A Future for Published by Fount Paperbacks, £2.99. Reviewed by Patrick Baker Tony Benn's 'A Future for Socialism' is a powerful assertion of democratic socialism. There are no concessions to post-moderist retreats from class politics. and none to the 'post-communist' association of socialism with dictatorship.It is a welcome counter-blast Turning from Stalinist Russia fo Nazi Germany. Tony Benn draws on sources as varied as Adam Smith, force his case for a campaigning.parIx patory socism in the twenty mist century.
British state
The case for democratising the the disestablishment of the monarchy gues throughout that the undemocratic bastions of the state must go. must impose this is the mass of the ments have achieved more on the But there are areas of the book that are either thin or confused. Perhaps this is inevitable in a 6f-page book. But sections such as that on the Russian revokution are superficial, as is the discussion of PR. To claim that PR Inevitably leads to 'smoke-filed rooms' is a rather oki and discredited argument, which would be better loft out.
Other sections are less than conthat Democratic socialism must be built gradually, brick by brick..Thus the National Health Service, a social. ist innovation...ts now almost unter. sally supported.
next he says "Admittedly socialist to the NHS, so future social. ist measures cannot bask in is warm renected owe. contradictory 300 tions lesson the impact of the book. positive. It is not helpful - or true -to say, as do Socialst Worker, that Benn says what is wrong, but has no recipe for how to overthrow it.
Formally they have a point.
But the important thing is that Benn - unlike most - has broucht together some of the most important elements for a counter-attack against the dominant right. He insists on the importance of class and of mass moganise against the Labour leadership on that basis, in the Socialist move. ment - which he strongly acvocates here.
This is a big step in the right direc tion, even if it's not the answer that No. 17 Feb. 29, 1992