits. A 
third way is needed; separate and distinct 
from the stale vanguardism of the ultra-
left and from the atavistic and timid 
premise of social democracy. And that 
third way has always existed -it is the 
socialism which, in Aneurin Bevan's de



finition , "is based on the conviction that 
free people can use free institutions to 
solve the social and economic problems of 
the day". 

It is, of course, an audacious view. It 
dispenses with the idea (fiercely clung to 
by sectarian socialists and by anti-
socialists) that socialism requires a perpetual 
threat to private freedom. It rejects 
the defeatism of those who think that 
problems are beyond solution and who 
would therefore be better called immobile 
than "moderate". 

If Labour is to form a government 
we have to relate to and draw 
support from the modern working 
classes whose upward social mobility, 
increased expectations and extended 
horizons are largely the 
result of opportunities afforded 
them by our movement in the past. 

That democratic approach is not blithe. 
On the contrary, it recognises that the 
re-examination of strategy, attitudes and 
style of socialist politics is a continual 
imperative. Unlike the Tories or the SDP 
and Liberals, we are in the business (and 
always have been) or eradicating the very 
social conditions which necessitated our 
existence in the first place. We cannot, 
therefore, afford to be either paralysed or 
blase. We have to draw confidence from 
accomplishment without breeding complacency. 


An understanding of this obligation is 
crucial to the development of Labour's 
strategic approach. The harsh electoral 
reality is that Labour cannot rely merely 
on a combination of the dispossessed, the 
"traditional" and increasingly figmentary 
working class and minority groups for the 
winning of power. If Labour is to form a 
government we have to relate to and draw 
support from the modern working classes 
whose upward social mobility, increased 
expectations and extended horizons are 
largely the result of opportunities 

afforded them by our movement in the 
past. 

These are our people a11d we should 
rejoice in their advance, especially since 
my generation are most definitely products 
and beneficiaries of that progress. 
We should never assume that the relative 
security of the so-called "new" working 
classes forbids active sympathy with the 
plight of the disadvantaged. Their roots, 
their background and their family relationships 
militate against such selfish 
forgetfulness and every investigation of 
opinion testifies to their beliefs in compassion, 
the values of community and a strong 
sense of fairness. But we must appeal 
directly to them and convince them that 
greater aspirations of merit, justice and 
security are realistic. We have to join up 
their instincts with our policies. We have 
to show that the decent objectives are not 
only desirable but also practical. Only a 
Labour Party which can illustrate the 
relevance of socialism to the manager as 
well as the mechanic, to the technician and 
the teacher, the home owner alongside the . 
council tenant, the majority as well as the 
minorities, can hope to convert its plans 
into effect by gaining the power to nurture 
success properly and defeat disadvantage 
conclusively. 

This -as the majority of the labour 
movement recognises-requires a shift in 
attitudes and presentation , not a change in 
principles. It does not need an abandonment 
or dilution of values. It demands 
practical education in the truth that the 
great majority of people-whatever their 
occupation or status -who depend 
entirely on the sale of their labour as their 
only means of enjoying a tolerably comfortable 
and secure life have a direct 
vested interest in standards of care and 
opportunity which can only be provided 
with sufficient quantity and quality by 
collective, democratically administered 
services. 

The potential for making and winning 
that case is great and immediate. Labour, 
for instance, has a claim to present itself as 
the party of efficiency with far more 
justification than a Tory Party committed 


obsessively to the Sozialmarktwirtschaft 
which is rapacious in its use of finite 
resources , requires the mass unemployment 
of labour, cannot make up its mind 
whether it wants expensive money for the 
rentier or cheap money for the producer, 
and squanders the oil revenue and sells off 
invaluable assets of the nation to sustain 
the fantasy that it is " not borrowing". 

We are far more entitled to claim the 
status of protector of Britain's industrial 
capacity than a government whose record 
has been one of wholesale industrial 
destruction. Our concept of the welfare 
state has far more to offer as the means of 
real individual emancipation by the removal 
of the inhibitions of poverty, fear , 
inadequate care and lack of opportunity 
than has the Thatcherite fixation with 
liberty by purchase. And our commitment 
to production for use and retention of 
capital in Britain gives us a stronger claim 
to the title of patriots than those whose 
desire for the fast foreign buck invariably 
overrides any dedication to investment in 
our country's future. 

Efficiency, individual liberty, wealth 
creation, patriotism ; such a vocabulary is 
thought to be unfamiliar to the labour 
movement even though they are-along 
with justice, compassion and equality-
the words and, more important, the 
purposes and principles on which the 
movement was founded and from which it 
has always drawn its vitality. The Labour 
Party must no longer allow others to usurp 
what are surely its legitimate claims and 
aims. Above all , it must re-assert democratic 
socialism as an effective body of 
values for modern needs rather than the 
ghost from the past. 

