Abstract

These unpublished writings of Beatrice Potter on the history of English economy and on Karl Marx’s economic theory represent the first phase of her elaboration of a new science of society, in the face of the crisis of individualism and laissez faire. They are the first steps of an intellectual and political path that at the end of the Victorian age will lead her to become the patroness of British sociology and a leader of Fabian socialism. Her peculiar critique of political economy is also an essential contribution to the history of English and European political thought. Potter casts here the foundations of a different socialist doctrine that, starting from Fabian Society’s reformism, will produce a conception of State and civilization that re-elaborates Marxian thought on the ethical and social level.