DOCSLIB.ORG

Beatrice Potter Webb's, Millicent Garrett Fawcett's and Eleanor

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Beatrice Potter Webb's, Millicent Garrett Fawcett's and Eleanor Is Equal Pay Worth It? Beatrice Potter Webb’s, Millicent Garrett Fawcett’s and Eleanor Rathbone’s changing arguments. Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche Centre Walras-Pareto, University of Lausanne Introduction1 In February 1918, some British women over 30 gained the right to vote. This political move has been interpreted by many as a reward for women’s efforts during Wold War I.2 In August of the same year, female tramway and bus conductors in London led a successful strike against unequal war bonuses, claiming the same increase of five shillings a week as their male colleagues. The multiplication of “equal pay strikes” led the War Cabinet to set up a committee to examine the “problem” that “women in industry” constituted; the ‘Atkin Committee’ was appointed in September 1918 to examine the relations between men’s and women’s wages in industry. It presented its report the next year. Part of the official inquiry was to determine whether women received a man’s rate when occupying a “man’s job” following the 1915 “Treasury Agreement” with the Trade Unions; and if not, why? The formula “equal pay for equal work” refers to fair conditions of work either being equal (hour or piece) rates or equal scales of payment for men and women.3 In its historical scope, the formula refers to a burning controversy “which touches not only the pocket but the home” (Edgeworth, 1922a, 431). Can women perform the same job as men in time of emergency? Does not equal pay and women’s work destroy what was considered one of the main bases of Victorian society—the differentiation of the sexes (Vaid 1985)? Should women be paid the men’s rate when they are supposedly not supporting a family? During the first world war, these issues became framed as a question of national (and imperial) survival. 1 I would like to thank Kirsten Madden for asking me to write this chapter. François Allisson, Maria Bach, Nicolas Chachereau, Béatrice Cherrier, Harro Maas, Keith Tribe, Armelle Weil and the members of the Centre Walras-Pareto helped me considerably to improve this work. All errors remain mine. 2 Only women over 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property or graduates from British Universities were granted the right to vote by the Representation of the People Act. The Act also extended the franchise by almost 6 million men, especially those men who lost their right during the war. 3 While more general, the formulation is used almost exclusively in reference to gender discrimination at the time. The debate is also referred to as the ‘comparable worth controversy’. 1 Equal pay had been at the core of many political and intellectual disputes since the mid-19th century. The gradual development of labour legislation and the issue of equal pay in the growing Civil Services administration made it even more burning. Why women were paid less was also a theoretical conundrum for economists, and crystalized methodological debates on the status of empirical inquiry. The rise of the marginalist theory of labour productivity has been far from a unified and linear process. The debates on women’s wages encapsulate the difficult transition from a logic of subsistence to a logic of production, a transition from a theoretically-based discipline to an observational one. The gallery of the “facts” on women’s work—gathering data through large scale surveys in the grey zone between social work and the emerging discipline of sociology—were often opposed to the promotion of traditional moral values.4 Though absent from textbooks and Principles and despite the lack of reliable statistics, unpacking the economic status of women resulted in a flow of articles, reviews, and comments in academic journals (Groenewegen 1994). The scholarly, intellectual, public and political debate over equal pay was, if not dominated, at least shaped by women’s contributions. This chapter concentrates on the arguments of three major contributors: Beatrice Potter Webb (1858-1943), Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929) and Eleanor Rathbone (1872-1946). They were no Oxbridge armchair economists, yet their positions became pre-eminent in the public sphere and in academic debates, in journal publications and in the press, in intellectual circles and parliamentary discussions. In 1915, Beatrice Webb signed a “Women’s Appeal to Women” to ask for “equal conditions and equal wages for the same work” (War Emergency Workers’ National Committee 1915). That same year, Millicent Garrett Fawcett explained that due to the dramatic increase in women’s productivity which WWI helped to “discover,” women merit equal pay (Fawcett 1917). In 1918, the Family Endowment Committee led by Eleanor Rathbone issued a pamphlet to celebrate the death of the ‘family wage’ as a men-only right.5 My purpose is to outline the personal and intellectual trajectories that led these three major public intellectuals to support equal pay at the end of the war. In doing so, I hope to challenge the tendency to isolate the internal coherence of texts rather than waive together different sources to explore the dynamics of individuals’ thoughts. That they were women 4 If some authors, e.g. A. Marshall and F. Y. Edgeworth, were arguing for the social necessity of “economic chivalry”, the question was increasingly discussed beyond moral arguments; especially within Section F (Statistics and Economic Science) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which funded two major series of works on the issue in 1901-1903 and in 1916-1918 (Howarth 1922, 272-273). 5 The ‘family wage’ is a fiction based on a two-parents, three-children family primarily dependent on the father’s wage to survive. For a history, see Clark 2000. 