Andrew Richards June 22, 2014 at 7:13 pm

Kaye, your response is utter historical revisionism. Firstly, regardless of who started the Intervention, the ALP had absolutely no problem continuing that policy of paternalism by stealth – an ALP which has been infested by Fabianism for the past 30 years.

Secondly your claims about the Fabian society are at best, blatantly misleading, if not outright fraudulent. Furthermore, there is a degree of irony in an author for an indepentent media outlet, at least implying that someone is engaging in “conspiracy theorism” when they are doing nothing more than legitimaely debunking a popular, fraudulent narrative.

To begin with, as noted by Diane Paul:

“But far from expressing views that were unique Haldane’s linked beliefs in socialism, inequality, and eugenics were widely shared on the left, particularly amongst Marxists and Fabians with scientific interests. Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Havelock Ellis, Eden and Cedar Paul, H.J. Laski, Graham Wallas, Emma Goldman, H.G. Wells, Edward Aveling, Julian Huxley, Joseph Needham, C.P. Snow, H.G. Muller and Paul Kammerer-to note just some of the more prominent figures-all advocated (though in varying forms; some “positive” and some “negative,”s ome here and now and some only in the socialist future) the improvement of the genetics tock of the humanr ace through selective breeding.3 It was Shaw who argued that “there is now no reasonable excuse for refusing to face the fact that nothing but a eugenic religion can save our civilization,” Eden Paul that “unless the socialist is a eugenicist as well, the socialist state will speedily perish from racial degradation” and H.J. Laski that “the different rates of fertility in the sound and pathological stocks point to a future swamping of the better by the worse. As a nation, we are faced by race suicide.”4 In the approximate half-century separating the work of Galton from the rise of fascism (which more than any other factor was responsible for the collapse of socialist enthusiasm for eugenics), such views were common.”

It should be noted there that 3 of the 4 founders of the Fabian Society, the Webbs and HG Wells, were named, as was the older brother of Aldous Huxley, Sir Julian Huxley, as being staunch supporters of eugenics.

Fabian Society founder, H.G Wells himself writes: “And how will the new republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black? how will it deal with the yellow man? how will it tackle that alleged termite in the civilized woodwork, the Jew? Certainly not as races at all. It will aim to establish, and it will at last, though probably only after a second century has passed, establish a world state with a common language and a common rule. All over the world its roads, its standards, its laws, and its apparatus of control will run. It will, I have said, make the multiplication of those who fall behind a certain standard of social efficiency unpleasant and difficult… The Jew will probably lose much of his particularism, intermarry with Gentiles, and cease to be a physically distinct element in human affairs in a century or so. But much of his moral tradition will, I hope, never die. … And for the rest, those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency?

Well, the world is a world, not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go.The whole tenor and meaning of the world, as I see it, is that they have to go. So far as they fail to develop sane, vigorous, and distinctive personalities for the great world of the future, it is their portion to die out and disappear.”

[“Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought (1901), The Faith, Morals, and Public Policy of The New Republic,” p. 340 – 343]

Furthermore, Diane Paul notes, concerning fellow Fabian Society Founder, Sydney Sheldon and of the Fabian Society itself:

“Indeed, in Britain and the United States there once existed a movement popularly known as “Bolshevik Eugenics.” In both countries, the enthusiasm that many biologists, like their colleagues in other disciplines, felt for the Soviet Union was rooted in their conviction that it would spur scientific development and promote a scientific outlook. For the biologists, the test of a scientific outlook was generally identified with a society’s attitude towards eugenics; that is, its willingness to adopt a genuinely scientific stance towards questions of what used to be called “race betterment.” The Marxist and Fabian biologists believed that Western societies had largely failed this test. To the extent that eugenic sentiment had taken hold, it was used in a pseudo-scientific way to buttress the conventional social order; to provide a scientific gloss on racial and class prejudices. There could be no valid comparison of the intrinisic worth of different individuals, they asserted, in a class-stratified society.

