The Fabian Society (which takes its name from the Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus ‘Cunctator’, famous for his tactics of delay) was set up in 1884 by a group of left-wing intellectuals in England, and was one of the groups that joined together around the end of that century to organize the Labour Party. Its predominant position has always been one of advocating peaceful political progress towards socialism, through electoral and constitutional politics (see gradualism). Today there is little to distinguish Fabianism from general social democracy within the Labour Party, but in the earlier part of the 20th century it was far more important, representing a powerful non-revolutionary analysis of the need for, and pathways to, socialism, when the alternatives were either pure trade-union politics, or extreme militancy. As orthodox social democracy has lost its grip on Labour party thinking with the development of ‘New Labour’ and the growth of ideas associated with the Third Way, Fabianism may, ironically, return to salience as a legitimate alternative view of the party, taking the place of the ‘hard’ left, itself forever discredited.
No specific doctrines could be said to underlie Fabianism over any length of time—it does not, for example, have any particular overall analysis of the shape of the economy in a socialist country, for it is not an ideologically organized group. In its early days intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb, were members, and it was partly the Webbs’ disappointment with the actions of the post-1917 communist governments in the Soviet Union that held the Fabians to their gradualist position. Today the membership is very similar, with a considerable sprinkling of senior academics and writers. It has very little influence in the contemporary Labour Party, although its constant production of highly regarded policy-discussion papers gives it the status of a semi-official ‘think-tank’ for those disenchanted with both the party leadership and the traditional left.
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