Socialism, I want to propose, is the hope for human freedom and justice under the unprecedented conditions of life that humanity will face in the twe… - Michael Harrington

If, as is quite possible, America refuses to deal with the social evils that persist in the sixties, it will at the same time have turned its back on the racial minorities. There will be speeches on equality; there will be gains as the nation moves toward a constitutional definition of itself as egalitarian. The Negro will watch all this from a world of double poverty. He will continue to know himself as a member of a race-class condemned by heredity to be poor.

It is an intolerable irony that societies that are anything but socialist should thus define what socialism is in the eyes of so many. It is an irony that has to be undone.

The New Deal, for all its achievements and the popular idealism which inspired it, has become status quo. Its genuine gains, such as Social Security, must be defended and extended, of course. But the real task, for the democratic Left and for the nation, is now to go beyond the New Deal. Far beyond it.