Editorial: Socialism defined (2025)

Editorial from the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month we recorded that two MPs who had said they were socialists had not replied to a request to say what they meant by socialism. In the meantime, one has replied indirectly while Jeremy Corbyn himself has had a stab at it.

Addressing a Your Party rally in Liverpool on 9 October Zarah Sultana declared:

‘We’re not here for lowering a few bills here and there, and the sprinkling of a wealth tax. We are here for a fundamental transformation of society, the means of production controlled by workers. And another very simple idea, the working class controlling the wealth that they produce. It’s called socialism.’

While Corbyn wrote in an article in the Guardian (13 October):

“Undemocratic parties produce undemocratic societies, where a small section of society owns the resources we all need to survive. Democratic parties produce democratic societies; where wealth and resources are owned by us all”.

Both definitions – while not completely wide of the mark – have their weakness. Sultana’s because she only talks of ‘control’ and not ownership; which could leave her words open to being interpreted as ‘workers control’ of nationalised industry. Also, even if ownership is meant as well as control, socialism is not ownership just by ‘workers’, but ownership by all members of society including those who for one reason or another are not working. They too will have a say on what is produced and how it is distributed.

Besides the nonsense of what parties of a different type produce, Corbyn’s is open to the objection that he doesn’t make it clear that socialism means that all the means of production would belong to all of us, leaving open the interpretation that he is talking about the so-called ‘public’ ownership of just some industries or services; which in fact is how he did mean it to be interpreted.

However, combining the strengths of both we can reach a reasonably good definition of socialism:

‘A fundamental transformation of society where the resources we all need to survive — the means of production — will be owned and controlled by all of us’.

However, we have to express our serious doubts that the new party will adopt this as its aim and that, even if it did, this would be nothing more than rhetoric for ceremonial occasions, its practice being the pursuit of sprinklings such as a wealth tax and other reforms.