The new revisionism, by demoting the importance of ownership, downgraded that of nationalisation. State property no longer constituted the main road to socialism. The only remaining rationale for nationalisation had to be couched entirely in practical terms; for example, that it abolished a private monopoly, protected employment, permitted greater investment, guaranteed essential services or supplies - all reasons which had been used by non-socialists. The consequence of this was that socialist revisionism quite deliberately obliterated the painstakingly established border between socialist and non-socialist thought.

It was believed that the loss in doctrinal purity would be more than amply compensated by greater strategic flexibility, increased electoral appeal and, for parties operating in circumstances which made coalitions necessary, a better chance of finding allies. The new revisionism prided itself on its pragmatism and realism while being, at the same time, deeply ethical: it constantly referred to the values of socialism and particularly to the struggle against inequality and poverty. This ‘ethical pragmatism’ (ethical ends and pragmatic means) deliberately rejected Marxism, its theoretical intransigence and its apparent disregard for the ethical dimension.

Marshall Aid, however, presents a paradox for both socialists and free marketeers. Politically, its aim was the furthering in Europe of ‘American values’ of which ‘free’ enterprise is the most crucial. It would follow from this that it should have been welcomed by free marketeers. The plan, however also implied that the European economies would not have survived had thy been abandoned to the invisible hand of the market. It was, after all, a plan launched by a state to help other states recover from the war and integrate their economies. The ‘free market’ may have been the desired end, but it was not the means…Socialists and their opponents resolved the paradox by the unstated and informal agreement to drop their long-term goals - socialism and unregulated capitalism, respectively.

The pattern of nationalisation, the paucity of planning, the absence of the most rudimentary forms of industrial democracy, demonstrate the massive failure of socialists throughout Europe to achieve even the semblance of a distintive policy towards private capital. Unable to abolish capitalism, they were reduced to attempted, often unsuccessfully, to improve it by making it more efficient, more modern, more ‘capitalist’.

It is strange and perplexing that, given the importance of the policy of state ownership, no Left party in Western Europe (including communist parties) had detailed plans aimed at the abolition of private property of at least some of the means of production. The general and vague anti-capitalist rhetoric which pervaded even some of the continental confessional parties disguised the evident shortage of ideas on how to abolish capitalism. Socialists knew, most of the time, what to do in the present; they knew what they wanted for the future. But how to establish the connection between today’s reforms and tomorrow’s socialism remained as mysterious as it had been at the end of the nineteenth century, when Bernstein had suggested, in effect, that socialists should abandon the future to concentrate on the present.

The most significant obstacles to a social democratic revival turn out to come not from structural or environmental factors, nor from the vibrancy of alternative ideological approaches, but from intellectual fallacies and a loss of will on the part of the left itself.

It is far better to be defeated while attempting to implement Labor policies than to be defeated after surrendering them. I do not believe we can win by surrendering these or, if by any chance we did win, that winning would be worthwhile.

The benefits of universal quality services is that we all share the entitlements. This communality is part of our sense of who we are. If some choose to opt out, it should be because they want a different option, not because the quality is not good enough. If public services become residual services, the default option, they tend to deteriorate. The aphorism, that services to the poor become poor services, still applies as it is the more privileged users that tend to complain if they are badly served.