The annual conference of the Social Workers Christian Fellowship (SWCF) is one I always attend. I identify strongly with my colleagues in the SWCF. None are rich. All are committed to siding with the most vulnerable members of society.

A chartered accountant happened to attend this year with his wife, who is a member. He said that he had never been in a group which so genuinely cared for each other.

We need each other's mutual support, criticisms and love. I call this fellowship. Years ago, I found this sense of togetherness within the Labour party as we promoted socialism. No longer.

Wendy Alexander says she will fight the SNP with socialism. Once again, I ask her what she means by socialism. She should go back to Richard Tawney, the great socialist whose classic book Equality (1931) shaped the politics of countless readers. In his classic biography R H Tawney and His Times, Ross Terrill gives Tawney's book a significant sub-title, Socialism as fellowship.

Tawney wanted a massive redistribution of income and wealth because he believed it wrong that some enjoyed luxury while others suffered poverty. In addition, he argued that inequality divides society, allowing some to lord it over others. Fellowship is destroyed by inequality.

He added that equality was the necessary condition for people to be in the right relationships with one another, in which they treated others with respect and kindness. Socialism is about fellowship.

Tawney saw a forerunner in these bonds between those who pursued socialism, those Labour supporters who shared a sense of collective purpose. It was this fellowship within the Labour party that I found so attractive in the 1960s and 70s.

What has happened to it? New Labour, under Blair and Brown, abandoned socialism for the free market. Not surprisingly, local membership and its sense of fellowship collapsed. But the effects have gone wider.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published the results of an extensive survey about today's social evils. These are seen as a decline in community, a growth in selfish individualism, the spread of excessive greed and a reduction in shared values.

Of course, there are many explanations as to why these evils have flourished, but the respondents particularly point the finger at government.

In my understanding, by replacing the values of socialism by those of almost unfettered capitalism, New Labour has encouraged greed, undermined public services, neglected communities, glorified fat cats and increased inequality. Fellowship has been damaged in the party but also in society.

Not just Labour. In Scotland, the SNP is in power and it remains to be seen whether it offers not just pieces of legislation, but a philosophy that goes beyond nationalism and which can bind people together.

There is hope. At the SWCF meeting, there were young people - none of them members of the Labour party - who were committed to serving others even though this meant they would never be affluent.

Perhaps the tide is turning and the evil of personal greed can be challenged by the desire for collective fellowship.