6. Quiet Flows the River

CHAPTER 6 QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER The third, and by far the most successful, attempt to bring Plato's socialist republic into tangible form was or gaDiZed in London during the winter of 1883-84. The prime mover of the group was Edward R. Pease, a rnan contempo raries have largely overlooked in bestowing credit. Mr. Pease was the first secretary and historian of the Fabian Society and the sOcialist cause is indebted to him for his· perseverance and dedication.

100-THIS BREAD IS MINE The announced aim of the Fabians was the "reconstruct ing (of) society in accordance with the highest moral possi bilities." And since the socialists have inevitably taken the position that any amount of wealth held by one individual: in excess of the wealth held by the other members of society constitutes a robbery, it is immediately apparent that the Fabians planned to further the socialist "moral" goal .... a redistribution of all wealth and property. Collective Gradualism This little group took the name of Quintus Fabius to be emblematic of their methods and called themselves "Fabian" as a result. It was this Roman general who was credited with the original use of guerrilla tactics against the Carthaginians in the Punic wars. He advocated a type of harassment whereby inferior forces could decimate superior forces on a gradual basis, without coming into direct and head-on pitched battles.

This tactic appealed to the London socialists and Fabianism became both a part of their n;ome~clature ~d the cent~al theme of the methods they sought to employ..

QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER ~ 101 The Fabians agreed in most respects with Marx and with Proudhon. The economic aims of both these reformers are inherent in Fabianism. The significant point of departure between Fabians and Marxians was simply this: Matxheld that those who own property would never give up without a struggle and, there fore, violence would be anessentictl to bringing in the Utopian dream. The Fabians, oil. the other hand, believed that the property oWners would be too stupid ttl know· what was happening to them if the gradualism of Quintus Fabius was employed against them. Hence, the Fabians counselled gradual usurpation of the means of production and distribution, rather than a head-on clash between the capitalists and the proletariat. They believed the government would have to be changed to become responsive to the working classes. But instead of advocating Marxian revolution to accomplish this end, they championed the cause of evolution through the voting process.

Like Marx, they disagreed with Proudhon respecting the function of government. Government was the immediate tool 102-THIS BREAD IS MINE of the Fabians. And ·here are the lines of demarcation which separate right, left and center of the socialist phalanx. The rightists (anarchists) of the socialist entente main tain that governments cannot be used to advance the socialist cause, but rather that governments must be abolished as the first step toward victory. The left flank (communist) holds that existing govern ments are capitali~tic tools which must be overthrown and replaced by democratic forms. The democratic forms (per mitting mass voting and majority decisions) will be the most useful tool of the socialist in bringing about a redistribution of wealth. The Fabians (the center) are willing to accept any form of government in existence at any time, and by educa tion (Plato's original proposal) and agitation along peaceful lines, subvert and alter the purpose cof that government until it gradually becomes the effective tool of th~ sociali~ts without any violent upheaval. Like Marx, they advocate the use of the trade union. movement as the principal effective device QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER -103 to be employed toward the conversion of government into a socialist holding company.

Respectability The Fabians immediately adopted two devices which had been barred to both of the radical extremes of the socialist front. They attracted a pair of well·known "names" to their letterhead, and they concentrated on accuracy and reliability in all of their written reports. The result. of this sober and conservative approach toa .revolutionary theme made them respectable. Never did they appear as revolutionaries. In stead, they masqueraded as a party seeking only to ·"do good" The government was the instrument of their crusade and total sharing was their goal. They did not seek to abolish politicians as Bakunin "had done with the anarchistic cause. They did not seek to abolish a particular form of government as Marx had attempted, with the more or less hidden aim of forming a second government in keeping with their program. Rather, they immediately obtained prestige by joining in With 104-THIS BREAD IS MINE the existing government, recognizing in it certain inherent socialistic tendencies. These they sought" to e~arge and ex ploit by appealing to the public's general sense of .charity on the one hand, and by causing capitalists themselves to experi ence a sense of guilt by reason of the very success they had had in their activities of production and distribution.

George Bernard Shaw, the eminent playwright, and a man of considerable force and wit, was immediately attracted to the movement and became one of its staunchest leaders. Sidney Webb, a successful office holder, became another of its leaders. His wife, Beatrice, is considered of equal or even greater influence. In the process of their expansion the Fabians also attracted such luminaries as the great Theosophist Annie Besant, and the redoubtable Henry George Wells. The· immediate aim of the Fabians was not to form a new political party but to permeate existing parties. Thoroughly grounded Fabians joined both conservative and liberal parties in England, particularly the latter, and were successful in obtaining office in popular elections~ After awhile they became QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER - 105 powerful enough to organize the present labour party, as there is a natural affinity between Fabian techniques and those employed by labor bosses. The Fabians also organized a re search department which spent time and ploney in ferreting out instances of "capitalistic abuse." These instance were highlighted and pounced upon by other wings of the socialist cause.

