The Great Fabian Fallacy

R. H. Tawney, who did even more than Marx to lead his generation of English and American intellectuals to socialism, has now reached the paper backs-his famous Religion and the Rise of Capitalism has been issued as a Mentor Book (New American Library, 50 cents). Thus a work which has fulfilled its destiny in fastening a herd mentality on those who aspire to lead the masses has finally been made available to the masses themselves. If the mass victims of Tawney’s Fabian generation respond by reading it, they may perceive the bitter irony of the truth that spurious notions can be even more effective than honest generalities grounded in evidence and the strictest logic.

This is not to say that Tawney’s ideas about the emergence of the modern world from the breakup of the medieval synthesis are wholly wrong. But the socialist deduction from its central thesis is a great hoax. Tawney—and Max Weber before him—was accurate enough in his presentation of the development of capitalism in a time when other-worldliness was giving way to this-worldliness during Renaissance and Reformation. It is quite obvious that when men cease to live primarily with an eye to their Heavenly destiny, they will pay more attention to mundane matters.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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R. H. Tawney, who did even more than Marx to lead his generation of English and American intellectuals to socialism, has now reached the paper backs-his famous Religion and the Rise of Capitalism has been issued as a Mentor Book (New American Library, 50 cents). Thus a work which has fulfilled its destiny in fastening a herd mentality on those who aspire to lead the masses has finally been made available to the masses themselves. If the mass victims of Tawney’s Fabian generation respond by reading it, they may perceive the bitter irony of the truth that spurious notions can be even more effective than honest generalities grounded in evidence and the strictest logic.

This is not to say that Tawney’s ideas about the emergence of the modern world from the breakup of the medieval synthesis are wholly wrong. But the socialist deduction from its central thesis is a great hoax. Tawney—and Max Weber before him—was accurate enough in his presentation of the development of capitalism in a time when other-worldliness was giving way to this-worldliness during Renaissance and Reformation. It is quite obvious that when men cease to live primarily with an eye to their Heavenly destiny, they will pay more attention to mundane matters.