Socialist Values 

Democratic socialism in the UK belongs 
to that broad coalition at the heart of 
British politics which is committed to the 
survival and extension of an effective, 
humane and democratic society. British 
socialism, however, has never adopted or 
pursued the rigid , codified, or disciplined 
theories characteristic of European con


tinental socialism. We have had no shortage 
of theorists. But reflecting as they do 
the "peculiarities of the English" as E. P. 
Thompson has described it (I suppose he 
meant the British), they represent the 
variety and diversity of thought and 
experience coming from humanists and 
Christians, historians, philosophers, 
sociologists, writers, practising politicians, 
co-operators and trade unionists. 

British democratic socialism is a tapestry 
and the thread that runs through the 
weave is above all a deep concern with 

We are far more entitled to claim 
the status of protector of Britain's 
industrial capacity than a government 
whose record has been on':! of 
wholesale industrial destruction. 

fellowship and fraternity ; with community 
and participation. The emphasis, exemplified 
in the work of that democratic 
socialist par excellence (as Gaitskell described 
him)-Tawney-is that political 
economy is not ultimately a question of 
economic organisation or historical inevitability, 
but of moral choice and that all 
social institutions must be subject to a test 
of moral purpose. 

It is that inheritance which has inspired 
the labour movement since its inception. 
These are the values which underlie the 
creation of the National Health Service, 
the building of public sector housing, the 
inaugural acts of de-colonisation , the 
development of comprehensive education 
, the equal opportunities legislation 
and a host of other measures where 
Labour government at national and local 
level has worked to reduce disadvantage 
for the primary purpose of enhancing 
individual liberty and giving people greater 
control over their own destiny. 

That is the objective past, present and 
future of democratic socialism -individual 
freedom . And the means which 
democratic socialism has chosen to protect 
that freedom are equality and democracy. 
Just as freedom unqualified by law 

3 


leaves the weak unprotected from violence, 
so freedom unqualified by democracy 
and equality leaves the weak unprotected 
from power. That is why the values 
of liberty, equality and democracy are 
interdependent to democratic socialism. 
And it is that belief in their interdependence 
which makes the analysis, the code of 
beliefs and the criteria for success employed 
by democratic socialism different 
from the approach taken by other ideologies 
which may, with sincerity, believe in 
liberty and equality or democracy as single 
purposes. 

The liberty of individuals and of 
societies is an absolute value to democratic 
socialists. But, too often, socialism has 
been associated with the very opposite-
parodied by its association with an uncaring 
bureaucracy. At times we seem to 
have permitted a set of beliefs that begins 
from this practical desire to foster the 
political and economic liberty of all people 
to look like a dogma that regarded liberty 
as a tedious bourgeois fad. 

It is hardly a new problem. In 1937 
George Orwell urged, with desperation in 
his voice-"Justice and Liberty! Thdse 
are the words that have to ring like a bugle 
across the world". But that "underlying 
ideal of socialism" , he said, "had been 
buried beneath layer after layer of doctrinaire 
priggishness, party squabbles, and 
half-baked progressivism until it is like a 
diamond hidden under a mountain of 
dung" . 

Freedom 

As socialists it is not, however , sufficient 
simply to endorse freedom as a universal 
good. Indeed it would be simplistic to do 
so . The pursuit of freedom can entail 
conflict as the freedom of many collides 
with the privilege of few. 

Socialist doctrine and policy need to 
reflect our respecr for the nature of these 
conflicts. In practice we need to ensure a 
balance which provides for the good of 
society as a whole and also to secure 
recognition of the fact that the boundary 
of freedom is drawn at the point where its 
exercise by one individual or group begins 

to impinge upon the freedom of another 
individual or group. We need to convey, 
too , that there is no essential contradiction 
between collective provision and 
individual freedom since the one reinforces 
and makes possible the other. As 
socialists the advancement of collective 
freedoms is central precisely because it 
offers the best hope of advancing individual 
freedom. 

It is essential to reassert that primary 
value at a time when every malaise from 
commercial failure to crime is blamed 
upon the mythical "degeneracy" which 
allegedly resulted from thirty or so years 
of feather-bedding , family-splitting welfare 
state provision. And the deeds and 
words of freedom also need energetic 
emphasis at a time when institutions and 
customs of autonomy and independence 
from GCHQ to the GLC and rate fixing to 
the Real Lives documentary have been 
torn up, or-at very least-shaken to the 

As socialists the advancement of 
collective freedoms is central precisely 
because it offers the best 
hope of advancing individual freedom. 


roots in the name of a form of freedom 

which promised to " roll back the state" 

and release the country from the "coils" of 

government. 

