Essays In Socialism New Old

Author : Bernard Shaw
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781495433627
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (336 download)

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Download or read book Fabian Essays in Socialism written by Bernard Shaw and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An excerpt from the Economic Review, Volume 1: "THIS is a complete exposition of English Socialism in its latest maturest phase," says Mr. Sidney Webb ("Socialism in England," p. 38). If one of the cleverest contributors had not thus set his own estimate on the aim and value of the volume of essays, a critic who should demand from it a complete and coherent manifesto of the "New Socialism" might fairly be held a little exacting. I do not intend to press Mr. Webb's ambitious description; it would be a graceless and a barren task to employ a microscopic eye in the discovery of inconsistencies in the essays and between the essays of the individual writers; I prefer to view the book as the outcome of a common wave of thought. "Quot homines, tot sententæ;" who would not shrink before the task of editing the contributions of seven keen and original minds? One feels that something of compromise has entered into the collaboration; that some of the writers, at any rate, would have said a good deal more if they had spoken out; that the judicious editor has primed a little paradox and softened -a little vehemence—has endeavoured to make the work not only both popular and scientific, but palatable to bourgeois prejudice withal. Only very rarely (once or twice in Mr. Shaw's essays) the "lyrical note" of the older revolutionary Socialism breaks out. But for the most part there is nothing of savagery, except the frontispiece of the popular edition, and that is doubtless a typographical survival. We must take the "New Socialism" at its own professions. The older creed—the pathetic and impatient belief in the immediate perfectibility of human nature, and in the saving virtue of the purifying fires of revolutionary catastrophes—has been tamed by experience. Socialists—Fabian Socialists, at any rate—are adopting "historical" methods. This change of front is as striking as it is welcome, showing, as it does, that the issues are no longer to be committed to the stronger arm, but to the better argument. Mr. Webb has armed himself with a new weapon; he has turned to the interpretation of the history of the last hundred years for comfort and encouragement. "We are all Socialists, now!" said Sir William Harcourt in his haste: Mr. Webb insists on taking Sir William seriously. Yet history may not turn out such a facile disciple as M. Jourdain, and "Individualism," or whatever may be the antithesis of Socialism, is not quite driven from the field. Mr. Webb deals furiously with facts and figures, but a sceptic might surely come through them unconvinced. No array of facts, however imposing, is of much value, unless it proves the conclusion at issue. To take one of Mr. Webb's strongest instances: the State manages the Post Office because it is not desirable that postal services, and consequently postal rates, should be left to private competition, because it is desirable that postal rates should be equitable rather than proportionate to the expense of transmission in each case, because it is an undertaking which by its nature can be efficiently managed by a Government department. In plain terms, the State is motived by the interests of the nation and by its own, but not, so far as I know, by the desire to confer a benefit on its employees. Does a municipality which takes over the town tramways act otherwise? In other words, is its action dictated by regard to consumers or to labourers? Apply the same test to every other case Mr. Webb quotes to support his thesis. What history in his hands proves is: (1) that private competition is often disastrous; (2) that, a, State regulation, or, ß State annexation of a particular branch of industry, may, under some circumstances, be preferable; (3) that in all these cases the State or subordinate governing body has held itself bound to consult the interest of the consumer....