The Fascists and the Fabians
Two of the most interesting socialist groups presently active in the United States would be the Fascists and the Fabians.
They are quite different, but their influence is very profound.
The fascist movement is a very interesting variation from the central theme of socialism.
The first thing that you have to realize about all socialism is that it is fundamentally disturbed with a completely free market in which private property is a total concept.
Every socialist is interested in intervening here to some degree.
That is, they don't want any private property to exist, or they want certain types of property to be owned by certain groups, or whatever it may be, they cannot permit a total free economy, a laissez-faire market, and total private ownership of property.
So there are as many different kinds of socialists as there are different theories as to how you can intervene in the property relationships of other persons.
The fascists are a particularly interesting group because here we have people who do not
propose to destroy private ownership of property.
They simply wish to have a national socialist goal, and the property would continue to be
privately owned, but it would be managed centrally.
Now that's an interesting variation, and we have quite a bit of it in this country,
and it exists in many other countries as well. We often think of the fascists as being the
Germans or the Italians during World War II. As we know, Mussolini called his followers
fascists and we know that Hitler referred to his party as the Nazi party or the party
of National Socialism, and fascism takes this characteristic. Private ownership of property
would be maintained, but the management of property is passed over to the state or to
an agency of the state, which will proceed to make the decisions in respect to the property.
Actually, so far as I am aware in this country, we do not have any intellectual fascist or
and of course once the government gets in and begins acting for them it isn't long usually before the government is making recommendations as to how the business is to be run and presently before you know it the businessman is engaged in listening to what the government has to say and doing pretty much what the government suggests to him to do if he wants to stay out of trouble and since the government represents the
The legal use of force, the businessman virtually is at the disposal of the politicians who will tell him how to price his goods and what formula he can use and how he is to sell and what products he is to make and so on.
And that is all that the fascist movement ever attempted to do anyway.
It was to create a kind of socialism in which private ownership was retained, but the management
would be shifted to the government. A very good example of fascism in practice occurred
in this country during World War I when the federal government seized the railroads. Now
by no means did they take the railroads away from the owners, that is to say the stockholders
who held the stock in the railroads didn't have their stock taken away from them. They continued
to be the owners. But the managers selected by the owners were put aside and the government imposed
its own management. Then when the railroads were all run down and losing money, then they turned
them back to the private managers again. I'm not certain that the railroads have ever recovered from
from that particular shock, but that is an instance of fascism. Another one in this country
that would be typical would be the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank as such. Now,
that is a case of pure fascism or national socialism. As you perhaps know, the Federal
Reserve Act, which was passed in 1913, is the enabling act that set up the Federal Reserve
Reserve Bank, but all of the capital of the Federal Reserve Bank was privately subscribed.
That is, it operated on private capital, but the management of the bank was never permitted
to go into the hands of the people who owned the stock.
As a matter of fact, the people who own the stock in the Federal Reserve Bank are limited
to a total of $25,000 worth of stock.
That's all anyone can have, and they are paid a stipulated return on that $25,000, and they
have nothing to say about the management of the banks.
The Federal Reserve banks are managed directly by a board which is created by the government,
and the entire banking system is operated according to federal policy.
So here you have a pure case of fascism.
You have private ownership of the banks, but governmental management.
And that's pure fascism. We don't have a great deal of pure fascism in the country.
We do have other instances of a drift in that direction. Whenever the government becomes
involved in any particular industry and begins to establish prices, set up quality controls,
marketing procedures, and regulations of all types, you have decisions being made by the
The Government over the management of property that is privately owned.
A very good case in point would be the Agricultural Administration.
We hear very little, if at all, of private farmers having their farms taken away from
them by the government.
Here and there, of course, a farmer who fails to pay his taxes would face that contingency.
But normally the farmers own their own farms, and they can buy and sell other farms.
That's up to them.
But it would be a rare farmer who manages his own farm as he pleases. Usually he operates
under the regulation of the Agricultural Administration and he plants pretty much what he's told,
when he's told and how much of what he's told and he sells it at a price that is determined
by the government and he sells when the government tells him he can sell. So here again you see
the move in that direction. It's not totally fascist because if a farmer really wanted
to dig in and would refuse to accept the government benefits to him that are offered if he cooperates.
