Is Socialism a day-dream? The present book aims at tackling this vital question for our post-Soviet era. The author explores afresh the origins and the character of the various components of the broad current of socialist thought, and reconsiders the implications which Marx's economic theories have for socialism. The Western debate on the rationality of a socialist economy, which started in the 1920s and continues to the present, is reviewed and reassessed.

The book further inquires into the nature, the achievements and the systemic change in the socialist economies of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. The author bases his views on these issues on the approach of the Japanese Uno School, as he also did in his previous contributions to Marxist economic theories. The message of the book is that there exists a broad range of future socialist alternatives, and the people of each society can choose flexibly among them.