“Socialism is a yearning for something better than capitalism.” This is the rough definition of “socialism” applied in this book. It further characterizes different socialist currents, analyzing them critically without pure dismissal of any. This is done through a probably fairly shallow, but still illuminating, historical analysis. Capitalism he defines as the employer/employee relationship, analog to past economic systems, like master/slave or lord/serf (feudal system) relationships. What socialism seeks to improve originated in the French Revolution, in the uprising of serfs against their lords: liberty, equality and brotherhood, along with democracy.

Throughout history, the beliefs and reasonings for existence drove people to do things. Something external. The belief in god and multiple. As this belief eroded, and with the emergence of the internet, smaller subgroups with specific belief systems formed, probably out of the drive for some sense in this world (along with some social-group stuff). Because there is no actual meaning however, nothing greater humanity can accelerate towards to transcend to, no perfect harmony, consciousness goes against nature, as it can question it, moralize it.