During the Middle Ages, books were extremely elaborate in Europe. While other civilizations had used easily accessible materials and formats to create their scrolls, books or tablets, Europeans during the Middle Ages spent a great deal of time and money making books. These were bound in leather, decorated with elaborate drawings, and copied by hand in elaborate scripts.
This had a very important effect on European society. It meant that books were not available for the vast majority of the population. It also meant that books were difficult to find and very expensive to acquire. Finally, it also meant that only a very small group of people could read, and these were usually wealthy men and monks.
Socialists were in many ways looking for a radical change in the way society was structured. Their main goal was to re-build economic, political, philosophical and religious systems from scratch, neglecting everything related to the capitalist society they wanted to overcome. Because of this idea of re-installation, of decosntruction of all known models, socialists were utopian in their way of thinking and developing.
Social reformers on the other hand, understood the principles of socialist and communist societies but also the fact that their idea of democracy required winning state power. By slowly adapting the established system to their social reforms they could remain in power for long periods of time that could then be used to further transform and fix the issues presented by capitalism like lack of education, low wages and inequity.