Branches of the society were organized in America, where an infiltration of the Democratic Party immediately got underway. In recent years the Fabians have so success fully ~'permeated" both Democratic and Republican parties that to all practical purposes the aims of both embody scores of socialist objectives. So wholeheartedly has the American political front moved toward socialist objectives that the So cialist Party leader, Norman Thomas, was moved to announce that the disbanding of the Socialist Party in this country was in order since its major aims had already been achieved by the other and older political groups. At one time, dedicated American Fabians were toying with the idea of forming an actual labor party in this country, 106 - THIS BREAD IS MINE pattemed after the British socialist-labour group with its overt purpose of "nationalizing" the basic means of production and distribution. But the Fabian ideas have been so readily ac cepted and have expanded through the minds of so many people so rapidly that their circulation far out-stripped the processes 6£ organized effort.

In a sense, the Fabians proved the logic of Kant and Hegel. The Fabian movement is, in a manner of speaking, the syn thesis between the radical right and the radical left of the socialist pantheon. Having divorced violence from their frame work, they caught the antisocialists off gllard and defenseless. The free enterprise community has endeavored to organize against socialism. It took little in the way of such organization to defeat the propaganda by action of the violent Bakunin. However wrong and destructive a particular politician may appear to be, few people wish to see a blood bath with the heads of their government dropping into the basket at the base of the guillotine. And to organize against political Marxism is relatively simple. All one has to do is to strengthen the existing form QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER -.107 of government so that it can resist the attempts to destroy it by force and violence. Also, by employing the government as an intermediary in labor-management friction, the use of unions as the advance guard to bring on socialism through con certed revolutionary violence is effectively curtailed.

Both the right and the left flanks of socialism depend on violence, and violence is generally abhorrent to civilized men and women. Difficulties of Meeting Fabian Attack But here is shown the skill and the wisdom of the social ist middle ground. For the very attempts of the free enterprise community to strengthen government so that violence does not occur, either against the politicians themselves, or against any particular form of government, play right into the hands of the Fabians. For all governments, by reason of their aims and claims of justice, inevitably contain socialist concepts. And the larger and more vigorous any government becomes, the more thoroughly does it lean in the direction of Fabian victory.

l08-TffiS BREAD IS MINE Belatedly and in a few well-informed quarters in America, this is now recognized. But the great mass of American voters remain, at this date, almost totally innocent of such knowledge. Patriotic societies, the most ferocious enemies that socialism has ever inspired, fight heroically· to stem the tide of anarchy and Marxism, only to find themselves in the very vanguard of the Fabians, helping enlarge government, to make it more formidable, to cause it to collect larger taxes, to instill greater regulations, to commit acts of regimentation and coercion, to intervene in the economy, and ultimately to move the means of production out of the hands of the private owners and collect such means in the hands of the political mechanism. The strength of the socialist adversary, the free market itself, is the very strength employed by the Fabians. This could be called political ju jitsu.

Socialism is inevitably a parastic development. It has no strength of its own, but by employing political Fabianism it drains the energy from the private enterprisers and uses that energy to destroy enterprise. It is business cannibalism QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER -109 which, if followed long enough, will not only destroy free enterprise, but will finally consume the socialists as well. No parasite can exist without its host. And here is the most cruel development. For· conservative efforts to maintain private ownership within the framework of the conservative point of view provide just sufficient leeway for the socialists to con tinue to gain power and to grow fat on the life-blood they drain away from their opponents. With glee, the world socialist front capitalizes on this American tendency. Marxists in Russia pound the war drums and in America patriots urge greater appropriations for de fense. The result is a vast movement of wealth and capital into governmental control and management, which is the economic aim of Marxists, anarchists and Fabians alike.

"Do good" societies are formed to decry the poverty of persons in certain segments of the nation's population. Humanitarians quickly rally to the socialist banner and the welfare. state is born and made strong with the transfer of still greaten wealth into the hands of the government.

110-THIS BREAD IS MINE Tariffs and Subsidies Social planners appear and seek· to bolster certain types of enterprise at the expense of more successful or more profitable enterprises. Tariffs and subsidies, the twin knives employed in .socialist in-fighting, are brought into play and again more wealth moves out of private hands and into the control of the state. On the subject of tariffs, the question is particularly com plex. At the moment (1960) there is an apparent socialist coup in the making which appears to be aimed at the elimina tion of tariffs; and as a counter to this move, conservatives of Republican stamp are vocal in demanding tariff protection against commodities manufactured in foreign lands. This is an illustration of the trap into which conservatives fall. Seeking to protect themselves, they conclude that the socialist front favors freedom in this area and, consequently, rather than grapple with the principles involved, they simply turn about and advocate a position which at the moment appears to be a shrewd defensive move to protect the rights QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER -111 of private ownership, whereas it is actually socialistic. What conservatives are prone to ()verlook in the area of tariffs is that the socialist Fabians are not in the least interested in eliminating tariffs, although that is their first publicized step in the gradual process they invoke. On the contrary, socialists at the moment favor the elimination of NATIONAL tar~s, particularly in the United States, with the view to placing all trade under immediate international control through the United Nations, GATT, and other similar trade restricting treaties and agreements.

