Book Review: History of the Fabian Society

I. A spectre is haunting Europe. Several spectres, actually. One of them is the spectre of communism. The others are literal ghosts. They live in abandoned mansions. Sometimes they wail eerily or make floorboards creak. If you arrange things just right, you might be able to capture them on film. Or at least this must have been the position of the founders of the Fabian Society, Britain’s most influential socialist organization. In 1883, ghost hunters Frank Podmore and Edward Pease spent the night at the same West London haunted house, looking for signs of the paranormal. As the night dragged on without any otherworldly visitations, they passed the time in conversation and realized they shared an interest in communist thought. The two agreed to meet up again later, and from these humble beginnings came one of the most important private societies in the history of the world. Before the Fabians, communism was a pastime of wild-eyed labor activists promising bloody revolution. The Society helped introduce the idea of incremental democratic socialism – not just in the sense of Bernie Sanders, but in the sense of the entire modern welfare state. In the process, they pretty much invented the demographic of champagne-sipping socialist intellectuals. Famous Society members included George Bernard Shaw, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Tony Blair; Fabian ideas were imported wholesale into the economic policies guiding newly-independent India, Nigeria, Egypt, Syria, among others. I became interested in the Fabians after reading Kerry Vaughn’s excellent essay on the early neoliberal movement. I’m tempted to say “on the early neoliberal conspiracy”, choosing that not because any of what they did was secret – it wasn’t – but because it seems like the only term that describes their efficiency. A small group of people who wanted to change the world founded an organization, garnered influence in a bunch of little ways, thought strategically and acted with discipline. And after decades of work they got into positions of power and successfully changed the world, shifting the economic consensus from state socialism to free(er) markets. And the Fabians seem like the same story, told in reverse. A small group of idealists, thinking strategically and acting with discipline, moved democratic socialism from the lunatic fringe to the halls of intellectual power. If aspiring generals study Alexander the Great and Napoleon, surely aspiring intellectual movements should study the neoliberals and the Fabians. Kerry’s essay on neoliberalism was great, but I really wanted to know how the Fabians progressed from failed ghost hunters to puppetmasters controlling half of the twentieth century.