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How did American progressives pick up British Fabian ideas?
PGA Weblog ^

Posted on 03/02/2013 8:41:38 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica

In a book titled "Visions of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in America", the following is written: (page 46)

A host of discussion clubs in New York City between 1900 and 1910 brought together Socialist and liberal activists and intellectuals, who clearly felt they had much in common. That common property was the Fabian side of American reform. The flamboyantly named X Club, for example, begun by William James Ghent in 1903, had Algernon Lee, William English Walling, and Edmond Kelly among its members, and visitors to its meetings included John Dewey, Charles Beard, Franklin H Giddings, Walter Weyl, Norman Hapgood, H. G. Wells, and Emile Vandervelde. There were others whos reach extended even further, including broad-minded businessmen. These discussion clubs built upon the earlier cooperation among reformers of varying, but at that time vaguely defined, stripes within the Good Government efforts of the 1890s. New York's City Club had involved figures such as Washington Gladden, Giddings, Jacob Riis, Edward Devine(an important figure in social work), and Felix Adler(head of the Ethical Culture Society), as well as worthies such as Nicholas Murray Butler, John Jay Chapman, and Elihu Root. Here was a bridge between the old liberalism and progressivism.

Its incredible what can be found with the right stroke of keys in a search engine. This pretty much confirms a thought I had earlier: (this is me quoting myself!)

The reformers at all levels(national, state, local) went from a disparate movement of people with all kinds of beliefs, ranging from many (that) conservatives (today) might agree with to full fledged statists within about 20 years. How?

Through the Fabian policy of permeation. As I've written previously, American Progressives were in fact reading Fabian writings. The Fabians and Progressives worked together in various academic settings. And now, they're getting together after work at political discussion forums. We have a full picture now to look at. I'm going to address some of these names:

William James Ghent: (Club Owner), Socialist writer - In his book The New Appeal, he at least knew of the existence of Fabians, having written about them.

Algernon Lee - Would go on to be the Director of Education at The Rand School of Social Sciences. For those who know the story of the London School of Economics, the story is nearly identical. Fabians like Stuart Chase were involved at Rand.

William English Walling, an American Socialist.

Edmond Kelly, who writes the following: The fabian theory of collectivism seems more sound than that of Marx.

John Dewey - Was President for life of America's Fabian Society. Father of Modern American Education.

Charles Beard - Taught at the Rand School.

Walter Weyl - First editor of The New Republic.

H.G. Wells - A Fabian Socialist. (Note the time frame. Yes, he left the Fabians, in the 20's.)

Here is the bridge between the old liberalism and progressivism. We know how profound Dewey's writings would be for the entire education sector. But look at a guy like F.H. Giddings. He was over at Columbia University, while he would come to clubs like this and rub elbows with these people. Guess what kinds of ideas he brought to Columbia? The kinds that the people at Columbia wanted to hear.

Permeation is not a one way street. Old liberalism circa the late 1800's(1880's/1890's, leading right into the first few years or so of the 1900's) was open to Fabianism because they had already abandoned the ideas of the Founders, and because the new ideas that the liberals were formulating on their own were very compatible with Fabianism. Take the 1872 "Demands of Liberalism". That's not the kind of thing that comes from the Founders' America, but an America ripe for the planting of Socialist ideas. That's why Edward Bellamy's Nationalism was so well received.

You take old liberalism and it's budding lust for bureaucratic despotism, add Fabianism into the mix and the end result is Progressivism. It's no wonder that so many of the early Progressives, many that you would recognize, had friendly relationships with British Fabians. They were working along side each other in various roles, journalistic, academic, they were meeting at discussion clubs, and they were reading each other's writings.

A historian by the name of Robert H. Wiebe wrote a book titled "The Search for Order". and on page 166 he writes the following: (Page 166 cannot be seen from Google Books)

The heart of progressivism was the ambition of the new middle class to fulfill its destiny through bureaucratic means.

That's how we got here. "Old Liberalism" + "Fabian Permeation" = Progressivism.


