The Truth is Out: The Fathers of British Socialism Were Eugenicists

“Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well.”

“The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”

~ George Bernard Shaw

Last year, Johnathan Freedland of The Guardian had the intellectual honesty to admit, publicly, that the political Left of the United Kingdom has an ugly and guilty secret. What is this secret? The secret is that many who are deemed to be the founding fathers of British Socialism were members of the British Eugenics Society and supported the 'weeding' out, mostly through discouragement in breeding, of the 'feckless' or 'unfit'.

If you read the comments that flowed from The Guardian's loyal readers, you'll see the sense of horror that one of their own told the truth - namely - that the moral underpinnings of socialism in Great Britain are discredited because the (mostly) Fabian Society members who developed socialism in the country were out and out eugenicists. They were utopian-thinkers, true, but their utopia really did involve the crushing of individual human liberty down even into planning who could breed (let's call it 'reproductive health') - who was 'fit' for 'purpose' - and who could not breed - who was 'unfit'. It was the age of science, it was the age of progress, it was the age of eugenics - but - it appears, it is something that was particularly strident in Fabian socialist thought. Remember, lest we forget, we are still in that age.

John Maynard Keyes (right)

The similarities between the views of the Fabian Society and British Eugenics Society (and Royal Society) members and Hitler's Nazi ideology are striking and Johnathan Freedland should be applauded for having the guts to say so.

Freedland was even honest enough to take on the British Queen of Eugenics - that'll be Marie Stopes - not Elizabeth II (as far as we know) - and call her out over the appalling things she wrote about the removal of the 'defectives'. Basically, she dedicated her life to the 'weeding out' from society of people she deemed, like the psychopath she was, were not fit for breeding or even existence. A woman we assume to be a natural creature of the Left, Stopes adored Hitler and praised his eugenic policies, but then, George Bernard Shaw seems to have also praised the same tyrannical, evil leaders of the 20th century.

The Left loves to chide the Catholic Church on its record with regimes throughout history and took great delight in pointing out that Pope Benedict XVI was, as a child, a member of Hitler Youth, but the Left do not like being reminded that most of its heroes advocated social policies that are, objectively, genuinely evil - even in their own eyes. These are the policies that bring down the moral credibility that these men (and they were mostly men) once had - or, at least - they should. The political Left defends abortion and artificial contraception, because its about 'choice' but if you remind them of what Marie Stopes and Margaret Sanger actually wanted to achieve in her lifetime and beyond in terms of eugenics, they change the topic of conversation or consider her a 'product of her time'. Marie Stopes, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, William Beveridge - these people never recanted their fundamental views that through eugenics you could create a more 'perfect' society.

Today, Brendan O'Neill, who is not a natural creature of the Left, has done humanity a service by reminding his readers on his Telegraph blog that John Maynard Keynes was a supporter of eugenics - so it is not just his economic policies that are now discredited, but his social policies as well. The Left, of course, hates this and will cry out that 'we've changed', but those who align themselves with the political Left, in this country, must sooner or later let their idols fall and see the truth about the men and women who lead the vision for the transformation of society by the Establishment for the 'good of the people'. The Fabian Society, whose motto is still, 'When I strike, I strike hard' (they are not talking about industrial action) are still working hard to build that vision of a society steeped in 'social planning' and Ed Miliband still seeks their approval, just as Blair did.

Meanwhile, a caveat should be added. Eugenics appeals to the political Left and also to creatures of the Right. The ideology and pseudo-science behind it is that pernicious. It is like a cancer in the political Establishment and in society as well. George Osborne still take time to pander to the Royal Society, an institution whose hall of fame in terms of membership includes many of the creatures of the Left who supported eugenics in their own time and we can be sure includes many who still support it. It is said to be Osborne who is particularly driving the 'same-sex marriage' population-control and social transformation package - the package to which nearly all political parties bar one have now signed up.

The only - let us remind ourselves - the only major organisation - the only Body - that has consistently fought eugenics and loathed this evil ideology is the Catholic Church. Few writers took on the eugenicists of his time, but G.K Chesterton did. From top to bottom, the Catholic Church fought it and still fights it today.

She has always condemned its reasoning, logic and hideous mantras, so often parading themselves as noble when behind their deceits lays a cold, brutal, hatred of humanity. At the end of the Second World War the reality of this monstrous ideology was laid bare in Dachau and Auschwitz. So called 'soft' eugenics supporters now like to distance themselves from that terrible regime, but the cold reality is that Hitler was only putting into stark and terrible practice those policies that were communicated through the social darwinism and its attendant eugenic mentality that washed over Europe's political scene, bringing chaos and destruction to all. Were it not for social darwinism, eugenics and its attending evils, Europe would not have had the evils perpetuated by Hitler.

The same people who don't less people born are, perhaps not surprisingly, the people who want more people dead. Those who align themselves with today's political Left need to wake up. What on earth makes them believe that the today's politicians and the members of such societies and institutes that advocate a more subtle form of eugenics through abortion, artificial contraception and 'same-sex marriage' and euthanasia have changed? Of course our political Establishment has not changed! The political leaders of today continue to advance the agenda of those who came before them, across Europe and of course in the USA. The fight against the evil of eugenics continues and will continue as long, I dare say, as we breathe. Yet, how sad it is that the Bishops of England and Wales, whose response to the horror of abortion is largely indifference, whose response to 'same-sex marriage' is largely woeful, have decided to look away again, when considering the evil that is the Liverpool Care Pathway. May God forgive them, embolden them to fight evil and injustice and may God have mercy on us all!