Socialism, Social Ownership, and Social Justice

This text is concerned with the emergence in Europe, over the centuries, of dreams and aspirations amongst the poor and weak for new societies of justice and equality based on common ownership and common sharing. It ranges from the Greek legendary ideal of a simple, communal golden age of equals and the dark reality of Spartan perverted communalism, to the collapse of Soviet communism and the abandonment by West European socialist parties of their commitment to transform ruling- class dominated capitalist societies into democratic, egalitarian socialist societies.