Fabians
The Fabians' were a small but influential group of British social theorists in the 20th century who espoused their own form of Socialism and had a major influence on the UK Labour Party and British social and economic policies. The loosely organized Fabian Society included numerous prominent intellectuals.
Origins
The Fabian Society grew out of the Fellowship of the New Life, founded in 1883 which looked to ethical reform and utopian community making for the regeneration of society. A group which included Frank Podmore and Edward R. Pease broke away from the Fellowship to found the Fabian Society in 1883. George Bernard Shaw [1] joined in 1884; Sidney Webb in 1885. The name "Fabian" came from Fabius Cunctator, the famous Roman general who wore down Hannibal's stronger forces with an attrition campaign.
The essence of Fabian doctrine lay in Sidney Webb's [2] theory of the continuity of development from capitalism to socialism. Webb argued that the economic position of the workers had improved in the nineteenth century, was still improving and might be expected to continue to improve. Fabians literature seems to ignore class distinctions and shows no belief at all in a class struggle as the instrument of change. [3]
The "Fabians" avoided the revolutionary tactics of more orthodox Marxians. The middle-class Fabians were more directly involved with politics and practical gains - through contacts not only in the "International Labor Party", trade unions and cooperative movements but also throughout the entire British political apparatus (Liberals and Tories included).
Fabians were the British counterpart of the German Marxian revisionists and influenced by the English Historical school. The "Fabian Society", an upper-middle-class intellectual group, emerged in 1884 as a strand of latter-day utopian socialism. They became known to the public firstly through Sidney Webb's Facts for Socialists [4] (1884) and then through the famous Fabian Essays in Socialism [5]
Although Fabians plunged into the most complex economic problems of their time, they did so while having a target in mind: to find a foudantion for their revolutionary economic aims without destroying democratic political ideals. They were ecletics; they accepted what seemed to be reasonable and their writings bear the marks of all schools of economic theory. [6]
Sidney J. Webb and his wife, Beatrice Potter Webb (married 1892), "the Webbs" [2] were at the core of the Fabian Society. They wrote numerous studies of industrial Britain, alternative economic arrangements (esp. cooperatives) and pamphlets for political reform. Their system was based on the Ricardian theory of rent which they applied to capital as well as land (and labor as well - their opposition to high labor incomes was also an issue). Their conclusion was that it was "the state's responsibility to acquire this rent". They were known "to combine an ounce of theory with a ton of practice".
The political strategy of the Fabians was to influence public opinion in the direction of their ideal. This was to be accomplished not through mass organization but rather by the selective education of the powerful "few". The "London School of Economics" (L.S.E.) [7] was founded in 1895 by the Webbs [2].
The Fabians importance faded in the 1930s for several of reasons. Among them the Webbs' admiration of Soviet Russia; it displeased too many in their group. The ascendancy of the British Labour Party on the back of trade union activism had rendered the Fabians superfluous, they lost control of the L.S.E. when Cannan and Robbins turned it on a decidedly Jevonian track and finally their intellectual influence during the 1930s was overshadowed by that of Keynes. But a smaller group of enthusiastic fabians still keep the fabianism flag tremulating [8].
External links
The Fabian Socialists Page at The History of the Economic Thought Website</ref> is the doctrine of the Fabian Society [9],
Bibliography
- Cole, G.D.H. Fabianism, in: the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, ed. Edwin R. A. Seligman, 1932. [online version
- Fox, Paul W. and H. Scott Gordon. The Early Fabians-Economists and Reformers. The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/ Revue canadienne d'Economique et de Science politique, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Aug., 1951), pp. 307-319. online version
Primary sources
- Shaw, G. Bernard, ed. Fabian Essays in Socialism (1891)
Notes
- ↑ G. Bernard Shaw, The Transition to Social Democracy, in: Fabian Essays in Socialism, ed. G. Bernard Shaw, American Edition Ed. by H.G. Wilshire, 1891
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Webbs, page at HET website
- ↑ Cole (1932)
- ↑ WEBB, Sidney. Facts for socialists from the political economists and statisticians, Vol. 5, Fabian Tract, London: Fabian Society, 1895.
- ↑ WEBB, Sidney J. The Basis of Socialism: Historic; in Fabian Essays in Socialism. New York: The Humboldt Publishing Co.,1891.First published 1889
- ↑ Fox and Gordon (1951)
- ↑ The London School of Economics at the History of the Economic Thought Website
- ↑ KATWALA, Sunder. In an ideal world: 120 years of Fabianism, www.fabian-society.org.uk
- ↑ The Fabian Society. Homepage at LSE