# Quote — Anthony Crosland, The Future of Socialism

> (The) pattern of consumption is markedly more equal than in Britain. ‘Prestige-goods’ are widely distributed, and there is less conspicuous contrast between the standard of living of different income-groups. To take the most obvious example, almost every family owns a car; and this is significant not only because a car is the most conspicuous of all consumption goods, but also because universal car-ownership leads to the universal consumption of other conspicuous or semi-luxury goods – holidays, hotels, middle-class habits of shopping, etc. But the lack of external class-distinctions can be observed in many other spheres: e.g. clothes, eating-habits, drug-stores, the ownership of consumer durables, and so on.

- Author: [Anthony Crosland](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-crosland.md)
- Book: [The Future of Socialism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-crosland/the-future-of-socialism.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_Crosland#The_Future_of_Socialism_(1956)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-crosland/the-future-of-socialism/the-pattern-of-consumption

## More from this book

> We still retain in Britain a deeper sense of class, a more obvious social stratification, and stronger class resentments, than any of the Scandinavian, Australasian, or North American countries.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-crosland/the-future-of-socialism/we-still-retain.md)

> A high proportion of the population enjoys many of the ‘luxuries’ which until recently were considered the prerogative of the rich; and the ordinary worker lives at what even two decades ago would have been considered in Britain a middle-class standard of life.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-crosland/the-future-of-socialism/a-high-proportion.md)

> I am sure that a definite limit exists to the degree of equality which is desirable. We do not want complete equality of incomes, since extra responsibility and exceptional talent require and deserve a differential reward. We are not hostile, as our opponents sometimes foolishly suggest, to 'detached residences in Bournemouth where some elderly woman has obviously more than a thousand a year'. I do not myself want to see all private education disappear; nor the Prime Minister denied an official car, as in one Scandinavian country; nor the Queen riding a bicycle; nor the House of Lords instantly abolished; nor the manufacture of Rolls-Royces banned; nor the Brigade of Guards, nor Oxford and Cambridge, nor Boodle's nor (more doubtfully) the Royal Yacht Squadron, nor even, on a rather lower level, the Milroy Room, lose their present distinctive character; nor anything so dull and colourless as this.

p. 149 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-crosland/the-future-of-socialism/i-am-sure.md)