Posted on 09/23/2003 5:09:58 PM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
The British counterpart of the German Marxian revisionists and heavily influenced by the English Historical school, the upper-middle-class intellectual group - the "Fabian Society" - 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 (1884) and then through the famous Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889) written by the Webbs, Shaw, and others.
The "Fabians" were named after Fabius, the famous Roman general which opposed Hannibal as they were "biding their time" until they would "strike hard". Exactly when this strike would occur was a perennial question.
Eschewing 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).
At the core of the Fabian Society were the Webbs - Sidney J. Webb and his wife, Beatrice Potter Webb (married 1892). Together, they wrote numerous studies of industrial Britain, alternative economic arrangements (esp. cooperatives) and pamphlets for political reform. At the core of their system was 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 (a position strikingly familiar to Henry George - whom Shaw credited explicitly). Their later admiration of Soviet Russia stemmed partly from Stalin's "efficiency" at acquiring this rent.
As one contemporary noted, "they combined an ounce of theory with a ton of practice". The practice, for the Fabians, was to influence public opinion in this direction. This was to be accomplished, they argued, not through mass organization but rather by the selective education of the powerful "few" who would lead the reforms in government (hopefully themselves), thus they only belatedly extended their appeal beyond the narrow intelligentsia class from which they arose. It was the Webbs who founded the London School of Economics (L.S.E.) in 1895.
Through the relentless outpouring of Fabian Essays and the charismatic appeal of the Webbs - coupled with the prowess of literary figures such as George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells - ensured that they would be indeed influential among British intellectuals and government officials. Alfred Marshall, for one, readily admitted his sympathies for the Fabian cause (although he abhorred their anti-theoretical stance). Philip Wicksteed - who tangled with Shaw over the labor theory of value and marginal utility theory - in contrast, was considerably more critical. It was this narrowness of appeal that led some Fabians, such as G.D.H. Cole and novelist H.G. Wells to break with the Fabians. Cole went on to establish the "Guild Socialists" who relied more on state-chartered but nonetheless self-governing producer organizations of workers - "guilds" - than on the intellectual-government machine the Fabians preferred. In this sense, the "Guild Socialists" were closer to the French syndicalism of Sorel - albeit a bit more muted. Further splits in the Fabian camp emerged when the Webbs and Shaw decided to throw their weight behind the British Imperial enterprise - supporting the Boer War and other colonial misadventures - as they felt their reforms (when they came about) would thus have a wider application. An overarching British Empire, they believed, would be a more efficient conductor of reform than a multitude of smaller countries. The Webb's support of monopolies was also well-known - particularly, in their famous 1897 claim that "higgling in the market" (i.e. competition) was inimical because competitive prices always bore down on the workers. Thus, monopolies are more desirable as they would have more room to treat their workers better. The Fabians finally disintegrated in the 1930s for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the Webbs' unqualified admiration of Soviet Russia seemed distasteful to too many in their group. Secondly, the ascendancy of the British Labour Party on the back of trade union activism had rendered the Fabians superfluous - and this body of working class activists did not trust the paternalistic and nationalistic Fabians (esp. after the Education Act of 1902, essayed by Sidney Webb and against which almost all of the Labour Party was mobilized - although Arthur Henderson, Labour Party leader from 1914 to 1922 was himself a Fabian and it was Sidney Webb who authored the famous Clause Four of the Labour Party charter committing it to a Socialist basis). Thirdly, they lost control of the L.S.E. when Cannan and then, more vigorously, Robbins turned it on a decidedly Jevonian track; fourthly, their intellectual influence during the 1930s was overshadowed by that of Keynes. Finally, many of the reforms they had advocated had actually been undertaken during and after the Great Depression, thus rendering their work, in a sense, "complete". Of particular importance was the establishment of a comprehensive welfare state in Britain in the 1940s following the famous 1942 "Beveridge Report".
They're F$*)@ng Communists!
ML/NJ
I've heard that ol' Joe Kennedy, Sr., sent his boys to that Fabian school that George Bernard Shaw and others founded while being the U.S. ambassador to England. Does anyone have any substantiation of this?
I'd put them in the Bobby Rydell camp.
Frankie Avalon is my guess.
I have to disagree with you all, it's Bobby Darin.
They think the world will be just like "Artificial Flowers" without them.
The Clinton are in fact National Socialists ie socialists in the grand tradition of Germany in the 1930's. How do I know? Bill Clinton's favorite book is Mein Kampf. He has admitted to reading it many times. He has a total recall memory -- otherwise, why would he read that political tomb time and time again.
The Clinton have used Hitler's National Socialism as a model to rebuild the Democratic Party. Example: Hitler's 'Big Lie' was improved upon and re-written by Bubba and Bubbette into a political formula for winning at any cost. I realized what the Clintons were up to back in 1992. That is why I left the Democratic Party and why I was so violently opposed to Bill Clinton after his election. They lie about everything all the time, and they lie very cleverly.
More examples: Waco, Elian, FBI files, Kosovo, the politics of personal destruction and how they have embraced corruption and minorities to divide the country politically.
Remember who they chose as a spokesman? Snakehead Carville. He even bragged, "Goebbels was an amateur!"
What weapons did the Clinton use most effectively: Total Political Destruction of their perceived enemies combined with total corruption. The Clintons always go for BIG MONEY and they are not happy unless they are rolling in it like hogs. Those actions were not the actions of pie-in-the-sky true believers in the Communist ideal. They were the actions of closet National Socialists bent on power at all costs.
'Nuff said.
Just today one of the Clintons' minions spoke out about it. To wit, Gen. Wesley K. Clark called today for "a new American patriotism" that would encourage broader public service, respect domestic dissent even in wartime and embrace international organizations like the United Nations.
The "respect domestic dissent even in wartime" has more to do with the path to the Third Way than the Third Way itself.
You see, along with a "new American patriotism" there is also a "new social compact." That "compact" diminishes our sovereignty, entrusts our inalienable rights to international courts and police, and it replaces our hundreds-year-old social compact freely made among people with one between the governments of the world and the masses.
Obviously that is going to require a "new American patriotism."
If all of this is true now what? Number one it means that there is no peaceful solution. Tens of millions of us are not going to give up the social compact of our Founders. We are not going to surrender our sovereignty and entrust our inalienable rights to a bunch of self-described "intellectuals" better known as the chattering class.
It means civil war. Let's get it over with. It is the inner war of the larger war to protect America from terrorism and it will determine whose America survives the larger war.
Mr. President, put on your stovepipe hat and arrest the copperheads, I believe they were called the last time.
No. They are minions of Satan.
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