Without qualified rulers a Socialist State is impossible;
and it must not be forgotten (though the reminder is as old as Plato)
that the qualified men may be very reluctant men instead of very
ambitious ones.
Here, then, are two very large jobs already in sight to occupy future
Fabians. Whether they will call themselves Fabians and begin by joining
the Fabian Society is a question which will not be settled by the
generation to which I belong.
G.B.S.
Appendix II
The Basis of the Fabian Society
The Fabian Society consists of Socialists.
It therefore aims at the reorganisation of Society by the emancipation
of Land and Industrial Capital from individual and class ownership, and
the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this
way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be
equitably shared by the whole people.
The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in
Land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of
Rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for
the advantages of superior soils and sites.
The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the
administration of such industrial Capital as can conveniently be managed
socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the
past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income
into Capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker
being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living.
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