Introduction

It all began so well, when in 1949 the young Oxford economist told the South Gloucestershire selection-meeting that socialism to him was about opportunity and outcome most of all: the ‘ultimate ideal of Soc[ialism] seems to me essentially a moral, & not a. material one. It is nothing to do with nationalisation of means of production, nothing to do with any one particular economic policy. It is something to do with a just and moral and equal society, in wh[ich] it’s no longer true that half the people live in cramped ugly houses and the other half in spacious beautiful ones, in wh[ich] half the people leave school at 15 to go into factories & the other half have all the advantages of Eton & Oxford.’1 Crosland’s socialism was equality and upgrading. Crosland’s future was empowerment and integration.