ABSTRACT
Jurgen Habermas views the unhappy fruition of the labouring utopia as that which takes on an institutional embodiment in the form of the welfare state. Labour’s utopia is thus precisely that minimisation of labour-time which the late Karl Marx imagined, but achieved within the space between the capitalist economy and the welfare state. Bolshevism similarly remains compatible with welfarism because it is a labour utopia, a collectivism, a producers’ utopia in the strict sense. The work of the Webbs remains compatible with welfarism because its utopia is the utopia of function. Bolshevism similarly remains compatible with welfarism because it is a labour utopia, a collectivism, a producers’ utopia in the strict sense. The utopia of Cole constitutes something of a connection between Fabianism and social democracy, or at least with Bernstein, for if Kautsky represents the authentic spirit of social democracy Bernstein stands for its defensible legacy.
