Back to the Future of Socialism

What’s gone wrong with capitalism, and how should governments respond? Did big government or big banking cause the global financial crisis? Is the answer austerity or investment in growth; untrammelled market forces or regulation for the common good? Anthony Crosland’s The Future of Socialism provided a creed for governments of the center left until the global banking crisis. Now Peter Hain, drawing on over fifty years of experience in politics, revisits this classic text and presents a stimulating political prospectus for today. Hain argues that capitalism is now more financially unstable and unfair, productive but prone to paralysis, dynamic but discriminatory. A rousing alternative to the neoliberal, right-wing orthodoxy of our era, Hain’s new book should be read by everyone interested in the future of the left.