WITHIN the last three years, three major works on the economics of socialism have appeared. Two of these, that by Dr. H. D. Dickinson and that by Professors 0. Lange and F. M. Taylor, have already been discussed at length by Professor F. A. v. Hayek in this Yournal.1 The presenit article attempts to discuss some of the important questions raised in the third and most recent, namely, that by Mr. E. F. M. Durbin, entitled The Politics of Democratic Socialism.2 Most of Professor Hayek's remarks are as relevant to Mr. Durbin's book as to those with which his article specifically dealt. But owing to a difference of tone and approach in the last of the trilogy (a difference aptly suggested by the title) a number of separate issues call for examination. All three works have one basic point in common. Although written by those who are proud or anxious to call themselves ' socialists ', they all accept-with certain reservations-what may be called the orthodox economists' diagnosis of the evils of modern society. They accept also (explicitly or implicitly) the ideal of a society in which values are competitive.3 This constitutes one of the most remarkable and significant features of the intellectual history of this era. It is a consequence, as Professor Hayek has pointed out, of the challenge of Pierson, Mises and their successors to the socialists of former decades. But the new socialists differ from the orthodox economists over the methods of attaining the agreed ideal.4 They believe that the institutions required must resemble, outwardly at least, those of traditional socialism, whilst the end which such institutions are to serve is that of a perfectly competitive regime. Thus, Mr. Durbin, whilst admitting the general validity of the orthodox diagnosis, repeatedly assures us, with what sometimes seems to be a gesture of defiance, that the