2 bears to some extent a relation to the fact they work on “women’s problems”.6 But it does not explain their different and changing argumentative strands. For this apparent consensus on equal pay is underpinned by altogether different intellectual, social and political arguments and public images. In the public eye, Fawcett, Webb and Rathbone became epitomes of different political figures: the liberal feminist, the socialist “feminist”, and the new or “welfare feminist.” 7 My contribution is focused on the dialogue between the intellectuals; on their ambiguities, unease and changes of mind regarding the under-researched problem of equal pay in history of economic thought.8 Remarkably, Webb, Fawcett and Rathbone had all initially exhibited a staunch pre-war opposition to the “equal pay for equal work” principle, here too for very different reasons. Webb thought equal pay as a threat to the standard of living of the working class—a standard based primarily on the wage of male breadwinners. Fawcett entered the equal pay discussion from a classical liberal point of view, favouring unrestricted competition on the labour market. She initially opposed equal pay because she thought women would lose the competition game due to their lack of training and education. In the early 1900s, Rathbone saw the formula as a “trap” set by the Trade Unions movement to decrease women’s employment. How did then these three intellectuals eventually find themselves defending the same “erroneous” (Fawcett 1892, 176), “ambiguous” (Webb 1919, 223), or “vague and ill- defined” (Rathbone 1917, 58) formula of “equal pay for equal work” at the end of the war? Unpacking the heterogeneous trajectories which lay beneath my protagonists’ common social background—the three women came from Victorian middle-upper class families with high intellectual and political capital—will allow me to highlight how personal motives, political commitments, epistemic stances and intellectual constructions combined into positions that evolved in reaction to events. I concentrate on their public conversation. If the three intellectuals knew each other and met several times, their “dialogue” is explored through exchanges within the Press, academic journals, and reports. 6 Family relations also shed some light on why many men decided to work on the ‘woman question’. On Sidgwick, Mill and (Henry) Fawcett, see Caine (1994). On Edgeworth, see Chassonnery-Zaïgouche and Cot (2014). 7 The word feminism was first used in France in the 1830s and spread in the UK in the 1900s. Webb never identifies herself as a feminist. Fawcett used the term suffragist or “women’s movement”. Rathbone identified to “new feminism”. 8 Two exceptions are Henderson (1992) and Pujol (1992). 3 First, I briefly present biographical elements to understand from where Fawcett, Webb and Rathbone entered the debate. I then discuss the early positions of Fawcett and Webb in the 1890s as a frontal opposition of two sets of general principles, fabianism and classical liberalism. In the third section, I show how changes occurring before the War served as the catalyst of new arguments which challenged the ‘family wage’. Section 4 analyses the period during and after WWI and the emerging fragile consensus in favour of “equal pay for equal work” principle. Section 1. Three Public Intellectuals Fawcett, Webb and Rathbone entered this debate from different foundational experiences, but not from different milieus.9 Their eminent families included a wealth of successful business leaders, members of parliament, and philanthropists whose commitment were fuelled by Unitarian spirituality and Liberal politics for the Rathbones, utilitarianism and a Tory sensibility for the Potters, conservative turned liberal for the Garretts. If they have in common a childhood in a mansion and a difficult relationship to their mothers, they also reflect in their writings a very similar heroic representation of their fathers, successful Victorian businessmen supporting the emancipatory aspirations of their daughters.10 Despite their shared Victorian middle-upper class background, the three women had entirely different early intellectual experiences and contrasting domestic environments. Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929) is remembered for her early commitment to “the Cause”—the campaign for the enfranchisement of women—and as leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) between 1897 and 1914.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • George Gissing: London's Restless Analyst
    The Gissing Journal Volume XL, Number 3, July 2004 “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” Commonplace Book George Gissing (1857-1903): London’s Restless Analyst1 RICHARD DENNIS University College London “Walk with me, reader, into Whitecross Street. It is Saturday night, the market- night of the poor; also the one evening in the week which the weary toilers of our great city can devote to ease and recreation in the sweet assurance of a morrow unenslaved. Let us see how they spend this ‘Truce of God’; our opportunities will be of the best in the district we are entering.” The first words of Workers in the Dawn, the first published novel of the twenty-two-year-old George Gissing. I don’t think its most enthusiastic ad- vocate could claim that Workers in the Dawn is a masterpiece of English literature. But for all its faults it exemplifies a recurring characteristic of Gissing’s work, and the reason why I, as a historical geographer, have be- come a convert and, today, an enthusiastic proselytizer on his behalf. Gissing encouraged his readers to explore and, more than that, to engage with city life. Sometimes, like many earlier writers, he dealt in generic city- scapes—the “East End,” London beyond City Road, is described in the most general of terms—but more often, and especially in his later novels, Gissing’s London is very precisely defined: his characters live in real streets that the author has explored for himself, even in particular buildings.