The words of G.D.H. Cole ring true in 
our time:


" Liberties," he said, "are largely fictitious 
until men and women have the 
practical means of enjoying them; and 
the most important of all these means 
are , first , the possession of democratic 
government pledged to defend them 
and supported by popular power, and 
secondly, security, which enables :t 
man or women tQ express and assert 
themselves without fear of the consequences 
. . . " 

That striving for personal security is the 
essence of democratic socialism . And to 

4 


give proper strength to the cause we need 
to reassert the practical fact that since 
most of the people, most of the time, do 
not provide surpluses of income in the 
right amounts on the right occasions to 
permit themselves and their dependents 
sufficient supply of the personal services 
of opportunity, learning, care, security 
and employment, the co-operative and 
collective action of limiting liability for 
immediate payment by providing collective 
and co-operative contribution has 
been the greatest single source of individual 
emancipation of our century. 

Collective provision has not been 
the enemy of individual freedom, it 
has been the agent of individual 
emancipation and for that reason it 
will occupy a central position in the 
forging of the future of socialism. 

of Coketown were made. Handle them 
ever so lightly, and they fell to pieces 
with such ease that you might suspect 
them of having been flawed before. 
They were ruined, when they were 
required to send labouring children to 
school; they were ruined, when inspectors 
were appointed to look into works; 
they were ruined when such inspectors 
considered it doubtful whether they 
were quite justified in chopping people 
up with their machinery; they were 
utterly undone, when it was hinted that 
perhaps they need not always make so 
much smoke . .. Whenever a Coke-
towner felt he was ill-used-that is to 
say, whenever he was not left entirely 
alone ... he was sure to come out with 
the awful menace that he would "sooner 
pitch his property into the Atlantic". 
This has terrified the Home Secretary 
within an inch of his life on several 
occasions." 

It has not diminished vitality, it has 
increased fitness. It has not eroded talent, 
it has multiplied it. It has not frustrated 
inventiveness, it has given the inventive 
the facility for development. It has not 
subordinated peoples, it has stimulated 
their self-confidence. Even though the 
state has been the most dependable source 
of provision the result has not been a 
supine mood of dependency but an increase 
in critical faculty. 

Collective provision has not been the 
enemy of individual freedom, it has been 
the agent of individual emancipation and 
for that reason it will occupy a central 
position in the forging of the future of 
socialism. 

liberty 

The New Right would have us believe that 
the role of the state is repressive; that it 
reduces or robs us of liberty; that it is 
inefficient and bureaucratic. 

They are not so New-as an illustration 
from Charles Dickens makes clear. 

"Surely there never was such a fragile 
china-ware as that of which the millers 

Victorian values with a vengeance. And 
set against them is the reality of progress 
away from the tyranny of the powerful 
individual backed by a state which the 
powerful owned. Progress towards a situation 
in which the state itself is a positive 
agency working on behalf of the individuals 
who make up the state. 

Collective provision for individual purposes 
relies for its principles and its 
practical administration on political 
democracy and for that among other 
reasons the commitment to democracy as 
a means and an end is an absolute value in 
democratic socialism. Evan Durbin, writing 
in 1941, said that "to betray democracy 
was to betray socialism". In the Labour 
Party our commitment to representative 
and elected parliamentary democracy is 
explicit in Clause IV of the Constitution. 
Indeed, in the New Social Order, published 
in 1918, it was made clear that this 
would be built (in terms of national and 
international policy, in industry as well as 
government) on "that equal freedom, that 
general consciousness of comment and 
that widest possible participation in power 
which is characteristic of true democracy". 


5 



Power and participation-watchwords of 
socialism -are expressed in the rights 
and responsibities of freedom and democracy 
combined. But democratic socialism 
stands for far more than a defence of 
democracy. It must enhance it wherever 
possible. We do not believe in the centralisation 
of power in the hands of unaccountable 
bureaucracies. 

When we read the work of early 
socialist writers such as Robert Owen or 
William Morris, we will search in vain for 
an autocratic or state dominated vision of 
socialism; more recently, sociologists such 
as Titmuss and Townsend have pointed to 
the failure of our bureaucracies and to the 
need for more vigilance and greater 
humanity in both management and operation 
. 

We do believe that wherever possible 
decisions must be taken on a corporate 
and collective basis; that everyone at the 
level of the community and the workplace 
is endowed with responsibilities and 
should consequently exercise rights. That 
is , of course, not easy to achieve. Itcan fall 
victim to inertia, indifference and incompetence 
and it can then degenerate into 
the pastime of small, energetic groups 
who use democracy as a tactic for manouevre 
rather than a principle for application. 
In its full expression as people join 
together in the community to form self-
help groups, tenants associations or housing 
co-operatives, it demands energy, 
confidence and commitment. Not easy 
qualities -but democracy depends on 
them . It depends too upon the willingness 
of volunteers to accept office and to take 
on legal obligations as local councillors. 
That is less easy than it has ever been. 

