Take back the past

George Watson

European Review, 2002, vol. 10, issue 4, 459-467

Abstract: The surprising fact about the 20th century was the return of the liberal free market, circling back to where it began. It was helped because liberalism, unlike socialism, was never a theory of history and could not be falsified by events. But, socialist historians still control the past, and it is still widely believed that the welfare state was created by socialism and that genocide is right-wing. In fact, socialist leaders, fearful of preserving capitalism, opposed the welfare state, which in Britain was the creation of Asquith. Between the wars, Labour had no national health plans, and it was the last of the British parties to accept the Beveridge report. Repetition and suppression have entrenched the myth, which is widely accepted, that welfare equals socialism. The first history of socialism, by a French radical, Alfred Sudre, was opposed to socialism as a conservative idea; Marx and Engels, Ruskin and Morris were openly conservative and the Bolsheviks proudly elitist.

Date: 2002
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