The Intelligant Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism - neues Buch

THE INTELLIGENT WOMANS GUIDE TO SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM BY BERNARD SHAW - 1928 - TABLE OF CONTENTS I - A CLOSED QUESTION OPENS Socialism is an opinion as to how the income of the country should be distributed. Its distribution is not a natural phenomenon it is a matter for arrangement, subject to change like any other arrangement. It has been changed within living memory to an extent that would have seemed incredible and scandalous to Queen Victoria, and is still being changed from year to year. Therefore what we have to consider is not whether our distribution shall be altered or not, but what further changes are desirable to attain a prosperous stability. This is the closed question which re-opened in the nineteenth century under the banner of Socialism but it is one on which everyone should try to form an original personal opinion without prompting from Socialists . PAGE 1 DIVIDING-UP Dividing-up is neither a revolutionary novelty nor a Mosaic jubilee it is a necessary and unpostponable daily and hourly event of civilized life. As wealth consists of food that becomes uneatable unless immediately consumed, and of articles that wear out in use and perish if kept unused, it must be divided-up and consumed at once. Saving is impossible the things will not keep. What is called saving is a bargain whereby a person in possession of spare food allows another to consume it in return for an undertaking to reverse the transaction at some future time. Between the two nothing is saved, as one consumes what the other saves. A proposal that everybody should save is pure nonsense. A nation which stopped working would perish within a fortnight even if every member of it had saved a million . 6 Thisquestion does not settle itself. It has to be settled by law and enforced by the police. If the shares are to be altered the law must be altered. Examples of existing distribution. This has today become so repugnant to the general moral conception of fairness and so incompatible with the public health that there is a general revulsion of feeling against it. But the revulsion can have no political effect until it becomes arithmetically precise. It cannot be dealt with in terms of more or less the question of how much more or less must be exactly determined. And as wealth is measured in money, distribution must be dealt with in terms ofincome. . 7 4 NO WEALTH WITHOUT WORK As a nation lives from hand to mouth there must be continuous productive labor or there will be no food to distribute. But though everyone must eat, everyone need vii not work, because under modem conditions each of us can produce much more than enough to support one person. If everyone worked everyone would havea gooddeal of leisure. But it is possible to arrange that some people shall do all the work and have no leisure in order that others should have all leisure and no work. These two extremes are represented by complete Socialism and complete Slavery. Serfdom and Feudalism and Capitalism are intermediate stages. The continual struggle of persons and classes to alter the allotment of the labor task and the distribution of wealth and leisure in their own favor is the key to the history of revolutions. Enormous increase of the stakes in this game through modern discoveries and inventions . PACE 9 5 COMMUNISM Communism must be considered without personal, political, or religious prejudice as a plan of distribution likeany other. It was the plan of the apostles, and is universally practised in the famiIy. It is indispensable in modem cities...