Concluding remarks

In 1853, in the Dictionnaire de l’economiepolitiqueS entry for “socialism, social­ists”, Louis Reybaud rejoiced in the fact that “socialism is now extinct, and,” he continued, “speaking of it is somewhat akin to giving its eulogy” (1853, 629).

It should, however, be noted that in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx himself outlined “a higher phase of communist society” in which labour, liberated at last from suffering, subordination and toil thanks to the full development of collectively controlled productive forces, will have become “the primary vital need”. Marx continued, observing that “the narrow horizon of bour­geois right”, always seeking more or less justified inequalities - including amongst employees - would be definitively replaced by the demand for justice expressed in the slogan “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!” (Marx 1875, 87).

Many modern critics have pointed out the utopian dimension always present in Marx’s thinking, and have thus relativised the distinction seized upon by many later Marxists between scientific socialism and utopian socialism, and indicated that a strong and appropriate utopian tradition has been upheld in modern social­ism. This tradition, duly recognising scientific and technical advances, bravely imagined a just society, the gateway to even broader and bolder thinking, towards a society characterised by beauty and happiness - a tradition that has also studied the means, from the most gradual to the most radical, to trigger, uphold and even accelerate the transition to this world.