Mr. Shaw, in order to prove how fully he understands the question of Ability, quotes the case of a friend of his, who, by his Ability, makes four thousand pounds a year. This, says Mr. Shaw, is just as it should be: but if a man, like his friend, should save one hundred thousand pounds, and desire to leave this to his son, invested for him at 3½ per cent, so that the son may receive an income whether he has any of his father’s ability or no—this, says Mr. Shaw, is what Socialism will not permit. The son must earn all he gets; and if he happens to have no exceptional ability, which may probably be the case, he will have to put up with the mere wages of manual labour. He will have to live on some eighty pounds a year instead of four thousand pounds. And Mr. Shaw says, that to introduce this arrangement into our social system will have no appreciable effect on the men who are now making, by their ability, their four thousand pounds a year. Let us suggest to him the following reflections. What good, in that case, would the four thousand pounds a year be to the father, unless he were to eat and drink nearly the whole of it himself? For it would be absurd and cruel in him to bring up his children in luxury if the moment he died they would have to become scavengers. Wealth is mainly valuable, and sought for, not for the sake of the pleasures of sense which it secures for a man’s individual nervous system, but for the sake of the entourage—of the world—which it creates around him, which it peoples with companions for him brought up and refined in a certain way, and in which alone his mere personal pleasures can be fully enjoyed. Capitalism, as Mr. Shaw truly observes, produces many personal inequalities, which without it could not exist. He fails to understand that it is precisely the prospect of producing such inequalities that constitutes the main motive that urges able men to create Capital.
More than ten years ago I published a book called Social Equality, devoted to the exposition of these truths. I cannot dwell upon them now. In that book history is appealed to, and biography is appealed to; and the special case of literary and artistic production, of which Mr. Shaw makes so much, is considered in a chapter devoted to the subject, and Mr. Shaw’s precise arguments are disposed of in anticipation. But to a great extent the true doctrine of motive is one which cannot be established by mere formal argument. It must to a great extent be left to the verdict of the jury of general common sense, the judgment of men of experience and knowledge of the world—that knowledge which, of all others, Mr. Shaw and his friends appear to be most lacking in.
It will be enough, then, to turn from Mr. Shaw himself to ordinary sensible men, especially to the men of exceptional energy, capacity, shrewdness, strong will, and productive genius—the men who are making fortunes, or who have just made them, and without whose efforts all modern industry would be paralysed, and to tell such men that the sole answer of Fabianism to my attack on the Socialistic position is summed up in the following astounding statement:—That the complete confiscation of all the invested money in this country, and all the incomes derived from it—from the many thousands a year going to the great organiser of industry to the hundred a year belonging to the small retired tradesman—would have no effect whatever on the hopes and efforts of those who are now devoting their Ability to making money to invest (see Mr. Shaw’s article). Well—Bos locutus est: there is the quintessence of Mr. Shaw’s knowledge of human nature and of the world, and though it would be interesting and instructive to analyse the error of his view, no analysis could make its absurdity seem more complete than it will seem without analysis, to every practical man.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Writers also from whom better things might have been expected make use of the same foolish language. “The proletarian, in accepting the highest bid, sells himself openly into bondage” (Fabian Essays, p. 12).
[2] According to Professor Leone Levi, the actual sum would be one hundred and thirteen million pounds: but in dealing with estimates such as these, in which absolute accuracy is impossible, it is better, as well as more convenient, to use round numbers. More than nine-tenths of this sum belongs to the income of the classes that pay income-tax. Of the working-class income, not more than two per cent is counted twice over, according to Professor Leone Levi.
[3] There is a general agreement amongst statisticians with regard to these figures. Cf. Messrs Giffen, Mulhall, and Leone Levi passim.
[4] Out of any thousand inhabitants, two hundred and fifty-eight are under ten years of age; and three hundred and sixty-six out of every thousand are under fifteen.
[5] Statistics in support of the above result might be indefinitely multiplied, both from European countries and America. So far as food is concerned, scientific authorities tell us that if twenty represents the amount required by a man, a woman will require fifteen, and a child eleven; but the total expenditures necessary are somewhat different in proportion.
[6] The total imperial taxation in the United Kingdom is about two pounds eight shillings per head; and the total local taxation is about one pound four shillings. Thus the two together come to three pounds twelve shillings per head, which for every family of four and a half persons gives a total of sixteen pounds four shillings.