Well, at least in theory, he could operate in a free market. Whether he could do so successfully
is a moot point. But in any case, you don't find a farmer going to jail if he decided
not to follow the quota system. He just wouldn't get the benefits. And the consequence would
be that since he wants the benefits, he follows the quota system and is in essence operating
within a fascist framework, that is the framework of national socialism. This is happening in
other industries too. I don't have to tabulate them. You can yourself look about you and
see many instances where national socialism is a characteristic. It is unfortunate that
Many people who are communists or who are other types of socialists will tend to look at all
businessmen as if they are fascists. In fact, frequently it happens that some socialists will
use this term. They will call capitalists and businessmen—they'll just plain call them
fascists, and it simply isn't true. There are a great many businessmen who do not want the
government to intervene in their businesses and don't even want the benefits that they might get
from the government they would like very much to operate in a free market but they don't have that
choice and but this does not mean that they are willing fascists they are not they much prefer
a laissez-faire market and they say so as best they can so just to call every capitalist
The term properly would belong to those persons who favor fascism, which would be the retention
of private ownership, but the management of productive property by the state. I might
point out that that is precisely the type of socialism that exists in Sweden, where
property is still privately owned and privately bought and sold. But the management of the
The property is in the hands of an RTEL, that is, there are representatives of labor, business
and government in a kind of a committee that organizes and has an overall national plan
in which every industry plays a part and national quotas are established and everyone does what
he's told to do in terms of the national policy, but all of these are privately owned
property or most of them are.
So that is the characteristic of fascism. Now the Fabians have a very interesting history
and we ought to really concentrate on them for a bit. The Fabian movement as such, the
Fabian society, was organized in England in 1883 by three men whose names appear on the
In corporation papers, their names are Pease, spelled P-E-A-S-E, Wallace, spelled W-A-L-L-A-S,
and Shaw, spelled George Bernard. These three men put together the Fabian Society, and they
dedicated it to the accomplishment of socialist objectives. They stated candidly that they
They Were Socialists, and that their means would be fulfilled by adopting peaceful gradualism.
And this is characteristic of the entire Fabian movement. Now, the thing to be noted here
with the Fabians is that they took socialist thought one step beyond where Marx had taken
it. Go back for a moment and review. The anarchists launched the modern socialist movement by
by in essence declaring war against private ownership of property by viewing private owners
as being essentially politicians and then by demanding that the government be removed
in order to eliminate private ownership of property. Marx broke with that tradition,
seeing that what you ought to do was to have the government taken over by a new party,
The Party of the Workers, the Proletariat, and then, instead of abolishing the government,
Marx wanted to use the government to take by force properties belonging to private persons
and centralize the property through this manner in the hands of the state, that is to say,
the new state in the hands of the proletariat.
But the Fabians went a step further. Although they wanted the same ultimate objective, they
They recognized that the anarchists and Marx were both in error insofar as the method was concerned.
They too believed in a centralized control, at least of what Marx was to call bourgeois property,
that is, the tools of production and distribution.
But they pointed out an extremely interesting fact.
And that is, that governments by their nature, whether they are democracies, republics, monarchies, oligarchies, whatever they may be,
that governments by their nature are established for the social whole, and consequently, all governments by their nature are socialistic.
Therefore, you don't have to overthrow the government, and you don't have to even have a revolution and take over the government.
you just take any existing government, it doesn't make any difference what it is, and you cooperate
with it, because the natural tendency of every government will be to move in the direction of
more and more socialism if it's just given the time. That is the reason they adopted the idea of
peaceful gradualism. You don't have to have a war, you don't have to have a revolution, and you don't
Don't have to kill anybody. None of these extreme measures, advocated both by anarchists
and communists, are necessary if you're going to advance the socialist economic goals.
The Fabians saw that the communists and the anarchists, however exciting they might be
as political figures or as way-out radicals—and they are exciting—that when it comes to
to establishing socialist economics fall flat on their faces. They just never get anywhere.
