Beatrice Potter Webb’s Suggestions for Social Change

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The 19th century was a turning point in the development of views on the socio-economic structure of human society. This was particularly evident in the emergence of the Marxist socialism, which made people reconsider traditional social systems. The ideas of social and class equality, the cooperation of people for the common good, the equal distribution of material wealth among all the members of society inspired many intellectuals of that time. However, some thinkers, such as Beatrice Potter Webb, did not fully accept Marxism, supporting only some of its ideas and methods.

The phenomenon of socialism is primarily associated with the theories of the German philosopher and sociologist Karl Marx. The key peculiarity of Marx’s position is “his relation to the revolutionary socialistic movement” (Veblen, 2015, p. 2). According to the Marxist philosophy, capitalism and its inherent class inequality are a dead end for humanity, and the only logical way out is the radical socialist revolution. Allegedly, this revolution would bring human society to its natural state: the unselfish and equal cooperation for the sake of the common good. In Marx’s view, the central point of the social economy is “a theory of Value,” which consists in the equality of any labor. Furthermore, according to Marx, a socialist state should be managed by a single government, which will ensure the social equality of all the citizens (Veblen, 2015).

Beatrice Potter Webb, a British sociologist of the late 19th – early 20th century, was a supporter of the moderate and democratic socialism. Together with her husband, Sidney Webb, they joined the Fabian Society, for which their works on sociology were an important theoretical core. Although Webb and other members of the Fabian Society admired Marx’s ideas, their vision of socialism differed in a number of ways. First of all, they rejected the Marxist radical revolutionism, promoting instead the idea of social evolutionism. The Fabians believed that evolutionism “combined social and biological science and neutralized revolutionary ideas, but the theory of evolution ended up suggesting the idea of a gradual change” (Potter, 2017, p. 14). Secondly, while advocating for the idea of collectivism, Webb also acknowledged the need for the local self-government, namely, the municipal government. What is also peculiar about Webb’s socialism, is that she rejected the typical Marxist belief in the strictly scientific organization of society, since, in her opinion, “science deals only with the processes of life; it has little to say of the purpose of life” (Potter, 2017, p. 160). All these differences made Webb’s socialist ideas more acceptable to British society.

In many respects, Webb carefully distanced herself from Marx’s views that were likely to face criticism in the capitalist societies. In addition to Marxist revolutionism, she also rejected the notion of socialism as an exclusively working-class movement, claiming that it was a task of the middle-class intellectuals to create their own, enlightened socialism. What is more, Webb did not directly confront capitalism, considering it an important evolutionary stage of social progress. Admiring the latest reformations and achievements of American society, she saw it as an apex of the contemporary social progress, particularly in terms of industrial development and democratically elected authorities (Ferrari, 2017). Finally, unlike Marx, Webb also recognized that different types of labor actually do have a different value and thus should be rewarded correspondingly.

The views of the British socialist Beatrice Potter Webb were quite different from Karl Marx’s ideas. Her position is fairly considered as moderate socialism since she rejected the radical revolutionism peculiar to the Marxist philosophy. Instead, Webb supported the ideas of a gradual change and intellectual flexibility, fully acknowledging that human society is far too complex to fit into the framework of classical Marxism.

References

Ferrari, R. (2017). Roundtrip to Anglo-Saxon Democracy: Beatrice Potter Webb’s appraisal of industry and society. In V. Bavaro, G. Fusco, S. Fusco, & D. Izzo (Eds.), Harbors, Flows, and Migrations: The USA in/and the World (pp. 217-236). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Potter, B. (2017). On Marx and the Politics of Economic Discourse. Two Unpublished Manuscripts and Other Writings. R. Ferrari (Ed.). Bologna, Italy: University of Bologna Press.

Veblen, T. (2015). The socialist economics of Karl Marx and his followers. Redditch, UK: Read Books Ltd.

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