The fundamental text of the Democratic Socialists, hated by liberals, conservatives, and most other socialists alike! It was a good read, and Harrington makes his points well. There is an interesting read on a wide variety of socialist thinkers, and a great history of the socialist movement. I'll say that I didn't agree with all of his assessments. I am no patron of overly authoritarian socialist strains, I'm not a Stalinist or Maoist, but I think to proclaim that Communism is an "unsocialistic" movement is a step too far. I think that his decision to uniformly cast aside the explicitly socialist states in favor for a largely intellectual history of socialism, as well as a legislative history of socialism and social democracy, is a questionable one. There are, in my opinion, some highly favorable things in countries like Cuba and even in Lenin's original vision for the Soviet Union. The blanket condemnation is unfortunate, and I think it is to the detriment of the work. Especially when this is mixed with things like a tacit endorsement of Keynes, a man who, despite crafting a kinder capitalism, was explicitly capitalist. Harrington starts with a dictionary definition: “socialism is the public ownership of the means of production and distribution”. There is no express discussion of the meaning of “public” in this context. However, it is implicit that it could be some variation of society or the state. This last book written by the eminent American socialist -- composed, in fact, even as he wrestled with the cancer that was to take his life -- is, unfortunately (and, perhaps, unsurprisingly) dated with respect to the prescriptions he discussed for "the future." It’s time to return to the concept of public ownership and what Harrington refers to as “socialisation”.

Socialism: Past and Future is prominent thinker Michael Harrington’s final contribution: a thoughtful, intelligent, and compassionate treatise on the role of socialism both past and present in modern society. He is convincing in his application of classic socialist theory to current economic situations and modern political systems, and he examines the validity of the idea of “visionary gradualism” in bringing about a socialist agenda. He believes that if freedom and justice are to survive into the next century, the socialist movement will be a critical factor. One and the same word, socialisation, is used to describe counterposed phenomena: the growing centralisation and interdependence of capitalist society under the control of an elite; and the possibility of a democratic, bottom-up control by the majority.” (8) Do democratic socialists have to obtain control of the state by democratic means (i.e., by way of democratic election) or is there a case for the acquisition of power by way of revolutionary force? Is revolutionary force intrinsically anti-democratic, even if it is used in the name of a majority of the public? Once power is obtained, can it be retained by way of force (e.g., by the modern equivalent of the dictatorship of the proletariat)? Is it acceptable that all gains can be reversed at the very next election (just as the gains won by social democrats can be [and have been] reversed by a neoconservative or populist government)? How can democratic socialists protect their gains against a hostile democratically elected government?

A look at Workington from the mid-20th Century to the early 21st Century

First edition, first impression, one of 500 copies printed, of Hardy's second volume of verse, following Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898). It’s this very sense of socialisation that requires socialism to be democratic. Democratic socialism is a direct consequence and precondition of the goal of democratic socialisation. There is no guarantee that socialism will triumph - or that freedom and justice, even to the limited degree that they have been achieved until now, will survive the next century. All I claim here is that, if they are to survive, the socialist movement will be a critical factor.” (3)

I wondered whether this term meant something different in the US, compared with British Commonwealth countries. Socialism is a derogatory term for a political philosophy that is condemned by many Americans as more or less the same as Communism, so it didn’t make sense to me that Bernie embraced the term with conviction and enthusiasm in the Post-Communist era. During much of the 2016 US Democratic Party presidential primaries, I was confused by Bernie Sanders’ claim that he was a Democratic Socialist. The welfare state might have been motivated by the protection of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. However, the economic strategy was actually intended to benefit capitalism. It was “a legal floor...put under consumption”. If people had no money, they could not spend it on consumption. If there was reduced consumption, there would be reduced production and capitalism. Both jobs and profits are protected by the welfare state. Therefore, the welfare state props up capitalist production by subsidising public consumption. Socialism: Past and Future is listed as an "Introduction to Socialism" book on the YDS reading list that I have, one which I don't have any idea when it was compiled or by whom. But I was surprised and annoyed to see that I have not read a single book on it, so I'm planning on working my way down the whole thing (it should take me about 5 years, at this rate). This book was first on the list. In Britain Clause IV of the Labour Party’s Constitution which had advocated for the common ownership of big capital was excised by Tony Blair after he assumed leadership of Labour in 1994. The Blair and Brown governments strengthened the neoliberal reforms of the Thatcher and Major eras and gave wholesale support to Bush II’s Middle Eastern forays.All this history only brings us up to about halfway through the book -- the subtitle is Past and Future, after all. This, to me, is where things really get interesting. Chapter 6, "The Third Creation of the World," looks at the rise of globally integrated finance capitalism (or "corporate socialization," as Harrington calls it). The economic impotence of newly freed colonies of the great empires in the face of early globalization is a big theme, as are the end of the Keynesian consensus and the rise of transnational (i.e., multinational) corporations. In short, we are looking at the rise of the modern economy, from a period much closer to when it was actually happening. It is from this perspective that Harrington calls for a "new socialism," to match the new form of capitalism eating the world. The later chapters lay out his ideas about what that new socialism should look like, a sometimes dated, sometimes prescient combination of proposed political program, predictions about the future of work and of economics, and a few very underdeveloped (but nonetheless there, which is not bad for 1989) remarks about climate change ("If the GNP goes up, no matter what its composition, it is thought that the society is advancing. But that advance could well be a stride toward catastrophe, for example, toward a greenhouse effect that will threaten life itself" p. 217). He also mentions the "precariat" in terms of the unemployment of the '70s; I had thought that word was only coined along with "gig economy" in the post-crash period. Shows what I know. The question remains: what is the role of the state, if any, in the achievement of the goals of democratic socialism? At various stages, Harrington mentions social democracy. He doesn’t use any one particular definition of social democracy. Readers must extrapolate it from the context:

Harrington discusses Stalin in terms of War Communism, where the Soviet state was under internal threat from a civil war and an external threat from foreign capital and military intervention. How do you acquire power or control over the privately-owned means of production, if their owners resist? Can you only do so by way of the authority of the state? I read this book shortly after it came out at the end of the 1980s and it helped me make my way leftward towards if not socialist politics at least social democracy it got me curious about the DSA in the 1980s or early 1990s it was a long time ago and I don't remember the date exactly. Harrington had spent some time in the Catholic Worker Movement although he later moved toward nonreligious flavors of socialism and I knew people involved in that at Fairfield University and I also knew a few Trotskyists at Fordham. Harrington covers the big tent of socialism and social democracy and all the plans and arguments from the 18th century through the 1980s. A good primer to navigate the many-headed varieties of socialism.Written by an avowed socialist in 1989 just after the market crash, this is a pretty useful overview of the roots of a mediated form of socialism presupposed by much of the educated class of America and Europe today. He argues for a form of socialism that works, in theory, with the market, rather than presupposing the abolition of the market. Harrington wants to make a case that this new democratic socialism is the hope for the 21st century, and, most of all, is not reducible to the authoritarian or dictatorial centralized socialism of Stalinism, Leninism or Third World communism. Communism for Harrington is an antisocialist system of bureaucratic collectivism not part of the history of socialism. I won't go into the details here, but in effect the book wants to refute the conservative argument that socialism is like squaring the circle, that any socialist policy leads inexorably down a royal road to serfdom, since it necessarily involves some sort of central planning, and central planning is the fastest way to frustrate the market's means of setting price according to supply and demand, ultimately concerning the efficient allocation of scarce resources.