The whole post was trying to explain the way one really does influence the government and persuade the unconvinced. Carrol <<<<<>>>>>
urbane humor of george bernard shaw's fabianism (sidney/beatrice webb were stiff shirts) is great fun if one is willing to renounce tactics of insurrection/r evolutionary confrontation *and" commit to 'inevitability of gradualness' that raises questions as to whether 'what's left' should be included within socialist framework...
while fabians attracted some of finest minds of their generation (i.e., shaw, webb's, h. g. wells, bertrand russell, harold laski, r. h. tawney, graham wallas, john galsworthy, their numbers were always small...in fact, they purposely kept their numbers small because they perceived that their strength was in written word, not in organizational ability...so they rejected class warfare, direct activism, efforts to form political party...re latter, they tried to influence other parties to adopt their doctrine/ program... believe shaw said something to effect that 'all fabians have a price, adoption of fabian measures, no matter the party'...
of course, some might write fabians off as intellectual snobs who avoided dirtying their hands with worker organizations, limiting their attempts to recruit new members to be those they considered their intellectual peers... michael hoover