ABSTRACT
The essence of the revisionist case for socialism is that the capitalist market system can be transformed into a collectivist state without recourse to violent class struggle. The socialist intellectuals of the 1930s helped to define the logic, the strategy and the appropriate programme to ensure substantial progress towards a socialist system, even though they disagreed on many of the specifics. The Fabians, in contrast, had worked out an economic justification for their socialism. In collaboration with other socialist economists, they were responsible for important and innovative contributions to the theory and practice of the socialist alternative in Britain. Dick Durbin and Hugh Gaitskell believed that a socialist government could use rational analysis to solve a wide range of problems. British democratic socialist thought has a rich tradition of designing realistic programmes, which are in tune with their age and which can inspire the necessary vision of a ‘New Jerusalem’ for the next generation.
