Socialism in the 21st Century: Liberal, Democratic, and Market Oriented

Abstract

Socialism is the best antidote to social injustice. Yet this solution is unsatisfactory unless we find an answer to a further question: which socialism?¹ The unceremonious end of the communist experiment in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe post 1989 has forced Western socialists to go back to the drawing board. Over the past 20 years, this process of socialist self-examination has produced some striking results, in terms of originality and erudition. In particular, three bodies of literature deserve special mention: Liberal Socialism (exploring the congruencies between the traditions of liberalism and socialism, especially on questions of social justice), Democratic Socialism (promoting a model of socialism along the lines of associative or deliberative democracy), and Market Socialism (reconciling socialism with the market system).