Notebook: Does Public Ownership Still Matter?

Anthony Crosland is the ablest and most persuasive spokesman of the British Labor party’s “New Right,” notably that section of it which is also pro-European and skeptical of what Mr. Gaitskell on a recent occasion described as “an independent foreign policy.” His major work, The Future of Socialism, brought the Fabian doctrine up to date and supplied the rationale for the post-1955 attempt to define the Labor party’s aims in terms of the mixed economy and the welfare state. His new essay collection, The Conservative Enemy, carries the operation a stage further: in applying the “revisionist” doctrine to a variety of topical issues he has suggested the practical steps to be ...