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 slavery will disappear, as serfdom disappeared, not indeed imperceptibly, for the world is now self-conscious, not even so gradually, for the pace of progress is faster than it was in the Middle Ages, but by a change of heart of the community, by a general recognition, already half realised, that whatever makes for the more equitable distribution of wealth is good; that whatever benefits the working class benefits the nation; that the rich exist only on sufferance, and deserve no more than painless extinction; that the capitalist is a servant of the public, and too often over-paid for the services that he renders.

Again, Socialism succeeds because it is common sense.  The anarchy of individual production is already an anachronism.  The control of the community over itself extends every day.  We demand order, method, regularity, design; the accidents of sickness and misfortune, of old age and bereavement, must be prevented if possible, and if not, mitigated.  Of this principle the public is already convinced:  it is merely a question of working out the details.  But order and forethought is wanted for industry as well as for human life.  Competition is bad, and in most respects private monopoly is worse.  No one now seriously defends the system of rival traders with their crowds of commercial travellers:  of rival tradesmen with their innumerable deliveries in each street; and yet no one advocates the capitalist alternative, the great trust, often concealed and insidious, which monopolises oil or tobacco or diamonds, and makes huge profits for a fortunate; few out of the helplessness of the unorganised consumers.

But neither the idle rich class nor the anarchy of competition is so outstanding an evil as the poverty of the poor.  We aim at making the rich poorer chiefly in order to make the poor richer.  Our first tract, “Why are the Many Poor?” struck the keynote.  In a century of abounding wealth England still has in its midst a hideous mass of poverty which is too appalling to think of.  That poverty, we say, is preventible.  That poverty was the background of our thoughts when the Society was founded.  Perhaps we have done a little to mitigate it:  we believe we have done something to make clear the way by which it may ultimately be abolished.  We do not constantly talk of it.  We write of the advantages of Municipal Electricity, of the powers of Parish Councils, of the objections to the Referendum; but all the while it is that great evil which chiefly moves us, and by our success or our failure in helping on the reconstruction of society for the purpose of abolishing poverty, the work of the Fabian Society must ultimately be judged.