Over the past six years local democracy 
has been squeezed through the imposition 
of restictive legislation, financial penalties, 
and ultimately by the abolition of 
whole authorities. Still it cannot be so 
easily dismissed or dismantled; the soul 
goes marching on. We know that there are 
many decisions which are more appropriately 
and efficiently taken at a local 
level. We believe that central and local 
government work better when they work 

in partnership and we are committed to 
the restoration of the proper balance of 
decision making on the return of the next 
Labour Government. Meanwhile we have 
seen models developed-even in adversity-
in the revival of municipal efforts at 
socialism, in the Enterprise Boards, in the 
transport undertakings and -perhaps 
most interesting -in the efforts to 
introduce true decentralisation of administration. 


The next Labour Government must use 
these experiences as rehearsals for greater 
development of local initiatives, prompted 
by local need and sustained by local 
democracy. In this -as in many other 
particulars -we stand apart from Tory-
ism , ancient and modern. 

Democratic socialism in Britain is built 
on parliamentary democracy. It is an 

We do believe that wherever 
possible decisions must be taken on 
a corporate and collective basis; 
that everyone at the level of the 
community and the workplace is 
endowed with responsibilities and 
should consequently exercise 
rights. 

essential implement for democratic socialism 
. It is our preferred and deliberately 
chosen system of government. It is our 
basic tool for change and we are committed 
to using and improving it. We require 
Parliament-not just the institution but 
the whole system of government by deliberation-
as a platform for our views, a 
champion for those we seek to help, the 
most dependable means for securing and 
sustaining progress. That means that 
extra-parliamentary efforts related to the 
same objectives complement Parliamentary 
methods. The two go together. 

We can agree, again, with Tawney, who 
believed so passionately in the parliamentary 
arena as an opportunity for attack and 
a means of defence and advised that:


"Given the existence of political demo


6 


cracy ... the only possible course for 
socialists is to take the rough with the 
smooth, throw on their opponents the 
odium of tampering with it , and exploit 
to the utmost the possibilities which it 
offers. Secure in the knowledge that 
they always have one Chamber to 
themselves the privileged classes have 
hitherto acquiesced in so much democracy 
as that absurdity permits. But 
their enthusiasm for it remains this side 
of idolatry. For socialists to give the 
impression that they, too, have reservations 
would be to give the enemies 
of socialism a present of what 
should be one of socialism's chief 
assets." 

It was good advice in times even more 
trying than ours and it is needed and 
followed by all who know that a future for 
socialism must be constructed by the 
methods and through the means afforded 
by parliamentary democracy at local and 
national level. There is no superior, more 
satisfactory or more sure course. 

Equality 

Equality stands alongside freedom and 
democracy in the vocabulary and values of 
socialism. Yet it is not of the same order. 
Equality is possibly the most problematic 
of all values insofar as it is not an absolute 
objective, but, rather, an implication and 
a means towards achieving freedom and 
democracy. Equality is not built or secured, 
as some would believe, on envy. It 
is, indeed, the very opposite. It is implicit 
in fellowship and provides the basis for 
community. Yet it, too, has been distorted 
and associated with a tolerance-indeed 
a pursuit-of mediocrity and uniformity. 

How absurd that it should be. Socialism 
celebrates diversity. It believes in the 
flowering of all talents, the elevation of all 
individuals. This does not mean a romantic 
belief that everyone can be made equal. 
It does not mean uniformity of human 
beings or anything so socially repulsive; it 
does not mean accepting that all human 
beings are equal in ability or anything so 

biologically preposterous; and it does not 
mean believing that there can be mathematical 
parity of incomes or anything so 
economically impractical. But it does 
mean that those institutions and influences 
which protect, reward and perpetuate 
those inequalities which are not natural 
and not earned must be removed. And 
it does mean that as a conscious purpose of 
policy every means should be exploited to 
establish an equal right for individuals to 
realise and fulfil their capabilities, regardless 
of background, sex or race. But despite 
the welfare state-the key pillars 
of social and economic inequality remain 
intact. While the very rich have lost some 
of their riches to the less rich, over time, 
the poor have hardly profited proportionately. 
That has been true through 
the history of the welfare state. 