    [Show full text]
  • Millicent Fawcett from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
    Millicent Fawcett From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, GBE (11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was an English feminist, intellectual, political and union leader, and writer. She is primarily known for her work as a campaigner for women to have Millicent Fawcett the vote. GBE As a suffragist (as opposed to a suffragette), she took a moderate line, but was a tireless campaigner. She concentrated much of her energy on the struggle to improve women's opportunities for higher education and in 1875 co­founded Newnham College, Cambridge.[1] She later became president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (the NUWSS), a position she held from 1897 until 1919. In July 1901 she was appointed to lead the British government's commission to South Africa to investigate conditions in the concentration camps that had been created there in the wake of the Second Boer War. Her report corroborated what the campaigner Emily Hobhouse had said about conditions in the camps. Contents 1 Early life 2 Married life 3 Later years 4 Political activities Born Millicent Garrett 5 Works 11 June 1847 6 See also Aldeburgh, England, United Kingdom 7 References 8 Archives Died 5 August 1929 (aged 82) 9 External links London, England, United Kingdom Nationality British Occupation Feminist, suffragist, union leader Early life Millicent Fawcett was born on 11 June 1847 in Aldeburgh[2] to Newson Garrett, a warehouse owner from Leiston, Suffolk, and his wife, Louisa née Dunnell (1813–1903), from London.[3][4] The Garrett ancestors had been ironworkers in East Suffolk since the early seventeenth century.[5] Newson Garrett was the youngest of three sons and not academically inclined, although he possessed the family’s entrepreneurial spirit.
    [Show full text]
  • Sidney Webb: Utilitarianism, Positivism, and Social Democracy
    Sidney Webb: Utilitarianism, Positivism, and Social Democracy By Mark Bevir Reference: “Sidney Webb: Utilitarianism, Positivism, and Social Democracy”, Journal of Modern History 74 (2002), 217-252. I. Contact details Address: Department of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1950. Email: [email protected] II. Biographical details Mark Bevir is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley. His publications include The Logic of the History of Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 2 ABSTRACT Sidney Webb is often represented as a descendent of the utilitarians. Social democracy and the welfare state thus stand as the continuing development of Enlightenment rationalism. Alternatively, Webb appears as the representative of a new managerial and administrative class. Social democracy and the welfare state here stand as the elitist and bureaucratic expressions of the power of this class. In contrast to these conventional views, this paper locates Webb in the context of a radicalism, peculiar to the 1870s, composed of ethical positivism and evolutionary sociology. He became a socialist because of his positivist ethic. He defined his socialism in relation to an evolutionary philosophy. And he later adopted collectivism as a result of turning to positivist sociology. Webb’s collectivism, however, provided little assistance in dealing with the dilemmas of the inter-war years. His ethical positivism and evolutionary sociology led him to turn to solutions apparently offered by the Soviet Union. This reinterpretation of Webb suggests a new view of social democracy and the welfare state. We should see them as the changing products of particular ideational and political contexts such as those of the 1870s and 1930s.
    [Show full text]
  • Cooperatives and the Millennium Development Goals
    Cooperatives and the Millennium Development Goals By Johnston Birchall Cooperative Branch & Policy Integration Department International Labour Office, Geneva Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives Copyright © International Labour Organization 2004 First published 2004 Publications of the International Labour Office enjoy copyright under Protocol 2 of the Universal Copyright Convention. Nevertheless, short excerpts from them may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation, application should be made to the ILO Publications Bureau (Rights and Permissions), International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland. The International Labour Office welcomes such applications. Libraries, institutions and other users registered in the United Kingdom with the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE (Fax: +44 171436 3986), in the United States with the Copyright Clearance Centre, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 (Fax: +1 508 750 4470), or in other countries with associated Reproduction Rights Organizations, may make photocopies in accordance with the licences issued to them for this purpose. Birchall, Johnston Cooperatives and the Millennium Development Goals Geneva, International Labour Office, 2004 ISBN 92-2-116148-X The designations employed in ILO publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice, and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the International Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers. The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with their authors, and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of the opinions expressed in them.
