THE MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION
183
tion, since there has never been a socialist society. Nevertheless,
almost everyone agrees on the definition: socialist society is eco–
nomically classless, politically democratic, and international (or
at the least, internationalist).
The assumption that capitalism and socialism are the sole
alternatives is by no means confined to Marxists and others who
favor
socialism from a programmatic and moral standpoint. It is
shared by many who oppose socialism and who fight against it. The
most ardent defender of capitalism will usually agree with the
firmest revolutionary that if capitalism goes it will be socialism
that takes its place.
The acceptance of this assumption dictates the broad lines of
the interpretation of contemporary events, and the expectations of
the future. The significance of events is found in their relation
to one or the other of the alternatives. What happens is understood
as
of
capitalism or
from
capitalism, as toward or away from
socialism, as strengthening or weakening capitalism, bringing
socialism nearer or pushing it farther off.
During the past generation, and especially during the past
decade, this mode of interpretation, based upon and required by
this assumption, has become more and more inadequate, less and
less able to answer plausibly the problems raised by what is hap–
pening. To an ever increasing extent it becomes confusing, distort–
ing, and sterile.
It
demanded that we regard the Russian Revolu–
tion of 1917 as a
socialist
revolution, and predict that it would
move either further toward socialism or back toward the restora–
tion of capitalism. In fact, the post-1917 Russian social organiza–
tion has done neither; but we are compelled by our assumption to
say
that it has done one or the other, and to waste time in such
altogether fruitless disputes as that over whether Russia is today a
"workers' (socialist) state" or a "capitalist state"-since these are
the only terms admitted by our assumption. Germany did not
become socialist through Nazism, and we are therefore compelled
o distort terminology, sense and facts into caricatures in order to
'explain" that Nazism is a "new form" of capitalism. In our inter–
relation of the New Deal in this country, we have at our disposal
nly the same narrow alternative. We can say, as many say, that
e New Deal is "disguised socialism"-and no one should doubt
e impenetrability of the disguise; or we can argue that it is
