Democratic Socialism and Equality

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to try to pin down and analyse the conception of equality favoured by C. A. R. Crosland, who was the pivotal intellectual figure in defining a role for social democracy in Britain once the first stage of the social democratic transformation of British society had been achieved by the 1945–51 Labour governments. Basic industries and the Bank of England had been nationalised and the National Health Service had been established, but as Richard Crossman was wont to argue, one of the major problems facing the Left by 1951 was that it seemed as though it had run out of ideas. So much had been achieved, particularly following the rigours of war, but it was not clear where the Left should go next, particularly since the vast bulk of the Labour Party did not wish to follow the forms of socialism being established in Eastern Europe or the type that had been established in Russia. There was a need to find a clear social democratic alternative to both European communism and pre-war capitalism but which equally held out a vision of a society more enticing and more compelling than one in which basic industries had been nationalised and a Health Service established.