That poverty, we say, is preventible. That
poverty was the background of our thoughts when the Society was founded.
Perhaps we have done a little to mitigate it: we believe we have done
something to make clear the way by which it may ultimately be abolished.
We do not constantly talk of it. We write of the advantages of Municipal
Electricity, of the powers of Parish Councils, of the objections to the
Referendum; but all the while it is that great evil which chiefly moves
us, and by our success or our failure in helping on the reconstruction
of society for the purpose of abolishing poverty, the work of the Fabian
Society must ultimately be judged.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] "La Societe Fabienne et le Mouvement socialiste anglais
contemporain." By Edouard Pfeiffer, Paris, F. Giard and E. Briere, 1911;
an excellent volume but full of errors.
[44] "The Fabians were the first amongst Socialists to start the
movement of anti-Marxist criticism. At a period when the dogmas of the
Master were regarded as sacred, the Fabians ventured to assert that it
was possible to call oneself a Socialist without ever having read 'Das
Kapital,' or without accepting its doctrine. In opposition to Marx, they
have revived the spirit of J.S. Mill, and they have attacked Marx all
along the line--the class war, the economic interpretation of history,
the catastrophic method, and above all the theory of value.
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