Reciprocity lay at the heart of Young’s understanding of socialism.
The tap-root of socialism was in working-class communities like the one in Bethnal Green… In the turnings of Bethnal Green the poor were helping the poor, looking after children of broken marriages and caring for the old, coming to the rescue of neighbours who fell on hard times having a whip round in the pubs, of which almost every street could boast one, in order to collect money for his widow whenever a man died.
Michael Young, ‘Education for the new work’ in Nigel Paine (ed.), Open Learning in transition. An agenda for action, National Extension College, Cambridge, 1988, p. 5.