Growth into Socialism

Abstract

Anthony Crosland, economist and revisionist, took the view ‘that growth is vital, and that its benefits will far outweigh its costs’.1 Not the least of those benefits was the socialist future. As a result of economic growth, the society becomes more open and the culture more homogeneous: ‘The lines of class division … are more blurred than they were a century ago’.2 As a result of economic growth, equalising reform becomes possible without the divisive antagonism of the zero-sum confrontation: ‘Rapid growth is an essential condition of any significant re-allocation of resources.’3 Growth is possible without socialism: examples are not difficult to find of privatising polities expanding without welfarist redistribution. Socialism, however, is not possible without growth: T do assert dogmatically that in a democracy low or zero growth wholly excludes the possibility.