Ernest Belfort Bax was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 journalist and philosopher, associated with the Social Democratic Federation

Social Democratic Federation

The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...

 (SDF).

Born into a nonconformist

Nonconformism

Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...

 religious family in Leamington

Leamington Spa

Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or Leamington or Leam to locals, is a spa town in central Warwickshire, England. Formerly known as Leamington Priors, its expansion began following the popularisation of the medicinal qualities of its water by Dr Kerr in 1784, and by Dr Lambe...

, he was first introduced to Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 while studying philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. He combined Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

's ideas with those of Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

, Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...

 and Eduard von Hartmann. Keen to explore possible metaphysical

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

 and ethical implications of socialism, he came to describe a "religion of socialism" as a means to overcome the dichotomy

Dichotomy

A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts...

 between the personal and the social, and also that between the cognitive and the emotional. He saw this as a replacement for organised religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

, and was a fervent atheist, keen to free workers from what he saw as the moralism of the petty bourgeoisie.

Bax moved to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and worked as a journalist on the Evening Standard

Evening Standard

The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

. On his return to England in 1882, he joined the SDF

Social Democratic Federation

The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...

, but grew disillusioned and in 1885 left to form the Socialist League

Socialist League (UK, 1885)

The Socialist League was an early revolutionary socialist organisation in the United Kingdom. The organisation began as a dissident offshoot of the Social Democratic Federation of Henry Hyndman at the end of 1884. Never an ideologically harmonious group, by the 1890s the group had turned from...

 with William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

. After anarchists gained control of the League, he rejoined the SDF, and became the chief theoretician, and editor of the party paper Justice

Justice (newspaper)

Justice was the weekly newspaper of the Social Democratic Federation in the United Kingdom.The SDF had been known until January 1884 as the Democratic Federation. With the change of name, the organisation launched the paper. Many issues appeared with the by-line "Organ of the Social...

. 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

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

. Bax supported Karl Kautsky

Karl Kautsky

Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician. Kautsky was recognized as among the most authoritative promulgators of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the coming of World War I in 1914 and was called by some the "Pope of...

 over Eduard Bernstein

Eduard Bernstein

Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic theoretician and politician, a member of the SPD, and the founder of evolutionary socialism and revisionism.- Life :...

, but Kautsky had little time for what he saw as Bax's utopianism, and supported Theodore Rothstein

Theodore Rothstein

Theodore Aronovich Rothstein was a journalist, writer and communist. He served as a Soviet ambassador in the 1920s.- Life :Theodore Aronovich Rothstein was born 1871 in the Imperial Russian city of Kovno , the son of a Jewish family.Rothstein left Russia in 1890 for political reasons and settled...

's efforts to spread a more orthodox Marxism

Orthodox Marxism

Orthodox Marxism is the term used to describe the version of Marxism which emerged after the death of Karl Marx and acted as the official philosophy of the Second International up to the First World War and of the Third International thereafter...

 in the SDF.

Initially very anti-nationalist

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, Bax came to support the British in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, but by this point he was concentrating on his career as a barrister

Barrister

A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

 and did little political work.

Bax was an ardent antifeminist

Antifeminism

Antifeminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms. Modern antifeminists say that the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks higher status for women than for men.-History:...

, and wrote many articles in The New Age

The New Age

The New Age was a British literary magazine, noted for its wide influence under the editorship of A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922. It began life in 1894 as a publication of the Christian Socialist movement; but in 1907 as a radical weekly edited by Joseph Clayton, it was struggling...

and elsewhere opposing women's suffrage

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

. In 1908 he wrote The Legal Subjection of Men as a response to John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

's 1869 essay "The Subjection of Women

The Subjection of Women

The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...

." In 1913 he published an essay, The Fraud of Feminism, detailing feminism's adverse effects. Section titles included "The Anti-Man Crusade," "The 'Chivalry' Fake," "Always The 'Injured Innocent,'" and "Some Feminist Lies and Fallacies."

Works

He wrote the following books on various subjects:

• Jean-Paul Marat: A Historico-Biographical Sketch (1882)
• Handbook to the History of Philosophy (1884)
• A Short Account of the Commune of Paris of 1871, with Victor Dave & William Morris
  William Morris
  William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
  
   (1886)
• Religion of Socialism (1886)
• French Revolution (1890)
• Outlooks From a New Standpoint (1891)
• The Problem of Reality (1893)
• The Ethics of Socialism (1893)
• German Society at the Close of The Middle Ages (1894)
• The Paris Commune (1894)
• Socialism; Its Growth and Outcome, with William Morris (1894)
• The Peasants War (1899)
• Jean-Paul Marat: The People's Friend (1900)
• The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists (1900)
• A New Catechism of Socialism, with Harry Quelch
  Harry Quelch
  Henry "Harry" Quelch , known exclusively by his nickname "Harry," was one of the first Marxists in Great Britain. He was a socialist activist, journalist and trade unionist...
  
   (1903)
• Essays in Socialism, New and Old(1906)
• The Roots of Reality (1907)
• The Legal Subjection of Men (1908) with an unnamed Irish barrister
• The Last Episode of the French Revolution (1911)
• Problems of Men, Mind, and Morals (1912)
• The Fraud of Feminism (1913)
• Reminiscences and Reflexions of a mid and late Victorian (1918)

External links

• Archive of Bax's work on Marxists.org
• Biography at Marxists.org
• The Legal Subjection of Men, 1908 antithesis of John Stuart Mill
  John Stuart Mill
  John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
  
  's 1869 The Subjection of Women
  The Subjection of Women
  The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...
  
  .
• Fraud of Feminism, full 1913 text online
• Article on Bax at Spartacus.schoolnet