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: dewey; fabians; fabiansocialism; progressingamerica
Here's another one: Try digging through the Fabian Tracts and count how many times you spot the words "Progressive" or "progress".
1 posted on 03/02/2013 8:41:48 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica
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To: CommieCutter; SwankyC; Albertafriend; preacher; Anima Mundi; frithguild; ColoCdn; Old Sarge; ...
If anybody wants on/off the revolutionary progressivism ping list, send me a message

Progressives do not want to discuss their own history. I want to discuss their history.

Summary: That's how we got here. "Old Liberalism" + "Fabian Permeation" = Progressivism.

2 posted on 03/02/2013 8:45:10 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica (What's the best way to reach a YouTube generation? Put it on YouTube!)
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To: ProgressingAmerica

You mean we can’t blame it on The Beatles and Stones?

I remember as a young kid getting an earful from a guy who was no Fabian fan.. a real sharp fellar.. his remarks left a mark on me as has the Progressive movement on us all.


3 posted on 03/02/2013 9:10:53 AM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi)
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To: ProgressingAmerica

IMHO...

Now tie in a) Morgan, Rockefeller (and all their related interests) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, b) how European international banking was extending its influence and power in America while making large profits all throughout the 19th century, and c) how Morgan was simply a European banking representative, and the picture will be complete.

Socialism is backed by globalist money interests. European politics since WWII prove the point. Nationalism is painted as bad, subservience to central banking is painted as good, Christianity and the Bible are painted as bad, media and education are controlled by the banking establishment and its foundation system and endowments and boards of universities - and a big, fat socialist government sits over every nation. The idea is... keep the “little people” out of owning things (without debt) and operating businesses. Entice the little people to stay in debt their entire lives, both personally and via government spending and borrowing. Control the capital markets so small business needs to go to the establishment for financing; disallow “little people” from investing directly in each other’s businesses. This keeps most small businesses small, and only a few will grow enough to become competitive with the big boys. And those that do will simply become part of the establishment, needing them when they require large financing or want to sell their business, i.e., “go public”.

Fabianism is tied in completely with the elite wealthy interests of the world - there is a distinct pattern to the financial fingers reaching out into the “developing world”, bringing monopolistic control and huge profits back to the elites.

IMHO, an in-depth study of Cecil Rhodes would be essential to understanding Fabianism.


4 posted on 03/02/2013 9:20:49 AM PST by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves)
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To: ProgressingAmerica
GK Chesterton did vigorous battle against the fabians, and while he would regularly defeat them in the arena of ideas, even then, the progs were better able to control the court of public opinion.
5 posted on 03/02/2013 9:27:58 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: cripplecreek

Maybe of interest ping!


6 posted on 03/02/2013 9:29:48 AM PST by Las Vegas Ron (Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism)
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To: ProgressingAmerica
You can add Georger Bernard Shaw to that list.

george bernard shaw fabian society

7 posted on 03/02/2013 9:33:00 AM PST by Las Vegas Ron (Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism)
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To: Las Vegas Ron
GK Chesterton on GB Shaw...

"After belabouring a great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr. Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be progressive at all. Having come to doubt whether humanity can be combined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr. Shaw, not being easily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake. If man, as we know him, is incapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr. Shaw asks, not for a new kind of philosophy, but for a new kind of man. It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby."

8 posted on 03/02/2013 9:34:56 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: PieterCasparzen

In the end, Nationalism really is bad. Nationalism is another form of socialism.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2919329/posts

What’s good is what the Founders gave us. That wasn’t Nationalism. In reading the Constitution, it’s fairly easy to see that it protects us from nationalism. It fosters state and local. The 10th amendment, specifically, is the anti-nationalist amendment.

Thank you for your post, it does put into context just how large the interests are that are out to take our liberty from us.


9 posted on 03/02/2013 9:52:29 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica (What's the best way to reach a YouTube generation? Put it on YouTube!)
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To: ProgressingAmerica
That depends on how you are defining "the old liberalism." Much of 19th century liberalism was for limited government, what we might call free market or laissez-faire today. Grover Cleveland was a prime example. In the field of ideas maybe William Graham Sumner or E.L. Godkin represent this tendency (I'd have to do more research).

