I say England
advisedly, because the industrial and political conditions of Scotland
are in some degree different, and the application of the principles of
Socialism to Ireland has not yet been seriously attempted. But for
England "Fabian Essays" and the Fabian Tracts are by general consent the
best expositions of the meaning and working of Socialism in the English
language.
Marxian Socialism regarded itself as a thing apart. Marx had discovered
a panacea for the ills of society: the old was to be cleared away and
all things were to become new. In Marx's own thought evolution and
revolution were tangled and alternated. The evolutionary side was
essential to it; the idea of revolutionary catastrophe is almost an
excrescence. But to the Marxians (of whom Marx once observed that he was
not one) this excrescence became the whole thing. People were divided
into those who advocated the revolution and those who did not. The
business of propaganda was to increase the number of adherents of the
new at the expense of the supporters of the old.
The Fabians regarded Socialism as a principle already in part embodied
in the constitution of society, gradually extending its influence
because it harmonised with the needs and desires of men in countries
where the large industry prevails.
Fabian Socialism is in fact an interpretation of the spirit of the
times.
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