Reformers rather than marxists. henry m. hyndman and henry george: two intellectual biographies during the prodigious decade of english socialism (1880-1890)

This work draws from two political biographies to summarize a moment in the intellectual debate about English Socialism during nineteenth century, to review a period that it goes from the emergence of the first party self-identified as “socialist” in the country, in 1881, to the publication of Fabian Essays, in 1889, when collectivist ideas drive a crucial generational change in the Fabian Society, central to understand the emergence of the Labour Party. We suggest that the English Socialist tradition is not based solely in a position about the coupling between the relations of production and political decision-making, but also in the championship of a number of values that are not exclusive of a particular ideological tradition, but are somehow visible in the intellectual environment of the period.