To be sure, though, some of the "old liberals" didn't have much sense of boundaries, so when new collectivist ideologies came along that appeared to be opposed to their own enemies, they didn't resist. They didn't have a demonstration of those ideas in action on which to form a critical judgment. That was true in Britain as well. Some free-trading old liberals couldn't see a clear line between their own ideas and those of the new collectivists.

But in those days or today, many people think of political movements or ideologies as street cars or subways. They aren't trying to get to the end of the line. They just go a few stops down the line to their destination. When hard times come, or a serious scandal or catastrophe happens, or when the country is gripped by a fever of new ideas, they give their support to an idea or movement that promises to rectify the things they see as wrong with the status quo.

I don't doubt that the people you cite may have been 100% in favor of some sort of socialist system. But the reason such ideas are translated into policy isn't because the country wants to reach the end station but because going a few stops down the line looks like a way to "fix" something that people see as wrong. I relate this to the current situation.

The people who voted in the current administration weren't necessarily trying to achieve some sort of socialist future. They were just reacting to events and current conditions and emotional appeals relating to those events and condidions. The people conservatives need to win over to return to office aren't necessarily those who want to restore some sort of prior state of things or push forward to some free market future. They'd be people who see in conservatism an opportunity to mend some things in the country that need mending without embracing some larger vision of how things should be.

10 posted on 03/02/2013 10:13:32 AM PST by x
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To: ProgressingAmerica

A fine madness shared by many, both pernicious and contagious, and not susceptible to reason or logic.

Somehow, mankind is supposed to be “perfectible”, but only if the baser instincts are repressed or smothered completely.

Since individuals will not give up their imperfections willingly, they must be either beguiled or forcibly compelled to surrender those flaws, and submit to a reassessment and realignment of their critical facilities.

First, all the old ways must be suppressed into extinction, by humbling and subjecting the specimen, er, subject, er, citizen to all forms of humiliation and ridicule, suggesting that other opinions are not approved of, and that only the One True Way will lead to salvation (in reality, “slavation” would be closer to that definition).

The New Hierarchy must be established, with, of course, all the Learned Men at its pinnacle, and the lesser people there to support and provide adolation for the Learned Men.

All this is just a form of feudalism imposed without the force of arms being visible, but the police power behind this unnatural and compelled state of affairs for mankind is still being wielded in subtle and not so subtle ways.

In many ways, this New Hierarchy resembles both that imposed by the secular totalitarianism and dogmatic religious practice, which is by no means limited to what many believe the medieval Catholic Church had been prior to the leavening influence of the Reformation and Renaissance.

There is one major cult today that professes to support the whole hierarchy structure, Islam, which divides the world into three major groups - the Noble Islamic Gentlemen, the Dhimmi (which included the entire female gender), and the Kufir.

The Noble Islamic Gentlemen, of course, are the privileged ones, enjoying all the perquisites the world has to offer, which are denied to the next lower rank, the Dhimmi, essentially all those who accept the supremacy of the Noble Islamic Gentlemen, but are in reality in bondage to their rule. By any definition, this group are slaves.

And for any who do not accept the supremacy ot the Noble Islamic Gentlemen, the remaining classification, the Kufir or infidels, are subject to elimination by slaughter by the Noble Islamic Gentlemen, and are to be pursued to extinction by all means necessary. Christians and most definitely Jews are clearly part of this underclass of humanity, and other religions do not escape. Historically, once the cult of Islam has captured at least 10 percent of the population of any country, the affable nature of the Muslim disappears, and militancy takes its place, with the substitution of THEIR law, Shari’a, for whatever code of justice may have prevailed previously.

Any pretense of “democracy” disappears, as Islam and any kind of representation of divergent opinion are totally incompatible. In this, the objectives of Islam and “Progressives” become blurred and overlap to an astonishing degree.

It becomes a distance-and-direction urination contest which of these two top ranks of hierarchy takes rule, the Learned Men or the Noble Islamic Gentlemen. For those in the lower strata, who is master makes no difference, for they no longer hold any rights either way, or at least none that cannot be taken away at the whim of the ruling faction. But until the lines are drawn, these two factions will become willing allies in defeating what they believe to be the “unbelievers” of the world, those who do not accept that the hierarchy structure is the natural state of mankind.

