By 'socialism' I mean a classless society in which the State has disappeared, production is cooperative, and no man has political or economic power over another. The touchstone would be the extent to which each individual could develop his own talents and personality.

Socialism is, essentially, the tendency inherent in an industrial civilization to transcend the self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to a democratic society. It is the solution natural to the industrial workers who see no reason why production should not be regulated directly and why markets should be more than a useful but subordinate trait in a free society. From the point of view of the community as a whole, socialism is merely the continuation of that endeavor to make society a distinctively human relationship of persons which in Western Europe was always associated with Christian traditions.

Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone.

...what I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain­slack brain workers, nor heart­sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all—the realisation at last of the meaning of the word commonwealth.

Socialism proposes to do away with free competition; to afford protection and support at all times to the laboring class; to bring about, at least, a qualified community of property, and to associated labor. All these purposes, slavery fully and perfectly attains.

I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly.

Socialism rejects the premises and the conclusions of anarchy upon the State and upon government. What socialism says is "Away with the economic system that alters the beneficent functions of the central direction authority from an aid to production into a means of oppression." And it proceeds to show that, when the instruments of production shall be owned no longer by the minority, but shall be restored to the Commonwealth; that when, as a results of this, no longer the minority or any portion of the people shall be in poverty and classes, class distinctions and class rule shall, as they necessarily must, have vanished, that then the central directing authority will lose all its repressive functions and is bound to reassume the functions it had in the old communities of our ancestors, become against a necessary aid, and assist in production.

Socialism means the community in bonds. If you establish a Socialist community it means the most comprehensive, universal, and pervasive tyranny that this country has ever seen, the flaw that enters into everything in all the relations of life. It is like the sand of the desert. It gets into your food, your clothes, your machinery, the very air you breathe. They are all gritty with regulations, orders, decrees, rules. That is what Socialism means. You cannot trust liberty to Socialism. The only hope of liberty is in Liberalism, for Liberalism alone believes in it.

Socialism for me was never about nationalization or the power of the state, not just about economics or even politics. It is a moral purpose to life, a set of values, a belief in society, in co-operation, in achieving together what we cannot achieve alone. It is how I try to live my life, how you try to live yours—the simple truths—I am worth no more than anyone else, I am my brother’s keeper, I will not walk by on the other side. We are not simply people set in isolation from one another, face to face with eternity, but members of the same family, same community, same human race. This is my socialism and the irony of all our long years in opposition is that those values are shared by the vast majority of the British people.

We are told that we are a pack of Socialists and faddists, and that common sense is on the side of the Unionist party. Well, for my part, I am for going in for all progressive legislation step by step. I do not believe in the short cuts. If Socialism means the abolition of private property, if it means the assumption of land and capital by the State, if it means an equal distribution of products of labour by the State, then I say that Socialism of that stamp, communism of that stamp, is against human nature, and no sensible man will have anything to say to it. But if it means a wise use of the forces of all for the good of each, if it means a legal protection of the weak against the strong, if it means the performance by public bodies of things which individuals cannot perform so well, or cannot perform at all, then the principles of Socialism have been admitted in almost the whole field of social activity already, and all we have to ask when any proposition is made for the further extension of those principles is whether the proposal is in itself a prudent, just, and proper means to the desired end, and whether it is calculated to do good, and more good than harm.

Socialism is a creed of the state. It regards ordinary human beings as the raw material for its schemes of social change. But we put our faith in people—in the millions of people who spend what they earn—not what other people earn. Who make sacrifices for their young family or their elderly parents. Who help their neighbours and take care of their neighbourhoods. The sort of people I grew up with. These are the people whom I became Leader of this Party to defend.

Just as nationalism protects a people from outside forces, so socialism serves a people's domestic needs. We want the people's strength to be released within the nation, forging the people once more into a strong block. The individual citizen must again have the sense that, even if he is finds himself in the simplest and lowest position, that his life and opportunities are assured.

The aim of Socialism is to place the adult worker in the possession of the necessary tools of production, so that he would not be compelled to part with the lion’s share of t his wage for the mere privilege of their use. Socialism proposes to offer each adult worker a certainty of livelihood and thus enable him to take care of his own.

I take Socialism in its strict meaning to be for the State to do that which is usually done by private people for the sake of gain. I believe that that is sometimes a very unwise thing; on the other hand, it is sometimes a very wise thing. There is nothing so Socialistic as the Mint or the Post Office. No doubt my noble Friend is right in saying that at the present day there is a strong leaning towards bringing in the interference of the State on every possible occasion, and I think that is a tendency against which it is right that we should be upon our guard. It is not that we sin against any principle, but that we expect from the State what it cannot possibly do if we impose upon it tasks which it cannot fitly perform or burdens beyond its power; all we shall do will be to create an indefinite source of expense, and ultimately an unlimited cause of corruption and inefficiency.