50 Years Ago: Fabian Fallacies (1994)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

The early Fabians, the I.L.P. and the Labour Party were wrong, and the S.P.G.B. was right. The problem was not, and is not, one of extending state and municipal capitalism (incidentally the present drift is towards monopolistic public utility corporations under some sort of state supervision, not towards state operated enterprises) — nor is it one of finding experts and superior brains. There is no lack of able and experienced workers in industry, farming and the civil service to carry on, nor was there 60 years ago. All that is lacking is a Socialist working class to give orders to its delegates in Parliament and on the local councils for the ending of the private property basis of society. Socialism is still not here, but that is only because the workers are still not Socialists. What society needs, now, as when the Fabians began their slow march to nowhere, is not Fabian experts to show the capitalists what changes are necessary to keep capitalism going, but a majority who understand Socialism and are determined to achieve it through gaining control of the machinery of government.

[From the editorial in the Socialist Standard, March 1944.]