ABSTRACT
The real governing class is the great middle class of small men of business, small traders, small house-owners, farmers, salaried employees, civil servants, intellectuals, and even well-to-do working men—all more or less of the social type which Sinclair Lewis has described in his novel Babbitt. In the particular case of intellectuals, and especially the intellectuals of industry, the capitalist class can certainly, thanks to the power of its money, dispose of the immediate means of domination and influence, and is not slow to use its advantage. The Fabians started from the sound notion that intellectuals were already the dominant class, inasmuch as they actually ruled, though as ministers to the acquisitive interests of others. The intellectual inclines towards socialism in proportion as he feels that the capitalist organisation of society puts hindrances in the way of the fulfilment of his desire to work after his own fashion.