Interestingly, they differed over what they thought a fair test would indicate about the nature of genetic differences among classes; the English (including Haldane) tending to assume that the upper classes contained a disproportionate number of the fit-that is, those with the genes making for greater initiative and intelligence-and the Americans (such as H.J. Muller) assuming that if any class-linked differences existed, they would favor the masses. But they all agreed that, at a minimum, individuals varied significantly in their genetic endowments, not just in respect to physical characteristics or even intelligence but also in respect to specific traits of character and personality; that the fitter should be encouraged, and the less fit discouraged, from reproducing; and that such a policy could only be successfully pursued in a society that provided approximately equal opportunities to all its members. That the Soviet Union was perceived as such a society, and hence promised to provide the first socially-responsible opportunity to test and apply eugenical principles, was an element in its appeal to scientists.6

Were it not for widely-held assumptions regarding what Right and Left must stand for, there would be nothing surprising in the above remarks. Social Darwinism, after all, was associated at least in Britain with a commitment to unrestricted laissez-faire and emphasis on individual choice while eugenics implied, at a minimum, the development of a social, and often a state, concern with reproduction. As Sidney Webb wrote: “No consistent eugenist can be a ‘Laisser Faire’ individualist unless he throws up the game in despair. He must interfere, interfere, interfere!”7 ” [Diane Paul, “Eugenics and the Left,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Oct. – Dec., 1984), 569-570]

The evidence on Aldous Huxley is somewhat circumstantial, with a case being made that his 1962 Berkeley University Speech “The Ultimate Revolution” was an admission that “Brave New World” was an insider’s blueprint of the future rather than mere fiction. However quotes by his borther (also a cousin of Charles Galton) are far more damning.

“The lowest strata… allegedly less well endowed genetically… must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive…”

— Julian Huxley, Galton Lecture at the Eugenics Society, 1936

“Thus, even though it is quite true that any radical eugenics policy of controlled human breeding will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care…”

— Julian Huxley, “UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy”, 1947

Remember that this was a man who was a member of the British Eugenics Society from at least 1925 when he was awarded a life fellowship, its Vice-President from 1937–1944 and its President from 1959–1962 when he was 74.

Furthermore, as L.J. Ray notes:

“First, Fabians, even though they were well aware of the economic origins of social problems, did not always look to resource allocation as a means of explaining the existence of a social problem group. Some of their views were close to those of the eugenist, Lidbetter. whose pedigree study of 172 families in the social problem group (East London), provided a characteristic statement. In 1932 Lidbetter described paupers, TB sufferers, mental defectives, lunatics, and sufferers from hereditary blindness, as,

“a race of sub-normal people, closely related by marriage or parenthood, not to any extent recruited from the normal population, nor sensibly diminished by agencies for social or individual improvement. [15]”

In other words, pauperism, mental deficiency, and chronic illness could be removed by technical means (especially segregation and sterilisation) which did not seriously affect existing resource allocation. This was by then a well-established Fabian attitude. H. G. Wells, on hearing Galton’s exposition of ‘eugenic religion’ before the Sociology Society in 1905, himself had advocated ‘sterilisation of failures’ [16]. Shaw had agreed that “nothing but a eugenic religion can save our civilization” [17], and

for a time had been a lecturer for the Eugenic Education Society. Sidney Webb had shared the eugenists’ concern for possible degeneration of the racial stock resulting from the differential birth rate. In 1907 he had argued not for flat rate benefits, but

for the “endowment of motherhood”, since the alternative was, “this country gradually falling to the Irish and the Jews” [18].”

[L. J. Ray, “Eugenics, Mental Deficiency and Fabian Socialism between the Wars”, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 9, No. 3, Mental Handicap and Education (1983), pp.216]

He then goes on to add:

“Again, in a Fabian pamphlet, Eden Paul posed the question of what is to be done with the residuum in a socialist state? At present, he argued, society exerts dysgenic influences in three ways: war eliminates superior stocks; lack of provision for the feeble-minded allows their excessive multiplication; and women’s economic dependence on men selects the less fit women to be mothers, while the least cooperative and most competitive men are selected as fathers. Socialism, he argued would abolish war; limit choice of mates by preventing marriage amongst the unfit; and make men and women economically independent of

one another. This would also involve sterilisation of the chronic insane (with their consent), and segregation of anti-social types into protective institutions, or selfgoverning islands. Only with socialism, according to Paul, would the dysgenic influences of capitalism be eradicated, thus “Socialism and Eugenics must work hand in hand” [23].

[L. J. Ray, “Eugenics, Mental Deficiency and Fabian Socialism between the Wars”, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 9, No. 3, Mental Handicap and Education (1983), pp.216-217]

This is followed by:

“Consistent with this potential for convergence between Fabian socialism and eugenics, there is some evidence that the latter attempted to make inroads into the Labour Movement itself. During their campaign to gain support for a Sterilisation Bill, the Eugenics Society attempted to influence the policies of Labour and Cooperative Party branches, especially between 1935 and 1937. Tables I-III show how the national campaign on sterilisation was concentrated on a few types of organisations: Cooperative and Labour Party branches, Colleges of Nursing, Women’s Guilds, and other voluntary organisations. Throughout this period, Eugenics Society speakers gave Labour branches high priority even though slightly fewer resolutions were put here than to Colleges of Nursing. Even so, during this period, 35% of resolutions put went to Labour branches, as did 32% of Eugenic Society

Lectures [24].”

[L. J. Ray, “Eugenics, Mental Deficiency and Fabian Socialism between the Wars”, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 9, No. 3, Mental Handicap and Education (1983), pp.217]

In terms of the Stolen Generation, Robertson writes in his article for The Guardian “We should say sorry, too” [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/feb/14/australia] that:

“Much as white Australians may castigate themselves today for their deluded assimilation efforts, it is necessary, as with every genocide, to sheet home responsibility to the intellectual authors of the policy. These were the Fabian socialist heroes who believed eugenics principles could be applied to produce a “superior” society. Sydney and Beatrice Webb, John Maynard Keynes and Bertrand Russell all supported this cause. George Bernard Shaw argued for humane extermination of “the sort of people who do not fit in”. Marie Stopes publicly pleaded for the sterilisation of the “hopelessly rotten and racially diseased”. Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence privately urged that the state should eradicate “imbeciles”. Their slogan was the vile aphorism of Oliver Wendell Holmes: “three generations of imbeciles are enough”.”

Furthermore he goes on to write:

“Against this background, Neville’s “absorption” policy, adopted in 1937, was regarded as progressive. It was in line with modern thinking in the UK, where a Department of Health report had in 1934 recommended compulsory sterilisation of the “feeble-minded”, a class comprising “a quarter of a million mental defectives and a far larger number of the mentally subnormal”. It was not implemented, mainly because of opposition from Labour MPs, who feared working-class people would be the real victims of the Fabian intelligentsia.”

In short, the Fabian Societys has alway had, at best, a legacy of being stauch proponents of a radically driven, pro-eugenic reform.

The counterclaim to all of this has always been that then Fabian Society has “changed” since those days, yet considering its deep involvement in the eugenics movement and the fact that it has had links with the British Eugenics Society up until at least the 1960s, such claims are at best, questionable.

The fact that the Australian Fabian Society openly claims to base itself on the ideas of the British Fabian Society, inconjunction with the QALY based approach of prominent Australian Fabian Society Member Julia Gillard’s National Health Care Reforms, significantly undermines such assertions. After all, as the same approach implemented through Obamacare in the US and N.I.C.E. in the UK have demonstrated, Gillard’s reforms have the 1936 health care reform proposals of Sir Julian Huxley, written all over them.

As for Kevin Rudd, your example is no longer valid and at best, could have been argued to be a case of subterfuge. The ALP could have looked to the reforms of Chiffley and Curtin to isolate the commercial banking sector from the investment banking sector, yet instead chose to prop up the banks via bail-in by stealth (after all, all the stimulus payments went directly into bank accounts) – which has resulted in a situation where the big 4 were able to continue their derivatives binge and now have accumulated more than $20 trillion worth of toxic debts between them.

Furthermore, by 2010, Rudd led the change for global “bail-in” legislation, by being a key proponent of the establishment of the FSB and pushing for “bail-in” legislation as of at least 2010 (which by the way has been proven by documents from Treasury, the FSB, the IMF and the AFMA- compiled here: http://www.cecaust.com.au/bail-in/ ). Furthermore, as Wikileaks have proven, it was the Rudd Government who entered Australia into the TPP and supported the measures of secrecy involved with it. To claim anything other than that the Rudd government was pushing a pro-Mont Pellerin Society based agenda by at least 2010, is blatant denialism.

It’s ironic that for someone who purportedly represents an independent media outlet, that your response would smack of a mainstream media narrative based response.