"Socialism presents the most inspiring scheme that ever came into the chaos of Human Affairs"

In 1908 when this book was published H G Wells was a passionate socialist, he had previously worked tirelessly with the Fabian Society and Beatrice and Sidney Webb, but was now urging them to embrace his ideas on Modern Socialism. He worked hard on New Worlds for Old claiming that it was a substitute for a book that had not yet been written: that is a book that will explain and get right to the heart of the spirit of socialism. Wells was keen to get away from mere politics, he wanted to express the fundamentals of socialism; he saw it as a movement that would develop a general plan of social life, seeking to displace disorder with order. He was appalled at the way the accumulators and grabbers in society were shaping human development and argued fiercely against the idea that enlightened self interest would make things better inadvertently. To back up his claims he provides some statistics and extracts from government reports showing the levels of poverty in existence, he was particularly concerned with children and there are brief case studies demonstrating how ill fed, ill clothed and unhealthy the children were, who attended school. His intention was to shout out as loud as he could "surely we could do better than this"

He is not frightened to tilt at the holy cow of Capitalism saying that modern socialism seeks to abolish one form of competition that is the getting and holding of property, saying that even marrying into property degrades our present world. He then goes on to outline how the state should take over and be responsible for all essential services; health, education, provision of power, heating and light, town planning, transport etc. He focuses on England and the continent, but is also disappointed by America who he says are a:

"State-blind people contracted on private getting, they have been negligent of public concerns and the public appointments have been left to the particularly ruffianly type of politician their unfortunate constitution and their individualistic traditions have evolved"

There are chapters where Wells answers the critics of socialism, trying to lay to rest the most outlandish of those castigations, before embarking on a brief history of the movement. He then outlines how it would be possible to move to a socialist state emphasising whatever form it takes there must be freedom of speech, freedom of writing and universality of information. He says the only conceivable rule in a socialist state is through the operation of a collective mind that must be by its nature constructive and enterprising. Wells did not see socialism coming in by the back door or even through revolution, he saw it as a mark of a civilized society. He hoped that everybody would wake up to the fact through education and wisdom that socialism was the way that would benefit most people, capitalism was merely a step along the way. This was a belief of many socialists in the early 20th century and how disappointed they would be today. Wells indulges himself in the final section of the book by imagining what it would be like for people living in a utopian socialist society; it sounds wonderful.

Strangely enough much of what Wells had advocated: full democratic rights for women, educational opportunities for all and state welfare provisions as well as some state intervention in the provision of essential services has happened, although today we are living under an increasingly capitalist system. New Worlds for Old sold well on publication and was reprinted five times over the next six years, today some of it sounds naïve, but it is a document with it's heart in the right place and there is still much here that sounds like it should be right. A 3.5 star read. ( )