    [Show full text]
  • Process Paper and Bibliography
    ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Books Kenney, Annie. Memories of a Militant. London: Edward Arnold & Co, 1924. Autobiography of Annie Kenney. Lytton, Constance, and Jane Warton. Prisons & Prisoners. London: William Heinemann, 1914. Personal experiences of Lady Constance Lytton. Pankhurst, Christabel. Unshackled. London: Hutchinson and Co (Publishers) Ltd, 1959. Autobiography of Christabel Pankhurst. Pankhurst, Emmeline. My Own Story. London: Hearst’s International Library Co, 1914. Autobiography of Emmeline Pankhurst. Newspaper Articles "Amazing Scenes in London." Western Daily Mercury (Plymouth), March 5, 1912. Window breaking in March 1912, leading to trials of Mrs. Pankhurst and Mr. & Mrs. Pethick- Lawrence. "The Argument of the Broken Pane." Votes for Women (London), February 23, 1912. The argument of the stone: speech delivered by Mrs Pankhurst on Feb 16, 1912 honoring released prisoners who had served two or three months for window-breaking demonstration in November 1911. "Attempt to Burn Theatre Royal." The Scotsman (Edinburgh), July 19, 1912. PM Asquith's visit hailed by Irish Nationalists, protested by Suffragettes; hatchet thrown into Mr. Asquith's carriage, attempt to burn Theatre Royal. "By the Vanload." Lancashire Daily Post (Preston), February 15, 1907. "Twenty shillings or fourteen days." The women's raid on Parliament on Feb 13, 1907: Christabel Pankhurst gets fourteen days and Sylvia Pankhurst gets 3 weeks in prison. "Coal That Cooks." The Suffragette (London), July 18, 1913. Thirst strikes. Attempts to escape from "Cat and Mouse" encounters. "Churchill Gives Explanation." Dundee Courier (Dundee), July 15, 1910. Winston Churchill's position on the Conciliation Bill. "The Ejection." Morning Post (London), October 24, 1906. 1 The day after the October 23rd Parliament session during which Premier Henry Campbell- Bannerman cold-shouldered WSPU, leading to protest led by Mrs Pankhurst that led to eleven arrests, including that of Mrs Pethick-Lawrence and gave impetus to the movement.
    [Show full text]
  • The Battle of Equality Contents 1
    The Battle Of Equality Contents 1. Contents 2. Women’s Rights 3. 10 Famous women who made women’s suffrage happen. 4. Suffragettes 5. Suffragists 6. Who didn’t want women’s suffrage 7. Time Line of The Battle of Equality 8. Horse Derby 9. Pictures Woman’s Rights There were two groups that fought for woman's rights, the WSPU and the NUWSS. The NUWSS was set up by Millicent Fawcett. The WSPU was set up by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. The WSPU was created because they didn’t want to wait for women’s rights by campaigning and holding petitions. They got bored so they created the WSPU. The WSPU went to the extreme lengths just to be heard. Whilst the NUWSS jus campaigned for women’s rights. 10 Famous women who made women’s suffrage happen. Emmeline Pankhurst (suffragette) - Leader of the suffragettes Christabel Pankhurst (suffragette)- Director of the most dangerous suffragette activities Constance Lytton (suffragette)- Daughter of viceroy Robert Bulwer-Lytton Emily Davison (suffragette)- Killed by kings horse Millicent Fawcett (suffragist)- Leader of the suffragist Edith Garrud (suffragette)- World professional Jiu-Jitsu master Silvia Pankhurst (suffragist)- Focused on campaigning and got expelled from the suffragettes by her sister Ethel Smyth (suffragette)- Conducted the suffragette anthem with a toothbrush Leonora Cohen (suffragette)- Smashed the display case for the Crown Jewels Constance Markievicz (suffragist)- Played a prominent role in ensuring Winston Churchill was defeated in elections Suffragettes The suffragettes were a group of women who wanted to vote. They did dangerous things like setting off bombs. The suffragettes were actually called The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU).
