Abstract
Amid his plainly written presentations of Marxism, Christian (predominately Catholic) social teachings, liberation theology and the experience of Christians for socialism in Chile, and the various apparent points of the difference between Christianity and Marxism, Arthur McGovern quietly makes his case for the Christian, even Catholic, orthodoxy of social democracy. Only in the final chapter of the book does McGovern unveil his sympathies for the “economic democracy” of Michael Harrington, dashed with Gramsci's notion of socialist hegemony, Gandhi's stress on building counter institutions during the transition to a new order, and Schumacher's small is beautiful ethos. But all along, McGovern is making straight the way for a democratic socialist answer to the question around which his book is organized: Are Marxism and Christianity compatible?