The Fabian Society

Of all modern political groups the Fabian Society of Great Britain may have remained truest to its name. Unlike all the Democratic, Socialist, Liberal, Labor, and Communist groups, the Fabian name referred to a strategy rather than to an ideology. The name was taken from the Roman general Fabius Cunctator whose fame rested on his skill at defeating superior forces by means of wily tactics, great patience, and the avoidance of full-scale confrontation. The Fabian Society, founded by Thomas Davidson in 1883, aimed at the introduction of a socialist state in Great Britain. Unlike many groups that advocated various forms of socialism, however, the Fabians rejected the idea of revolution in favor of gradual, evolutionary change in the existing political and economic structure. The Society experienced periods of low activity during more than a century of existence, but has revived several times. At its highest point, immediately following World War II, the Society claimed only a little more than 8,000 members. But its influence on political thought in Great Britain has frequently been far greater than its small size might indicate. Employing tactics based on gradualism, permeation of the existing structure, education, its low-key relationship with the Labour Party, and the general promotion of ideas, the Fabian Society has influenced politicians, social thinkers, and the general fund of ideas to an extent that sometimes escapes notice.

Margaret Cole has described the pri

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ns "limped on with wounded versions of their respective forms of permeation" (Bevir 195). In 1900, with the formation of the Labour Representation Committee, which became the Labour Party in 1906, the Webbs joined with other Fabians in creating a political vehicle for gradual socialism that was to be the most effective means of promoting socialism in twentieth-century Britain. By 1918, when Labour reorganized itself as a full-fledged political party it was Sidney and Beatrice Webb who drafted the party's program, in "Labour and the New Social Order." The program committed the party to a range of social control initiatives--including full employment, graduated taxation, various safeguards for workers, vastly expanded education and social services, and public ownership of industry. The connection established from the beginning between Labour and the Fabians has varied in strength but it has never lapsed completely and has been strongly renewed in recent years. In the 1930s the Society reached its low point following the brief life of the Labour coalition government of 1929. In some respects the failure of that government can be blamed on the dominance of Fabian ideas in the Labour Party. Thompson has shown that the rejection

Category: History - T