    [Show full text]
  • Dr. William King and the Co-Operator, 1828-1830
    Dr. William King AN!) THK ,Cp-operator i828^i83o I Edited by T. W. MERCER, nn-: CO-OPERATIVE UNWN Liv Hfornia MO!,VOAKE HOCSI', HANOV«R STRLl.T onal ity Dr. WILLIAM KING AND THE CO-OPERATOR 1828-1830 Dk. William King. From a Photoiiraph by his friend, Mons. L. Leuliette, i Frontispiece, Dr. WILLIAM KING AND THE CO-OPERATOR 1828-1830 With Introduction and Xotes by T. W. MERCER MANCHESTER: The Co-operative Union Limitku, Holvoake House. Hanover Street. 1922. "Co-operation is a voluntar}' act, and all the power in the world cannot make it compulsory ; nor is it desir- able that it should depend upon any power but its own." —The Co-operator, 1829. 1 C7S PREFATORY NOTE. Fifty-Fourth Annual \Y/HEN it was agreed that the Co-operative Congress should be held at Brighton of in June, 1922, the General Publications Committee the Co-operative Union decided that the time was " Co-operator," a small opportune to . reprint The co-operative periodical, first published in Brighton by Dr. William King nearly a century ago. In consequence of that decision, the present volume has been prepared. It includes a faithful reprint of " Co-operator a the twenty-eight numbers of The " ; sketch of Dr. King's Ufe and teaching, containing notes information not previously published ; and a few contributed by the present writer. Several letters written by Dr. King to other early co-operators are also here reprinted. In "The Co-operator" both spelling and punctuation have been left as they are in the original edition, but a few obvious printer's errors have been corrected.
    [Show full text]
  • BEATRICE and SIDNEY WEBB Fabian Socialists by the Same Author
    BEATRICE AND SIDNEY WEBB Fabian Socialists By the same author WILL THORNE: Constructive Militant (with Giles Radice) REFORMING THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (Fabian Society pamphlet) PRELUDE TO APPEASEMENT: East Central European Diplomacy in the Early 1930s BEATRICE AND SIDNEY WEBB Fabian Socialists Lisanne Radice M MACMILLAN © Lisanne Radice 1984 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published 1¢4 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-37888-5 ISBN 978-1-349-17472-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17472-0 The extracts from Bernard Shaw's Sixteen Self Sketches, Bluffing the Value Theory and his letters to Sidney Webb and Beatrice Potter are included by permission of the Society of Authors on behalf of the Bernard Shaw Estate. To Giles, without whose help and endless patience this book would never have been published Contents Acknowledgements lX List of Illustrations Xl Introduction 1 1858-18go A Victorian Apprenticeship 'The Elegant Miss Potter.' I 5 2 I8sg-I8go Intellectual Cockney 'A Remarkable Little Man.' 47 3 I8go-1892 Courtship 'Transform I and I into II'. 65 4 I892-1897 Marriage, Politics and Writing 'Our Business is to convert the whole community to Socialism.' 87 5 18g2-1897 Local Government, the TEE and the London School of Economics 'Mr Webb is not a candidate for today, he is one for the day after tomorrow.' I I o 6 18g8 Busman's Holiday 'What taste! Just what
    [Show full text]
  • Item Captions Teachers Guide
    SUFFRAGE IN A BOX: ITEM CAPTIONS TEACHERS GUIDE 1 1 The Polling Station. (Publisher: Suffrage Atelier). 1 Suffrage campaigners were experts in creating powerful propaganda images which expressed their sense of injustice. This image shows the whole range of women being kept out of the polling station by the law and authority represented by the policeman. These include musicians, clerical workers, mothers, university graduates, nurses, mayors, and artists. The men include gentlemen, manual workers, and agricultural labourers. This hints at the class hierarchies and tensions which were so important in British society at this time, and which also influenced the suffrage movement. All the women are represented as gracious and dignified, in contrast to the men, who are slouching and casual. This image was produced by the Suffrage Atelier, which brought together artists to create pictures which could be quickly and easily reproduced. ©Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford: John Johnson Collection; Postcards 12 (385) Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford John Johnson Collection; Postcards 12 (385) 2 The late Miss E.W. Davison (1913). Emily Wilding Davison is best known as the suffragette who 2 died after being trampled by the King’s horse on Derby Day, but as this photo shows, there was much more to her story. She studied at Royal Holloway College in London and St Hugh’s College Oxford, but left her job as a teacher to become a full- time suffragette. She was one of the most committed militants, who famously hid in a cupboard in the House of Commons on census night, 1911, so that she could give this as her address, and was the first woman to begin setting fire to post boxes.
