"The policy of Fabianism has thus been somewhat as follows. An intellectual circle has sought to permeate all classes, from the top to the bottom, with a common opinion in favour of social control of socially created values. Resolved to permeate all classes, it has not preached class-consciousness; it has worked as much with and through Liberal 'capitalists' as with and through Labour representatives. Resolved gradually to permeate, it has not been revolutionary: it has relied on the slow growth of opinion. Reformist rather than revolutionary, it has explained the impossibility of the sudden 'revolution' of the working classes against capital: it has urged the necessity of a gradual amelioration of social conditions by a gradual assertion of social control over unearned increment.[55] Hence Fabianism has not adopted the somewhat cold attitude of the pure Socialist Party to Trade Unions, but has rather found in their gradual conquest of better wages and better conditions for the workers the line of social advance congenial with its own principles. Again, it has preached that the society which is to exert control must be democratic, if the control is to be, as it must be, self-control: it has taught that such democratic self-control must primarily be exerted in democratic local self-government: it has emphasised the need of reconciling democratic control with expert guidance. While it has never advocated 'direct action' or the avoidance of political activity, while on the contrary, it has advocated the conquest of social reforms on the fields of parliamentary and municipal government, it has not defended the State as it is, but has rather urged the need for a State which is based on democracy tempered by respect for the 'expert.' In this way Socialism of the Fabian type has made representative democracy its creed. It has adopted the sound position that democracy flourishes in that form of state in which people freely produce, thanks to an equality of educational opportunity, and freely choose, thanks to a wide and active suffrage, their own members for their guidance, and, since they have freely produced and chosen them, give them freely and fully the honour of their trust. And thus Socialists like Mr. Sidney Webb and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald have not coquetted with primary democracy, which has always had a magnetic attraction for Socialists. The doctrine that the people itself governs directly through obedient agents--the doctrine of mandate and plebiscite, of referendum and initiative--is not the doctrine of the best English Socialism." Mr. Barker next explains that behind these ideas lies "an organic theory of society," that society is regarded as "an organic unity with a real 'general will' of its own," and after stating that "the development of Liberalism, during the last few years, shows considerable traces of Fabian influence," concludes the subject with the words "Collectivism of the Fabian order was the dominant form