How Should We Live Now?
Review of Is Socialism Feasible? Towards an Alternative Future by Geoffrey M. Hodgson It’s not that surprising, with so many major Western economies in mothballs in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the Bank of England warning of Britain’s deepest recession in 300 years, that lockdown has begun to encourage a rethink of how we live, prompting a plethora articles in the press on how the virus is going to change the world. In this context, Geoffrey Hodgson’s new book, Is Socialism Feasible? Towards an Alternative Future , is timely. In it, he makes a renewed case for the mixed economy and for liberal (or social) democracy, as well as for cautious, experimental reform. Against the small state, laissez-faire liberalism resurgent from the 1970s, he attempts to develop a strand of politics from within the liberal tradition that is more socially conscious. At the same time, he musters a strong case against “big” socialism, or systems in which state ownership and central planning ar...