Does Socialism Have a Future?

Does Socialism Have a Future?

Does socialism have a future? This question has been asked for almost two hundred years, whenever “socialism” as theory and movement reached a critical period. There can be little doubt that socialism, both as a movement and a theory, is now living through one of its greatest trials. The increasingly blunt admissions by the ruling bureaucracies of Soviet-type societies that their long and, as far as human lives are concerned, expensive experiments have failed politically and economically threatens the socialist idea, however defined, with extinction.

Socialists used to invoke History writ large as their main witness. This witness is, however, neither just nor fair. This time it implicates those who were innocent of any...