Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield quotes

Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, was an English socialist, economist, and co-founder of the London School of Economics. A leading member of the Fabian Society, his work greatly influenced British social policy and welfare reforms. He devoted his life to advocating for social justice, labor rights, and education reform. Here are 3 of his quotes:

The capitalist is very fond of declaring that labour is a commodity, and the wage contract a bargain of purchase and sale like any other. But he instinctively expects his wage-earners to render him, not only obedience, but also personal deference. If the wage contract is a bargain of purchase and sale like any other, why is the workman expected to toff his hat to his employer, and to say ‘sir' to him without reciprocity?

Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield

It need hardly be said that the social philosophy of the time did not remain unaffected by the political evolution and the industrial development. Slowly sinking into men's minds all this while was the conception of a new social nexus, and a new end of social life. It was discovered (or rediscovered) that a society is something more than an aggregate of so many individual units-that it possesses existence distinguishable from those of any of its components. A perfect city became recognized as something more than any number of good citizens-something to be tried by other tests, and weighed in other balances than the individual man. The community must necessarily aim, consciously or not, at its continuance as a community: its life transcends that of any of its members; and the interests of the individual unit must often clash with those of the whole.

Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield