when push comes to shove I still believe that until there is no longer the private control of the commanding heights of the economy, you can't fundam… - Dorothy Ray Healey

I won't see socialism in my lifetime; I don't know if my son will see it in his, or even my grandchildren in theirs. There is no way to foretell what kind of political developments and issues will galvanize a future generation to turn towards socialism. The model I embraced in my youth, the vision of a vanguard party of the working class seizing power in the midst of a great social and political crisis like the one that had overtaken Russia in 1917, is no longer relevant. But I still believe that working people must be at the center of any real movement for socialism, for they are the majority for whose well-being that government "of, by, and for the people" should be concerned. Ultimately I have faith that people, given the understanding of how they can help bring it about, want to live in a better world. People can change the world, but they can't do it as individuals alone. They have to join with others to do it. One thing I have not changed my views on over the years is the belief that organization is the key to winning victories for social change. That's why it was such a tragedy that so little in the way of organized radicalism survived the collapse of the New Left. (p 252)

People must have a channel through which they can express themselves if there is to be any hope that they will transcend the sense of powerlessness and apathy encouraged by our dominant ideological myths. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition has come closest in recent times to serving as this kind of channel. One could see a glimmer of the possibilities for the future, watching the young people who were Jesse Jackson delegates at the Democratic conventions in 1984 and 1988. Many had never participated in any political movement before, and you could see how the Jackson campaign had opened things up for them and gave a whole new dimension to their lives. The Rainbow Coalition has had its share of internal problems, but it has been far more successful than any of the more explicitly ideological groups on the Left in teaching people to give an affirmative answer to the old Biblical question, "Am I my brothers [and sisters] keeper?" One keeps oneself only by keeping others. That means we have to learn to look upon the societies of this world as things which have been created by humans and which are therefore subject to being changed for the better by humans. (p 254)

It seems to be that Lincoln's definition of democracy, "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people," is as good a summary as any of an essential element of the kind of socialism I would like to see established in the United States. Socialist democracy means democracy in the economic as well as in the political sphere.