True Socialism is the socialist conception of the good or intrinsically desirable society unimpeded in its practical realization by social, political or economic causality. It is to be preferred to all forms of socialism or capitalism which exist or have existed, as the pure objects of desire are to be preferred to the possibly attainable goals of action. It cannot tell human beings what they have good reason to do. But what it does offer is rather firm guidance on some forms of political agency which socialists have good reason to avoid. (Political theory in general cannot tell human beings what to do. What it can tell them is what not to forget.)

The idea that human social, economic and political relations can be brought perfectly into conformity with our moral intuitions and kept in such conformity more or less indefinitely is excessively optimistic as a practical expectation. (The view that this will come about quasi-automatically in practice sooner or later, with the aid of a little timely violence, is simply deranged.) But the idea that human beings are likely to continue to desire their social, economic and political relations to express their moral intuitions and to attempt, other things being equal, to cause them to do so is sober and realistic enough. These intuitions, to be sure, arise out of experience of and reflection upon such relations, amidst an endless political and social struggle to define the terms in which this experience is best captured.