The nation once known as the “United States of America” was the first embodiment of this widespread notion that one man need not submit to the dictatorial will of another, but could come together in an open negotiation between two parties, honestly arrived at, for the mutual benefit of both. At first, this concept was rather limited, but over time, the idea grew to encompass more than just all adult white males, as others were accepted into the circle of daily commerce, of other ethnic origins, though those may have once been bound by custom and archaic laws, eventually including females, and finally to extend a benevolent and just society to all who chose to accept the rules of civil behavior, swearing their allegiance to those principles.

Both Progressives and Islamist militants have declared this to be anathema, to be destroyed and eradicated and extirpated by any and ever means available and necessary. There is to be no sanctuary where this belief in free thought and opinion is to be tolerated, there can only be control from the top. Any challenge to that control has to be combatted and driven out.

And that is how the new Dark Age will descent upon mankind.


11 posted on 03/02/2013 10:15:42 AM PST by alloysteel (What is all too obvious, is not obvious to all. Until it is too late to reverse course.)
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To: Joe 6-pack

Thanks, I have never read that before.

This is pretty enlightening too, Shaw and his ilk are indeed dangerous people (short about 3 min):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsf2MUKRQ


12 posted on 03/02/2013 10:28:26 AM PST by Las Vegas Ron (Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism)
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To: Las Vegas Ron

A lot of folks around here have their issues with Glen Beck, but probably moreso than any other conservative talker, he knows and understands the 19th and early 20th century progressives, and he’s had the number of Shaw and other fabians for some time. The part on Shaw starts right around the 4:00 minute mark in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw7DtjO4V6c&bpctr=1362251123


13 posted on 03/02/2013 10:44:16 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: x

That’s pretty much what I mean. The boundaries were blurred, and without a demonstration they didn’t have a clear line 100 years ago. Most history is incorrectly taught, so people don’t have anchors. They’re drifting, toward that next step in line. As you said, like street cars. That’s a good analogy.

These progressives employ deception in their emotional ploys, and they want everything done immediately so that action is based on everything but well thought out reason.

The darkest part of all is that they control the media. Those who are supposed to be our defenders are the ones pushing us toward an ever expansive state.


14 posted on 03/02/2013 11:14:25 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica (What's the best way to reach a YouTube generation? Put it on YouTube!)
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To: Joe 6-pack
Ah yes, I watched GB religiously when he was on Fox. I can't tell you how many times I thought to my self how I wished I had a history teacher like him in school.

I was familiar with Fabian’s but GB taught me much more, including about Shaw. I had no idea about Shaw until Glenn did his shows on him.

GB has a great talent for teaching, he's also very good at being able to stand back and put the pieces of the puzzle together. His call on the Arab Spring was/is amazing.

He also nailed Beghazzi was the result of arms trading just a couple of days after the incident.

Thanks for the link!!

15 posted on 03/02/2013 2:01:59 PM PST by Las Vegas Ron (Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism)
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To: ProgressingAmerica
In the end, Nationalism really is bad. Nationalism is another form of socialism.

When I say nationalism I'm referring to the concept of national sovereignty. That is, not getting rid of State and local government, but to respect a national government as a sovereign state.

IMHO...

If government at the national level oversteps its authority regarding State or local government (as defined by, in our case, the Constitution), of course I am not saying that it is a legitimate course of action based on the concept of national sovereignty.

Actually today, efforts to merge lower-level governments are part of the plan of globalism.

Chipping away at national sovereignty is also a stepping stone to globalism.

IMHO, put simply, the highest legitimate level of government is the national level. While there may be treaties between nations, national sovereignty should be respected.
16 posted on 03/02/2013 9:06:44 PM PST by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves)
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To: Joe 6-pack
A lot of folks around here have their issues with Glen Beck

Alot of folks on here have issues with Glenn because a lot of folks on here are progressives and simply cannot bring themselves to allow someone to decide for themselves - even when it does not infringe on another's rights.

No, I'm not talking about abortion, which clearly infringes upon the right to life of another human being.

17 posted on 03/04/2013 12:19:30 PM PST by SwankyC (NO PROGRESSIVES. This Means Liberals and RINO Republicans! Same Thing.)
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