sation
will be constituted.

* * * * *

But what of the future of Fabian ideas? In a passage already quoted Mr.
Barker indicates that the dominance of "Collectivism of the Fabian
order" ceased three or four years ago, and he goes on to indicate that
it has been replaced by an anti-state propaganda, taking various forms,
Syndicalism, Guild Socialism, and the Distributivism of Mr. Belloc. It
is true that Fabianism of the old type is not the last event in the
history of political thought, but it is still, I venture to think, the
dominant principle in political progress. Guild Socialism, whatever its
worth, is a later stage. If our railways are to be managed by the
Railwaymen's Union, they must first be acquired for the community by
Collectivism.

This is not the place to discuss the possibilities of Guild Socialism.
After all it is but a form of Socialism, and a first principle of
Fabianism has always been free thought. The leading Guild Socialists
resigned from the Society: they were not expelled: they attempted to
coerce the rest, but no attempt was made to coerce them. Guild Socialism
as a scheme for placing production under the management of the producers
seems to me to be on the wrong lines. The consumer as a citizen must
necessarily decide what is to be produced for his needs. But I do not
belong to the generation which will have to settle the matter. The
elderly are incompetent judges of new ideas. Fabian doctrine is not
stereotyped: the Society consists in the main of young people. The
Essayists and their contemporaries have said their say: it remains for
the younger people to accept what they choose, and to add whatever is
necessary. Those who repudiated the infallibility of Marx will be the
last to claim infallibility for themselves. I can only express the hope
that as long as the Fabian Society lasts it will be ever open to new
ideas, ever conscious that nothing is final, ever aware that the world
is enormously complex, and that no single formula will summarise or
circumscribe its infinite variety.[57]

* * * * *

The work of the Fabian Society has been not to make Socialists, but to
make Socialism. I think it may be said that the dominant opinion in the
Society--at any rate it is my opinion--is that great social changes can
only come by consent. The Capitalist system cannot be overthrown by a
revolution or by a parliamentary majority. Wage slav