Roots of the Socialist Dilemma

Socialism in our time is undergoing a crisis. It is not a crisis of existence, for our age has seen the arrival of socialism on a scale that surpasses the fondest hopes of socialists of the past generation. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that thirty years ago socialism was to be found in only one country whose very survival appeared to be gravely threatened. Today at least a third, possibly half, of the world’s population lives under regimes that, however subject to political change, appear indissolubly wedded to socialism as an economic system. In the retrospective glance of the future, ours will certainly be known as the period in which socialism ceased to be a mere wish, a vague destination of history, and became a major par...