In the past six years, however, the 
dispossessing of the dispossessed has been 
intensified. In that time there has been a 
massive redistribution from poor to rich 

Socialism celebrates diversity. It 
believes in the flowering of all 
talents, the elevation of all individuals. 


through the tax system while the poor 
have been made poorer as the benefit 
floor has been dug away from under their 
feet. At the same time , occupational 
benefits, tax subsidies and privatisation 
create high walls between classes which 
reduce community of interest and commitment 
to the welfare state. The sources 
and the exercise of economic power may 
have become more obscure but they are 
no less powerful. Occupational and social 
class divisions may seem blurred, but 
inequalities persist and they derive from 
income, occupation, status and region. 
And within these groups there are, as 
Alex Nove has described it, "different 
kinds of lifetimes". 

Inequalities of income are reflected in 
inequalities of power and status. We have 
at the moment a society which wilfully 

7 


wastes its material and human resources ; 
where "equality" is derided and yet where 
children in different regions, differ~nt 
towns , different families, different 
schools, stand different chances of health , 
education, employment and even life and 
death. To those who sneer at equality as a 
useful or relevant objective, I have to say 
"Look around you!!". Look at the million 
young people under 25 on the dole ; at the 
evidence of increased mortality and morbidity 
rates for those at the bottom end of 
the social scale; at the difficulties faced by 
women and people from ethnic minority 
groups in finding and keeping well-paid 
jobs. I would also say to those who 
complacently see equality as something 
automatically consequent upon our institutions 
-our schools or the health 
service -listen to the evidence that 
disproves the idea that left to themselves 
without the stimulus of constant policies 
of equality our present institutions and 
past policies can serve the interests of all 
the people more effectively. I would also 
say-look at the vulnerability of children 

born in our inner cities, to families on the 
dole, in ill-health, in multiple disadvantage, 
and listen to those who know tell us 
that these disadvantages are transferred 
across generations. And then ask the 
question -have we achieved equality? 
Should we abandon it-or apologise for it 
as an objective? Should we succumb to the 
argument that the constructive efforts for 
equality are "social engineering" when we 
know that deprivation, poverty, the ignoring 
of talent , the failure to treat disease 
are themselves the very worst forms of 
social engineering that have constructed a 
society which is undereducated , depressed 
and divided? 

The problem is not with our objectives, 
but with the institutions and patterns of 
provision, produced by past policies. 
Policies for positive discrimination in 
education, policies designed to achieve 
equal access, have been insufficient, inconsistent 
and uncoordinated . The problems 
of our inner cities grow worse 
because our strategies have been incomplete, 
ill-thought out, and -usually 


externally imposed by people who will not 
have to live with the consequences. Equally 
seriously, we have failed to tackle the 
roots of real inequality -the bastions of 
privilege built into our social and economic 
institutions and perpetuated in our 
education system. Unless we tackle these 
problems at source we will continue to 
accept a system based on fundamental 
inequality, hoping that the occasional 
escape will prove that the system is not 
without some virtue. 

We do understand now that we must act 
across a broad front. Better schools alone 
cannot spring children out of poverty; 
better housing will not solve all social 
problems; a free health service does not 
guarantee an equal chance that all children 
will thrive; more police will not 
eradicate crime or by themselves reduce 
the insecurity which pervades whole districts. 
Indeed, we understand better than 
ever the inadequacies of our institutions. 
Equality of opportunity must inform all 
policies, and must be asserted, not simply 
through statutes and limited financial 
gestures, but directed through a range of 
policies which all have the explicit aim of 
helping people to lift themselves out of 
poverty of resources and poverty of 
aspirations whether they endure multiple 
disadvantage in our most deprived communities 
or carry an extra burden of 
disadvantage because they are black or 
are among those-the majority -who 
because they are women and girls are still 
not afforded access or encouragement on 
the same basis as boys and men. 

Freedom, democracy and equality are 
values which, separately, can belong to 
other philosophies and applied for other 
ends. What cannot be borrowed, however, 
is that economic and social analysis 
which democratic socialism brings to the 
structural economic and social problems 
of capitalism, and the commitment to 
radical but realistic methods and objectives 
which are not only part of our 
historical tradition and our philosophical 
apparatus, but which inform our view of 
what democratic society is, and could be. 

8 



Social Democracy 

Social democracy knows nothing of this. It 
brings neither serious analysis nor prescription 
in policy. And at the same time, 
the means and ends of democratic socialism 
are very different from the superficially 
radical , but ultimately destructive and 
reactionary tactics and strategy of the 

The essence of social democracy 
is that it is not concerned with the 
structure of property ownership, 
or the transfer of economic power; 
rather, it is defined in terms not of 
social change, but social relief; not 
of eradicating inequality, but relieving 
its most gross manifestations. 


promote welfare as it profited from the 
stability sustained by advancing affluence. 
When that climate changed and the political 
consensus appeared to move to the 
right, so too did the social democrats. 
They gave up on equality which they had 
previously espoused as the main credential 
of their " radicalism" and because they 
content themselves with describing ends 
without committing means they gave up 
on liberty too, except as a desirable and 
decorative alternative to totalitarianism. 

