I thought it already had.

One concept not favoured by advocates of revolutionary upheaval is that of 'reform'. At best, to them it is second-best and doomed to failure; at worst it supposedly lends some artificial staying power to capitalist society by making it less loathsome. One could say that if there were sufficient popular demand for fundamental change, then a violent revolution is unnecessary, as all those people could simply vote for such an option. The counter-argument goes that if things were going that way, democracy would be suspended by the forces of the ruling classes or by foreign powers - this argument seems to work for Chile, less so for Germany in the 1930s (despite the fact that the Nazis never won more than 37% of the vote in free elections, they still did better than the communist KPD, so it can't all be put down to the ruling classes). In the Western world, there is not the remotest evidence of anything more than very small minority actively supporting a politics significantly to the left of that provided by the mainstream political parties - the workers are more likely to vote Tory or Christian Democrat than for any far left parties. Now the democratic system as we know it is far from ideal in many ways, but I'm not convinced that some of the far left alternatives are much better. Real change will only happen in a positive way (as opposed to undemocratic seizure of power by a group claiming to represent 'the workers') when there is a widespread will for it (unless one takes the Maoist type of model and divides the world more in first/third world terms rather than according to class divisions within either region) - I would like to see that and do believe there's great value in attempting to disseminate socialist ideas more widely with this end in mind. But there's a *massive* way to go in this respect, and I feel that making everything about some future supposed worldwide socialist revolution constitutes an extremely *harmless* form of politics, because of it's disengagement with real issues that exist now and the possibility of some maybe small, but meaningful change. And there have been very real and positive changes within Western society, such as more liberal social policies (except in the US), and in particular to do with the situation of women. And there's much more to be done on those fronts. And, I would say, everything to be preferred about a European style social democratic model compared to the primeval capitalism to be found in America. And trying to oppose imperial interventions like that in Iraq (but which did have a small majority of public support in Britain and a much larger one in the Us). There sorts of reformist goals do count when there's little prospect of any wider change in the foreseeable future.

Here endeth the First Lesson.

Office Hymn no. 101

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Here endeth the Second Lesson.

The choir will now sing Requiescat Ian Pace followed by the General Thanksgiving.

Once again I have to say I think it should be a question of process rather than ideal. The process is set in motion by people realising that they do actually have the economic clout to change the system as long as they cooperate. We have a somewhat warped view of this in "the West" because popular movements have been in decline for a couple of decades at least, but if we were for example in South America we might look at things differently. The present administration in Venezuela, for example, has no "image problem" in calling itself socialist - what matters there, what it stands or falls by, is its commitment to raising living standards among the poorest in that country, despite enormous pressure from without to fail.

It isn't just socialism but all of politics which has an "image problem", isn't it? The political class has succeeded in controlling the agenda to the point where the meaning of "political" in most people's minds has become associated (ie. confused) with the activities of professional politicians and nothing else (as we can see from a lot of the things Baz writes on the subject). When their deceptions and hypocrisy are thrust in our faces every day it isn't surprising that people completely lose their faith in the idea that they themselves might count for something; which of course is part of the intention. The ruling class in the USA certainly doesn't want to change the fact that only a minority of people ever vote, for example. The main hurdle to overcome (as Marx realised) is that change is possible but only through collective action. Once that point is reached it doesn't matter whether the name "socialism" is attached to it or not.

Some good points in the last few posts.  The name 'socialism' can go hang if we have a worldwide movement committed to production directly for use and free access to wealth on the basis of need.  I agree to a certain extent with IRF's suggestion that we need to take an unbiased look at the ideals of socialism compared with what we have now.  I don't think any sane person could think that developing a yet smaller mobile phone for those who don't yet know they want it is a higher priority than delivering clean drinking water to those who don't yet have it; but we act as though it is because profit is the prime mover and there's more profit in the new gadget. 

I don't agree that we can achieve much if we ' ignore history', though.  Perhaps that was an unfortunate turn of phrase and what IRF meant was 'ignore the official version of history'.  I'm convinced that we can only really develop a better society if people make an attempt to understand the one we have now, how it came to dominate, and why it's no longer useful.  We can't, for example, just abandon profit as an indicator of demand without some idea of how it works and what might replace it.

As for "all of politics" having an image problem, maybe it is finally becoming clear that conscious collective action is required rather than trust in political leaders and vanguards.  Which plutocrat was it who said something like "You elect your leaders and I'll buy them"