This collection makes available in a single set a total of 42 influential contributions to British economic and political thought. Twenty-six authors are represented. The pamphlets, papers and books in the collection range widely over topics such as capitalism and community, property rights and social justice, nationalisation and welfare. They trace the historical origins of present-day debates and show how the founding theoreticians sought to resolve central issues in the political economy of democratic socialism. Each volume contains an introductory essay in which the editor situates the text in the context of the author s life and ideas.
Bibliographical references accompany the work of each writer.
The collection as a whole is introduced by a major essay in which the editor identifies and assesses the specifically British contribution to European socialist thought in the historic years from Labour Defended in 1825 to the New Fabian Essays and In Place of Fear in 1952. Along with the chintzes, the wallpaper and the organic dyes there was a craftsman s pride in a job well done which attracted him towards the end of his life to the idea of personal liberation through socialist economics. His interest in socialist theory, his involvement in the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist League, lasted little more than a decade. This volume reprints some of his most influential writings from those years. The Fabian Society, created in 1884 to investigate social problems with a view to economic reconstruction, invited the members of its Executive Committee to deliver public lectures in 1888 on the way ahead.