For some it was a sad descent to lower 
common denominators with conservatism. 
For others it was merely the public 
expression of their private contempt for a 
democratic socialist movement which had 
given them everything they possessed. 
Some thought it was a lunge in the 
direction of modern times. Others knew 
that it was a step backwards into the 
shadow of Mrs Thatcher-and they took 
the step gladly. 

Now they have a mathematical and 
therefore a political significance in the 
division of the anti-Conservative vote. 
They have a certain appeal, too. It is 
among the people who believe that the 
problems of our society and our economy 
are so monstrous that there is no answer in 
policies and that the search must be for an 
administration of vaguely defined goodwill 
that will be as benign as circumstances 
allow. Such attitudes are understandable 
but profoundly wrong since as the record 
shows the benign would quickly be as 
malevolent as necessary for the sake of 
securing political opportunity. The absence 
of policy is therefore not evidence of 
responsiveness or realism. It is a political 
pig in a poke. And as in all previous cases 
any peacetime government formed by 
"the best men of all parties" would, in 
Aneurin Bevan's felicitous phrase, "end 
up in the Tory knackery". 

ultra-left. In the present, as in the past, 
democratic socialists will fight on both 
fronts. 

The essence of social democracy is that 
it is not concerned with the structure of 
property ownership, or the transfer of 
economic power; that it is defined in 
terms not of social change, but social 
relief; not of eradicating inequality, but 
relieving its most gross manifestations. 
Always charity, never parity. In short, 
that is sufficient "to erode by inches the 
conditions which produce avoidable suffering" 
without confronting the system 
which creates distress in the first place. 
During the 1950s that complacency 
seemed to some to be credible. That short 
and misused period of boom , of near-full 
employment, increases in production and 
consumer spending, and a bi-partisan 
support for the central decencies of the 
welfare state engendered the view that 
with a little modification here and there 
the economy would continue to grow, and 
all choices would be almost painless, 
matters of degree rather than substantial 
principle. Growth itself, it was assumed, 
would eradicate economic and social 
inequality and the market would actually 

Democratic Centralism 

Such a fate does not await the ultra-leftalthough 
by their antics and with the 
exaggerated reports of their influence 

9 


they can, of course, be of assistance to the 
Conservative Party. 

The recently exposed frolics of the 
Workers Revolutionary Party generate 
some amusement, but the publicity reminds 
us that their form of organisation is 
exactly similar to all the other ultra groups 
-including those which have battened on 
the Labour Party in the past and those 
which continue to do so. In a previous 
incarnation the WRP was -as the 
Socialist Labour League -an entryist 
organisation. Common to such groupings 
and their system of organisation --the 
so-called " democratic centralism" which 
employs the most undemocratic methods 
to stifle dissent in their organisations-is 
the secretive network by which they 
control their own membership when it is 
operating within another party. 

All these "democratic centralist" 
groups follow a theory of "vanguardism". 
They are the self-appointed elite who pose 
themselves to spring into the leadership of 
the working class movement at the very 
moment of the downfall of capitalism, 
which all foretell with the same frequency 
and accuracy a& the exotic religious sects 
which forecast the end of the world. 
Ninety years ago they were advised by 
Frederick Engels that "the time of political 
surprises, of the revolutions of small 
conscious minorities at the head of unconscious 
masses" was "at an end" and the 
task was "to work for an uninterrupted 
increase in votes" and "carry on a slow 
propaganda of Parliamentary activity". 
Still they persist. Some exist as separate 
jargon-swapping cliques at the margins of 
politics. Others, in the knowledge that 
they could never gain political currency or 
popularity, opt for a parasitical life inside 
the mass labour movement. 

The strategy of entering or using the 
mass Party without publicly proclaiming 
ideological methods and motives requires 
a particular kind of dishonesty. It involves 
systematically abusing the open and tolerant 
character of the Labour Party and 
having contempt for the purposes and the 
people of the mass party. But since-in 
their view -the ends are held to justify 

the means, a neat and nasty tactic called 
"revolutionary truth" provides a licence 
to lie about their organisation, their 
funding and their aims. That is essential to 
them for they could hardly acknowledge 
that they have a "programme, principles 
and policy" that is not only distinctive and 
separate from that of the Labour Party but 
directly hostile to the Party's democratic 
socialist objects as defined in Clause IV of 
the Constitution. Yes, Clause IV-which 

The strategy of entering or using 
the mass Party without publicly 
proclaiming ideological methods 
and motives requires a particular 
kind of dishonesty. 

makes clear the Party's commitment to 
Parliament, to co-operation with the trade 
unions allied with but independent of the 
Party, to common ownership subject to 
"popular" and not Party control, and to 
"emancipation" and not the dictatorship 
of the proletariat. 

