Crosland, Equality and New Labour

Abstract

Crosland was both a democratic socialist and a revisionist. His democratic socialism had as its aim a more socially just society, by which he meant a society which would have achieved a greater level of social and economic equality to go alongside equality in civil and political rights. He was a revisionist in that he believed that what policies were required to achieve greater social justice and equality depended upon an understanding of the major social and economic factors at work within the national economy and in the wider world at a particular time in the pattern of economic development of a specific country. Although for Crosland the ends of democratic socialism were universal, there were no necessary or intrinsic means to the achievement of these ends. They would depend crucially upon circumstance.

Revised and expanded version of platform speech, Memorial meeting (13 February 1997).