c and parted from Marx's analysis of class conflict and its inevitable production of a revolution. Though some Fabians, such as George Bernard Shaw and Annie Besant, placed the concerns of the workers first, Sidney and Beatrice Webb rejected Marx's notion that the proletariat was the only class whose interests were identical with those of an equitably organized society. They rejected the parasitism of the non-productive classes (of which they were themselves members) unless individual members of the class were engaged in work for the good of the society.
In short, "they did not identify the 'useful' class with those functions classified by Marxism as real, because productive labour" but imagined a multi-class society in which each individual had a function to fill that was at the service of society as a whole (Beilharz, "Fabianism" 141). In terms of democracy this meant that the Webbs, who viewed the fullest development of the individual as "filling, in the best possible way, his humble function in the great social machine," were not interested in absolute equality but in representation as a sufficient good in itself which need not lead to total equality (Beilharz, Labour's 52). In their conception the ideal socialist society was one in which the division of labor was developed to its highest possible point. The need for the management of the various specialized types of work within the society, including those in government, and the need to coordinate and manage not just the specialized functions but the nationalized collective entities as well resulted in the Webbs' "proclivity to read politics as administration" (Beilharz, "Fabianism" 144).
The Webbs' views came to predominate among Fabians. But the Society has always been remarkable for its tolerance of a variety of opinions and its avoidance of dogmatism. As G. D. H. Cole, himself the most Marxist of the major Fabian thinkers, noted, the Society sought diversity of o...