Society has not yet been
reconstructed, but the Fabians have done something towards its
reconstruction, and my history will be incomplete without an attempt to
indicate what the Society has already accomplished and what may be the
future of its work.
Its first achievement, as already mentioned, was to break the spell of
Marxism in England. Public opinion altogether failed to recognise the
greatness of Marx during his lifetime, but every year that passes adds
strength to the conviction that the broad principles he promulgated will
guide the evolution of society during the present century. Marx
demonstrated the moral bankruptcy of commercialism and formulated the
demand for the communal ownership and organisation of industry; and it
is hardly possible to exaggerate the value of this service to humanity.
But no man is great enough to be made into a god; no man, however wise,
can see far into the future. Neither Marx himself nor his immediate
followers recognised the real basis of his future fame; they thought he
was a brilliant and original economist, and a profound student of
history. His Theory of Value, his Economic Interpretation of History,
seemed to them the incontestible premises which necessarily led to his
political conclusions. This misapprehension would not have much mattered
had they allowed themselves freedom of thought. Socialism, as first
preached to the English people by the Social Democrats, was as narrow,
as bigoted, as exclusive as the strictest of Scotch religious sects.
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