And they never will. The Fabians are correct. What they saw is that you don't have to have
any of these violent methods. You go in on a peaceful basis. You don't have to take
over the government. In fact, you don't even have to provide the leading figure of the
government, work at the middle management level, get yourself appointed to a bureau
or a department or an agency get inside and help to draft the measures which gradually
will move the controls of property and the actual ownership of property into the hands of the state.
Now, in order to make their program acceptable, it was the Fabians who first introduced the idea
of a War on Poverty. This happened way back in 1883, as sometimes we think that it was a recent
development in this country, but it happened a very long time ago, nearly 100 years ago in England.
And what they saw, and this was the way they looked at it, was that private capitalism had
done a great job in production. Even Marx acknowledged that in some of his writings.
As a productive method, you can't beat capitalism. Lenin acknowledged it. Many of the socialists
and communists acknowledged the efficacy of capitalism when it comes to producing goods
and services. There's no question about it. Capitalism has won that argument.
But when it comes to distributing the goods, the Fabians came up with what they thought was a
very good idea. Now it happens that factually a free market does the best job of distributing too,
but they didn't see that. What they saw instead was a chance to make real propaganda hay out of
this idea that it is the poor people who actually need the goods and services that the people with
with the tools create.
But those are the very people that can't afford to buy it.
So that capitalism, according to the Fabians,
has a fatal flaw to it.
While it's very good in producing,
it's very bad in distributing
because it only gives the goods and services
to those who can afford them.
And it is those who can't afford them that need them.
And therefore, according to the Fabians,
You have to have some agency outside the market that will intervene and help with the distribution.
Now because they were interested in peaceful gradualism, they took it upon themselves to
try to find sensitive points that could be converted into major political issues.
And then, and you can see how brilliant they were in their theorizing, they realized that
if you could get people arguing about how much of their program to accept, rather than
whether or not you would want their program, they could really carry the day, so they introduced
what could only be called modern political methodology.
And that's what the Fabians have done.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
If the Fabians decided, as indeed at one time they did, that the use of private real estate,
land holdings and things of this sort should be intruded in by the government, that is,
we should have government housing and government management of land and government management
of these resources, they didn't come out with a program in which they simply favored
the government stepping into this area. Instead, they operated on this basis. First of all,
they conducted a survey to establish that there are a number of substandard dwellings,
and there certainly are. No question about it. So they did a survey and came up with
the statistics to prove that there were a number of houses owned by private people whom
which they classified as absentee landlords or as slum landlords or any other derogatory
term that they could think of to show that these were very, very bad people who had no
social conscience and then pointing out that these substandard dwellings existed, then
they had someone launch a movement to get a law passed that would create a government
Housing Agency to alleviate the worst aspects of this bad housing.
But after they had launched this, they launched a secondary program with a modified position
for the same thing.
In other words, they launched a major program for public housing that was to cost at the
time this was launched.
This was some years ago, but as memory serves, it ran around $800 million, which was a great
Deal of Money at that time. But then there was a more modest proposal, which the Fabians also authored,
where you would get the basic job done for around $450 million, as opposed to $800 million.
And the argument then developed between those who favored the $800 million program
and those who favored the $450 million program. And that's where the debate centered.
It didn't center on whether you should have public housing or not. It centered on how much public
housing should you have. And, of course, the Fabians very skillfully introduced both sides
of the argument. So—and here was the way it went, as I know from first-hand experience, having
watched this very closely on this particular issue—if a person came forward and said that
that he didn't favor public housing, he was at once reprimanded whether he was a liberal
or a conservative, because if he was a liberal and he said that he was opposed to public
housing, he was at once said that it would be very important for him to favor the $800
million program, because otherwise the conservatives would carry the day and they'd only get a
and the $450 million program, and that would be inadequate and wouldn't do the job.
And so the liberal was held up to believe that if he didn't go whole hog, why, the
whole program would fail.
On the other hand, if he was a conservative, then he was reprimanded if he said he didn't
favor public housing at all, then he was told, look, you've got to support the $450 million
Program, because if you don't, the $800 million program will carry the day. And that's too costly.
