Dear Jim Tailor,

'I think that [Piers'] definitions are as "simplistic" as yours, but I can't be sure because they really don't make any sense (try as I might to find some).'

I am writing about the basics of socialism in a non-pragmatic way for what I feel is a very good reason. It is the job of the socialist to state that socialist society is possible and provide an organisational basis to make it happen rather than to run a socialist society - that is the job of people, pragmatism can wait until it happens. Our job is to get across the message that we can organise without the 'no profit, no production', 'can't pay, can't have' premise to the economy, as humans did for tens of thousands of years. Providing blueprints for a future society is doomed because there are a huge number of possibilities within the framework of social ownership and democratic control, the people who know how best to organise e.g. guitar production are the people producing them now. We could sit here and speculate on the possibilities for days, but it will only ever be speculation.

We are not travel agents selling a packaged holiday who say take this option you will go there and this is what will happen on each day, we are more geography teachers saying socialism is over there, it is a propertyless society, go there and decide what you want to do when you get there.

If you are interested there is a load of much more articulate info at the WSM website.