E. Belfort Bax Quotes
No one, nowadays, pretends that juridical action alone can directly produce any fundamental economic change, but it can certainly put the capitalist in a tight place, and the special advantage of the measures proposed is that they admit of being strengthened or relaxed without violent disturbance of the status quo.
E. Belfort Bax, 1854–1925, English Attorney, Journalist & Philosopher, “After the Eight Hours Bill,” Justice, April 30, 1892
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The first sentence is often quoted by conservatives in defense of the capitalistic system. However most do not realize that Haldane was actually a socialist who was opposed to capitalism. They were unaware of the second sentence which would make them as unhappy as the first made them happy.
The first quotation was made shortly after the launching of The Clarion in 1891. The newspaper was relatively successful but while England moved more to the left, socialism was not embraced by Englishmen. Later, Blachford concluded that the conversion would not likely take place soon.
Executed by the English for his part in the Easter Uprising. Connolly was a socialist advocate as well as a republican. He was one of the first revolutionaries to understand that military occupation was only a part of forces that kept a nation subservient to another. However, attempts to break those economic ties have almost always led to economic ruination.
The inventor of the Chi Square and Correlation Coefficient statistical methods. The lecture was also published as a political pamphlet. Pearson criticized the English Socialists who were calling for substantial immediate reforms on many fronts. Many of the reforms had much general support and the major political issue was the pace of reform.
The Diggers were a religious-economic movement that even today would be considered very radical. They advocated the right of the poor to go onto public lands and farm them—thus the name “Diggers.” Beyond their opposition to the private ownership of land to the exclusion of the poor, Winstanley and the Diggers promulgated another very modern doctrine: That the poor should take the responsibility and have the right to determine how the society should provide for the poor. A version of this became one of the Mottos of the Poverty Program of 1964. See {616966}.
The Diggers were a religious-economic movement that even today would be considered very radical. They advocated the right of the poor to go onto public lands and farm them—thus the name “Diggers.” Beyond their opposition to the private ownership of land to the exclusion of the poor, Winstanley and the Diggers promulgated another very modern doctrine: That the poor should take the responsibility and have the right to determinine how the society should provide for the poor. A version of this became one of the Mottos of the Poverty Program of 1964. See {616966}.
At the time, this was not popular with many socialists who had given up on the lack of fairness and equity of the capitalistic system. A century later, most politicians and political philosophers had given up on socialism ever meeting Bauer’s test, and Capitalism was well ensconced in Western Democracies.
Ernest Belfort Bax was an English barrister, journalist, philosopher, men's rights advocate, socialist, and historian.