We can't afford it. Therefore, you've got to favor the $450 million program so as to prevent the
other from happening. And so you find both parties and all of the people in between getting caught
up in an issue where they debate each other as to the size of the program, not as to the efficacy
of the program itself. It is simply accepted and taken for granted that you're going to have the
program. And that is precisely the same technique that the Fabians have used from that day to this.
In fact, they themselves invented certain slogans, which are now on everybody's lips,
vote for the lesser of two evils. Of course, because whichever you think is evil,
well, then you vote for less evil than the other one. And naturally, it depends on your
or Value Judgment as to what you think is evil. So you'll naturally vote for the lesser of the
two evils. And by this process, it really doesn't matter to the Fabians which way you vote,
because you're voting for one of their programs since they've introduced both sides of the same
program. They also came up with the slogan, we don't care how you vote, but vote.
Obviously, they wouldn't care how you vote since they have both sides. Naturally,
The faster you go, the better they like it. But if you go slow, that's what they planned on in the
first place. So that is their technique. It has been a beautifully successful technique. As a matter
of fact, the Fabian Society, as such, was never very large. At its heyday, it had perhaps 4,000
members, most of them in London, and there was a chapter in New York City. I don't know of any other
Chapter of the society itself in this country, but they didn't have to have many chapters
or a large membership.
I might point out that the Fabians were very choosy about whom they took in as members.
The only people who were welcome were people who were in the communication areas.
They didn't want just a large membership, it would become cumbersome, and it would bring
down the quality of the people that they had.
So they wanted people who were in public offices.
They wanted people who were in the pulpit or newspaper or radio or later on television
or teachers, people of this sort who communicate either in writing or vocally.
They wanted all of the communicator people in their bailiwick.
In fact, they set such a very high standard in London that for a while there was a little
phrase going around in London that if a man is a gentleman, he must be a Fabian.
Now that's prestige.
And the Fabians got an enormous amount of prestige by virtue of their selectivity when
it came to their membership.
And then they put out a whole series of tracks which argued various points very well, very
cogently, and they sold these ideas one after another.
The principal buyers of the Fabian ideas have always been politicians.
Politicians are always casting about trying to find something to do, to make their jobs
worthwhile, and here the Fabians came up with an entire wagonload of ideas and programs
that made it possible for the government to become an ever more important factor in our
daily living.
So under Fabian influence, the government expanded step by step, the politicians accepted
the Fabian arguments, without notable exception, and the entire Fabian movement simply took
hold in the United States without, well, I suspect that many of the politicians who simply
followed what they were told by the Fabian logic never even heard of the Fabian movement,
and much less paid dues to it or belonged to any organization. They simply bought it
because it was practical politics, and the Fabians were very skillful in suggesting this
and in doing it, and the consequence is they have become a very dynamic force in modern
political operations. In addition to the fascist movement and the Fabian movement, there are
any number of other socialist groups. It wouldn't be possible even to tabulate their number.
There are as many, almost, as there are different theorists in the socialist area. But I would
like to just quickly summarize the major ones and once again stress the evolution of socialist
thought here. Beginning in very ancient times, the idea emerged that the community is more
are more important than the individual, and the individual can be sacrificed for the good
of the community.
Now, that's the essential core.
This takes on particular meaning in the economic theater, where we have the means of production
and distribution being considered in various ways.
Now, the first of the modern socialists were anarchists who argued that private ownership
Private ownership of property is evil and wicked and must be abolished, but that private
ownership of property is only possible when the government protects the owners, and therefore
it is an instrument that is private property is an instrument of privilege.
This idea was modified by Marx, who saw as a socialist that private property ought to
to be abolished, but he recognized that the government was the agency that could do the
demolishing, and that if you wiped the government out, you wouldn't obtain your objective.
So Marx favored a revolution in which the proletariat took over the government by a
violent revolution if necessary, and then with the government as their tool, they extract
the property from the owners, and then once it's all centralized in the hands of the
is redistributed on the basis of need. Then came the Fabians with the idea that you don't have to
do any of these extreme things, that government per se is a socialist instrument, it is designed
as such, and all you have to do is cooperate with it, and you will move gradually and inexorably
into a total condition of socialism. Thank you.