ABSTRACT
The fatherest-left position, which has considerable support amongst constituency activists, holds that socialism is about nationalisation. Its proponents want – and expect – Labour to use government to make wholesale takeovers of privately owned industries. Socialism is seen as the replacement of a system in which the means of production are privately owned, and used to produce profit, by one in which the tools of production are publicly owned. The social democrats’ belief that socialism was about equality was a direct challenge to this ‘production socialism’ position. C. A. R. Crosland’s Future of Socialism pointed out how much had to be done to change the school system to make equality of opportunity a reality for working-class children. The willingness of individual trade unions to act as pressure-groups raises important political problems for the revisionists. With the trade unions ranged against them it is hard to see who is going to provide the political support for egalitarianism.