Thus, the socialist entente is urging a course of action which consists of two steps, not one. The first step is pre carious for them, for if they managed to obtain the elimination of tariffs without an immediate placement of all international trade under international control, they would have substan tially weakened their efforts to destroy private ownership. If a true atmosphere of free trade at intemationallevels did pertain, private ownership would be enhanced. Events indicate, on the basis of conservative reaction, that the move is risky but not in error, intellectually, for the van112 - THIS BREAD IS MINE guard of the antisocialist opposition is taking the very stand the socialists counted on them to take. Should the conserva tives, in the immediate future, abandon their insistence on a protective tariff, become imbued with the idea of total free trade, and stand by their guns, the socialists would have been ousted from a politically astute position and would find them selves floundering. They would have assisted the very con dition they seek to eliminate: the right to own property privately. And then if they failed to win international control of all trade, the result would be a major gain for the antisocialist free enterprisers.

Here, as in similar cases, the socialist ·front is counting on the stupidity of capitalists, generally; the willingness to take a short-term, rather than a long-term position; the failure of the free enterprise community to fight for a principle, rather than for what is made to. appear as an immediate dollar gain. It is almost predictable that the free enterprisers will take the position which is philosophically and politically in error and thus hasten their own undoing at the hands of some QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER -113 international government cabal. Socialists ttte confident this will prove to be the case. Meanwhile, under the supposition that "capitalism is out moded," the state itself becomes an enterpriser, using tax money wrested from citizens as the capital by means of which it sets up hundreds of business which compete, in a tax exempt status, against taxpaying enterprises. Land, the pre cious commodity on which all of us depend, drifts back into state ownership by means of military seizure and eminent domain. It is possible by virtue of extensive insured loans placed upon millions of. homes by government agencies that, ultimately, in the midst of financial crisis the government could foreclose. Ironically, the idealistic professors of our schools and colleges, indoctrinated with huge helpings of Plato, agitate for more governmental aid to education, careless that with the aid goes inevitable political control. The dream· of Plato stands close to fulfillment in America at the hands of Fabian gradualism. The income tax, the coercive draft, the United Nations, its endless agencies, schools and colleges, and 114-THIS BREAD IS MINE hundreds of .thousands of private clubs and organizations, carry forward the Fabian theme.

Fabianism Is Winning In candor, the Fabians have the upper hand. Only in isolated pockets is there resistance to the tidal wave of social ist persuasion. And what is true in America is even more strikingly evident in England, France, Spain, Italy, the Middle East, India, the Benelux countries, Sweden, South America, Africa, New Zealand and Australia, and of course in China and Russia. Name any country. The chances are its government is predominantly dedicated to socialist concepts. Individualism, the true opposite of socialism, is in dis repute the world over. It may be true that strong government provides the answer to anarchy. It may be true that patriotism provides the answer to Marxism. But until something can be done to provide the answer to Fabianism, the cause of individualism is lost.

QUIET FLOWS THE RIVER - 115 This is the reason for perplexity and confusion in the minds of conservative businessmen. They have long advocated government in place of anarchy. They have long' upheld patriotism in place of Marxian· violence and subversion. But how can the businessmen oppose socialism, when political ac tion, legal force, defense preparations, and even their churches, schools, and clubs advance the socialist cause day after day? Let us be completely frank with ourselves. If there is even a residue of opposition to the socialist front, credit must be given not to individualists but to the nature of things as they are. Do what they will, and the socialists are in the seats of the mighty and thus capable of doing what they please, they inevitably come up against the hard facts of reality. If they are deterred, it is not through the brilliance of the in dividuals who have opposed them. Rather, it is that nature and life are arrayed against them.

Even if individualism as a doctrine should be lost; if there were no such thing as an articulate opposition to the socialist creed; if every government and every human being conscious116-THIS BREAD IS MINE ly embraced the collectivist objectives, still those objectives would fail. This is the reason our civilization has not already been swept to oblivion. Despite ourselves, the laws of nature and of life continue to function. Socialists may make up the largest team but it is inevitably the losing team. If Hegel's rules of logic apply to the socialist conception, there is no reason the same rules cannot be made to apply to the individualistic position. It is time for a synthesis in the antisocialist camp, wherein the proper intelligent means for opposing intellectual (Fabian) socialism can be applied. What must be found is a philosophy of thought which will avoid the political trap of the Fabians in which, while Marx ism is opposed, private ownership is undermined. Clearly, no direct political means will suffice, because direct political means result in increasing and magnifying the importance of government, thereby advancing the Fabian objective. But it may be possible, through means which will have an indirect political repercussion, to bring about the denouement of the entire socialist structure.