Home > Ernest Belfort Bax

Born into a nonconformist religious family in Leamington, he was first introduced to Marxism while studying philosophy in Germany. He combined Marx's ideas with those of Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann. Keen to explore possible metaphysicalMetaphysical may refer to: Metaphysics, a branch of philosophy dealing with the ultimate nature of reality; or The Metaphysical poets, a poetic school from seventeenth century England who correspond with baroque period in European literature. A style of p and ethical implications of socialism, he came to describe a "religion of socialism" as a means to overcome the dichotomyA dichotomy is a division into two non-overlapping or mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive, parts. They are often contrasting and spoken of as "opposites". The term comes from dichotomos (divided): dich- ([in] two) temnein (to cut). In biology, a dichot between the personal and the social, and also that between the cognitive and the emotional . He saw this as a replacement for organised religion , and was a fervent atheist, keen to free workers from what he saw as the moralismMoralism is the philosophy of adherence to morality. Unlike religious fundamentalism moralists place no value in deferring to a religious doctrine, rather frame terms and actions with a universal humanist ethic. See Universalism Secular Humanism Ethics. of the petty bourgeoisie.

Bax moved to BerlinBerlin [ bɛrˈliːn ] is the national capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,387,404 inhabitants (as of September 2004); down from 4. 5 million before World War II. Berlin is located on the rivers Spree and Havel in the northea and worked as a journalist on the Evening Standard. On his return to England in 1882, he joined the SDF, but grew disillusioned and in 1885 left to form the Socialist League with William Morris. After anarchists gained control of the League, rejoined the SDF, and became the chief theoretician, and editor of the party paper Justice. He opposed the party's participation in the Labour Representation Committee, and eventually persuaded them to leave.

Almost throughout his life, he saw economic conditions as ripe for socialism, but felt this progress was delayed by a lack of education of the working class. He supported Karl Kautsky over Eduard Bernstein, but Kautsky had little time for what he saw as Bax's utopianism, and supported Theodore Rothstein 's efforts to spread a more orthodox Marxism in the SDF.

Initially very anti-nationalist, Bax came to support the British in World War I, but by this point he was concentrating on his career as a barrister and did little political work.