Socialist thinkers: Anthony Crosland (1918-77)

Overview:

• Crosland was a labour revisionist

Key ideas:

• he attacked the view that the most effective way of achieving socialist aims was through the nationalisation of major elements of the economy
• he argued that capitalism should be allowed to flourish as long as it effectively created wealth and didn't exploit the workers
• under certain circumstances he accepted that nationalisation might be appropriate, as might worker cooperatives, but alongside these two forms of common ownership capitalism would play a leading role
• he rejected the idea of centralised state planning
• he rejected a wholly class-based analysis of society, arguing that this was outdated in…