ed existing intellectual
conditions and political institutions as beyond its control or
assumed that they will obediently modify as economic and
administrative necessity dictates.... Achieve your expropriation,
said the early Fabians, get your network of skilled experts over
the country, and your political forms, your public opinion, your
collective soul will not trouble you."[133]

Here Mr. Wells shows that, while the practical difficulties of making
collectivism serve all the people were ignored on the one hand, the
first need of the people, political education, was neglected on the
other. It is true that during the first few years of its existence the
Fabian Society made a great and successful effort to educate public
opinion in a Socialist direction, but soon its leading members deserted
all such larger work, to support various administrative "experiments."

Mr. Wells referred to this same type of Socialism in his "Misery of
Boots":--

"Let us be clear about one thing: that Socialism means revolution,
and that it means a change in the everyday texture of life. It
_may_ be a very gradual change, but it will be a very complete one.
You cannot change the world, and at the same time not change the
world. You will find Socialists about, or at any rate men calling
themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so, who
will assure you that some odd little jobbing about municipal gas
and water is Socialism, and backstairs intervention between
Conservative and Liberal the way to the millennium.... Socialism
aims to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the
clothes they wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the
education they get, their places, their honors, and all their
possessions. Socialism aims to make a new world out of the old. It
can only be attained by the intelligent, outspoken, courageous
resolve of a great multitude of men and women. You must get
absolutely clear in your mind that Socialism means a _complete
change, a break with history_, with much that is picturesque;
_whole classes will vanish_. The world will be vastly different,
with different sorts of houses, different sorts of people. All the
different trades and industries will be changed, the medical
profession will be carried on under different conditions,
engineering, science, t