Le socialisme introuvable… ou « mange ta soupe si tu veux du dessert! »

In: Canadian journal of political science: CJPS = Revue canadienne de science politique, Band 17, Heft 2, S. 253-278

Abstract

abstractSocial thought is in a state of crisis; so is Western society. We are still subject to the ideologies and social structures developed or institutionalized during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. No new global social theory has emerged since those of Hegel and Marx. Socialism seems both to complete and to abstract Western social thought. An explanatory hypothesis suggests itself: the blockage is a result of the contradiction in Western civilization between the deep aspiration for social efficiency and the equally profound desire for liberty. This contradiction, historically very fruitful, has been brought to its head by socialism, which although stemming from liberalism, has not managed to supersede it or to suppress it. Hence the crisis of socialism becomes the true crisis of our thought and society.