
This summary by Hayek of the contemporary meaning of socialism in the 1930s and 1940s was relatively accurate.
You must remember that clause 4 of the British Labour Party’s manifesto committing that party to the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange was only dropped relatively recently at the impetus of Tony Blair.
The Australian Labor Party still includes the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange as one of its objectives.
There were stronger divisions in the inter-war labour parties in Britain, Australia and New Zealand about whether the party should be committed to full socialism, Christian socialism or social democracy. It has been forgotten that the labour parties of Britain, Australia and New Zealand had many fall on the socialists within that party.
The Labour Party of Michael Foot in the 1983 British general election ran on a hard left manifesto, with Tony Benn and the Trotskyist entryist group Militant Tendency, which had several MPs, wanting a full socialist agenda in 1980s Britain.
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