In these and other respects the objects 
of the Party are directly opposed to those 
who take their politics from Lenin and 
Trotsky, had they but the integrity to 
openly admit it. Still, there is formally 
nothing in that Party constitution or in the 
conventions of the Party which actually 
denies membership to people simply because 
they hold particular opinions. The 
prohibition relates to organisations which 
have a programme, principles and policy. 
And what makes the "democratic centralists" 
different in nature from others who 
may hold distinctive ideologies in the 
Labour Party is the fact that for them 
ideology is inseparable from organisation. 
Leninists and Trotskyists consider that the 
"vanguard" is essential to the form of 
political change which they want to bring 
about. Such groups cannot follow their 
ideology without having a secretive, disciplined 
organisation and an organisation of 
that form is incompatible with membership 
of the Labour Party. 

10 


It is for that reason that the Militant 
Tendency has no place in the Labour 
Party. It is too dishonest to acknowledge 
that it has membership, too cowardly to 
organise and operate as a separate Party, 
too contemptuous of the people that it 
calls "comrades" to tell them the truth. It 
abuses the trust and ex ploits the libertarian 
instincts of the Labour Party. It 
makes a deliberate practice of campaigning 
for unattainable objectives and cynically 
encourages expectations-especially 
among the young-of "guarantees" of 
work and income. It employs "impossibilism" 
as a calculated means of setting 
unachievable demands in order to charge 
Party lay officials, local councillors, trades 
unionists and anyone else who takes 
responsible office in the movement with 
timidity or "betrayal" when those demands 
are not realised. 

The Labour Party, because of its worthwhile 
traditions of breadth and openness 
and tolerance, is not readily equipped to 
deal with such political perversity. The 
Party was not anxious to expend time and 
energy on overwhelming the "democratic 
centralists" even when it has good cause to 

It is for that reason that the 
Militant Tendency has no place in 
the Labour Party. It is too dishonest 
to acknowledge, that it has 
membership, too cowardly to organise 
and operate as a separate 
Party, too contemptuous of the 
people that it calls "comrades" to 
tell them the truth. 

be deeply antagonistic towards them. But 
because in organisation and purpose, in 
caucusing and conniving, the Militant 
Tendency eventually exhausted even the 
extensive patience of the Labour Party, 
action was needed and action was taken. 
Firstly, when there is clear proof that 
someone is formally and personally committed 
to the Tendency organisation they 
can be and are put out of the Labour 
Party. Secondly-and in many ways more 

importantly -when the Party becomes 
acquainted with the methods, motives, 
ideological position and orga nisational 
unscrupulousness of Militant, the 
Tendency is engaged and defeated by 
argument and by numbers. 

Democratic centralists . . . are 
the self-appointed elite who pose 
themselves to spring into the leadership 
of the working class movement 
at the very moment of the 
downfall of capitalism ... 

By this combination of means those 
who try to undermine our democratic 
socialist methods and beliefs will be 
overcome and in the process we shall win 
over those who are superficially attracted 
by the simplistic slogans and strategies of 
the sect, just as we have won over many in 
the past. To some in the Labour Party the 
action required to defeat Militant appears 
to be a distasteful over-reaction to a group 
which is, after all, small in number and has 
no influence whatsoever on the decisions 
and direction of the Party. To them I say 
that democracy must always defend itself 
and that democratic socialists cannot 
permit their Party to be defaced by a 
secretive group whose whole purpose is to 
contradict the values, feed off the vitality 
of and disgrace the reputation of the 
Labour Party. 

Conclusion 

Tawney described socialism as:


" A community of responsible men and 
women, working without fear in comradeship 
for common ends, all of 
whom can grow to their full stature, 
develop to their upmost limits the 
ranging capacity with which nature has 
endowed them." 

The state as community-the state as an 
enabling power -the idea of collective 
and purposive action -: this is not some



thing that either Marxists or monetarists 
can comprehend. But it can work. Freedom, 
justice and equality are meaningless 
as abstractions. As I have suggested, they 
encompass contradictions and complexity. 
They can only be translated into living 
reality through the interaction of men , 
women and children in th~ everyday world 
which for most of us means the neighbourhood, 
region or country in which we live. 
Diagnosis and pres::ription is only a 
starting point. The n~xt two years will 
prove, as the Webbs might have said 
themselves, that "there is :10 substitute for 
hard work". We must revive our faith and 

energy in that public process of education 
which worked in 1945, building on the 
experience, and on the altruism and 
commonsense of the people of this country. 


