ABSTRACT
SOCIALISM AND DETERMINISM The durability of various socialist ideologies in the face of history and political theory, especially their enduring appeal to 'intellectuals', is best understood today in terms of the appeal to determinism. To many thinking people,
All credential systems, including socialism, are very demanding of time and effort. To be sure, the true believer in socialism has to practise his belief: he must be an activist. It is puzzling, however, that anyone who believes in activism should promote a view which encourages a peculiar sort of passivity. Since socialist intellectuals assume that the impulse to change comes from 'society' (or the environment), they make the individual 'responsible' for his condition only in a very limited way. (Some argue that because the passivity of the 'oppressed' is also a product of social conditions, the true socialist must demand 'rights', even when those who supposedly have these rights do not recognize them.) To those who only intend to follow their inclinations, the view that
social conditions account for most of their problems and that it would be useless to do anything other than demand that 'society' remedy them, may appear highly attractive. People of this persuasion fall into the deterministic trap.