We must tap this imagination and those 
civic virtues which are in effect, socialism 
in action-mutual care and mutual aid. It 
is not sufficient to offer programmes and 
plans; we must offer vision as well as 
theory ; and as Tawney said in 1945 "put 
the nation on its mettle". I have no doubt 
the country is willing and ready to respond. 


12 


Recent Fabian Pamphlets 


Tracts 

491 David Blunkett, Geoff Green 

492 Keith Ewing 

493 G. Bernard Shaw 

494 Raymond Plant 
495 Bernard Crick 
496 Anthony Wright, John Stewart, 

Nicholas Deakin 
497 earl James 

498 eds . Brian Abei-Smith & 
Peter Townsend 
499 Hugh O'Shaughnessy 

500 Peter Townsend 
501 Denis Healey 
502 Michael Mann 

503 Martin Linton 
504 John Lloyd 
505 David Griffiths & Chris Holmes 
506 Caroline St. John-Brooks 

507 ed . Lisanne Radice 
508 William McCarthy 

Special Centenary Publication 

Building from the bottom: the £1 .50 
Sheffield experience 
The Conservatives , trade unions £1 .50 
and political funding 

The Fabian Society: its early history £1 .50 
(reprinted with a preface by 
Melvyn Bragg) 

Equality, markets and the State £1 .50 
Socialist values and time £1 .50 
Socialism and decentralisation £1 .50 

Occupational pensions : the failure £1 .50 
of private welfare 
Social security: the real agenda £1 .50 

Towards a democratic Central £1.50 

America 
Why are the many poor? £1 .50 
Labour and a world society £1 .50 
Socialism can survive: social £1 .50 

change and the Labour Party 
The Swedish road to socialism £1.50 
Understanding the miners' strike £2.00 
A new housing policy for Labour £1 .50 
Who controls training?: the rise of £1 .50 

the Manpower Services Commission 
Winning women 's votes £1 .50 
Freedom at work: towards the reform £2.00 

of Tory employment laws 

100 Years of Fabian Socialism £2 .50 

Books available from the Fabian Society 

ed. Richard Silburn 
Patricia Pugh 

ed . Ben Pim lott 

ed . Howard Glennerster 
eds. M . Cannel l & N. Citrine 

J.P.M. Millar 
The Future of Social Security 

(Fabian Society, 1985) 

Educate , Agitate , Organize1GO 
years of Fabian Socialism 

(Methuen, 1984) 

Fabian Essays in Socialist 
Thought 

(Gower, 1984) 

The Future of the Welfare State 

(Heinemann, 1983) 

Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship 

(NCLC, 1982) 

The Labour College Movement 

£2 .95 

£19 .50 

cased 
£19.50 
paper 
£8 .50 

paper 
£5.95 
paper 
£3 .50 
cased 
£5 .50 

Postage: books SOp per title (ABC of Chairmanship 30p), The Future of Social Security and 
pamphlets post-free. 


The Future of Socialism 

Neil Kinnock argues that the aim of democratic socialism is individual freedom 
protected by equality and democracy. The state has an essential role to play in 
underpinning freedom and equality through collective provision for individual 
purposes. And parliamentary democracy is the essential implement for 
democratic socialism offering the most dependable means for securing and 
sustaining progress. 

However, if Labour is to form a government, it must relate to the modern 
working classes whose support it needs. These people owe upward social 
mobility, increased expectations and extended horizons largely to the 
opportunities afforded to them by the labour movement. And, Neil Kinnock 
believes, they can be convinced of the desirability and practicality of 
democratic socialism provided that Labour adjusts its attitudes and presentation 
to the new circumstances. 

Democratic socialism is under attack from the right and the left. On the 
right , social democracy is unconcerned with eradicating inequality and only 
relieves its grosser manifestations. On the left, democratic centralists appoint 
themselves leaders of the masses and use the most dishonest methods to 
achieve their ends through the Labour Party. Socialism can only be built, he 
concludes if the Labour Party builds on the experience, the altruism and the 
commonsense of the people of this country whilst tapping the virtues which are 
in effect socialism in action, mutual care and mutual aid. 

This pamphlet is the text of Neil Kinnock's Fabian Autumn Lecture on The 
Future of Socialism delivered on 12 November 1985. 

Fabian Society 

The Fabian Society exists to further socialist education and research. Since 
1884 it has enrolled thoughtful socialists who wish to discuss the essential 
questions of democratic socialism and relate them to practical plans for 
building socialism in a changing world. Beyond this the Society has no 
collective policy. It is affiliated to the Labour Party. Anyone who is not 
ineligible for membership of the Labour Party is eligible for full membership; 
others may become associate members. For membership and publications 
details, write to: John Willman, General Secretary, Fabian Society, 11 
Dartmouth Street, London SW1H 9BN. 

£1.00