    [Show full text]
  • How Effective Were the Suffragist and Suffragette Campaigns?
    What were the arguments for and against female suffrage? Note: the proper name for votes for women is ‘Female Suffrage’ In the nineteenth century, new jobs emerged for women as teachers, as shop workers or as clerks and secretaries in offices. Many able girls from working-class backgrounds could achieve better-paid jobs than those of their parents. They had more opportunities in education., for example a few middle-class women won the chance to go to university, to become doctors. Laws between 1839 and 1886 gave married women greater legal rights. However, they could not vote in general elections. The number of men who could vote had gradually increased during the nineteenth century (see the Factfile). Some people thought that women should be allowed to vote too. Others disagreed. But the debate was not, simply a case of men versus women. How effective were the suffragist and suffragette campaigns? Who were the suffragists? The early campaigners for the vote were known as suffragists. They were mainly (though not all) middle-class women. When the MP John Stuart Mill had suggested giving votes to women in 1867, 73 MPs had supported it. After 1867, local groups set up by women called women’s suffrage societies were formed. By the time they came together in 1897 to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), there were over 500 local branches. By 1902, the campaign had gained the support of working-class women as well. In 1901–1902, Eva Gore-Booth gathered the signatures of 67,000 textile workers in northern England for a petition (signed letter) to Parliament.
    [Show full text]
  • And Beatrice Webb
    THE DECAY OF CAPITALIST CIVILISATION. BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB THIRD EDITION PUBLISHED BY THE FABIAN SOCIETY, AND 25 TOTHILL STREET, WESTMINSTER ; BY GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN, LIMITED. 1923. PREFACE WE may as well forestall the obvious criticism that this " little book is not constructive." It is not intended to a of reconstruction. supply plan For such a plan, in considerable detail, the reader is referred to the works advertised in the final and pages ; particularly to A Con- stitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain, and, on another The Prevention Destitution in plane, of ; or, the form of a political programme, the pamphlet of the British Labour Party, Labour and the New Social Order (33 Eccleston Square, London. Price Threepence). We gratefully acknowledge the help of various friends, who will excuse the omission of their names. But we cannot refrain from expressing our deepest gratitude to our oldest friend and comrade, Mr. Bernard Shaw, who kindly undertook the revision of the proofs in the midst of a General Election when we were otherwise engaged. 41 GROSVENOR ROAD, WESTMINSTER, January 1923. been [The opportunity of a Second Impression has taken to correct various verbal and literal errors, principally in the quotations and references.] CONTENTS NM PREFACE ....... v INTRODUCTION . CHAPTER I THE POVERTY OF THE POOR ..... CHAPTER II INEQUALITY OF INCOME . .16 CHAPTER III INEQUALITY IN PERSONAL FREEDOM . 45 CHAPTER IV THE INITIAL SUCCESS op THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM . 63 CHAPTER V THE EVENTUAL FAILURE OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM . .8$ CHAPTER VI THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM AS A CAUSE OF WAR . '47 INDEX ..
    [Show full text]
  • Forgotten Lessons Selected Essays of John T. Flynn
    Forgotten Lessons Selected Essays of John T. Flynn Edited by Gregory P. Pavlik The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Irvington-on-Hudson, New York Forgotten Lessons: Selected Essays of John T. Flynn Copyright © 1996 by the Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans­ mittedin any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. 30 South Broadway Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 (914) 591-7230 Publishers Cataloging in Publication (Prepared by Quality Books Inc.) Flynn, John T. (John Thomas), 1882-1964. Forgotten.lessons: selected essays / of John T. Flynn; edited by Gregory P. Pavlik. - Irvington, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1995. p.cm. Includes index. ISBN: 1-57246-015-6 1. United States-Politics and government-20th century. 2. United States-Economic Policy. 3. New Deal, 1933-1939. I. Pavlik, Gregory P. II. Title. E806.F59 1995 973.917 QBI95-20332 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-61370 First edition, October 1995 Cover design by Beth Bowlby Manufactured in the United States of America Table of Contents Foreword by Thomas D. Flynn v Introduction by Gregory P. Pavlik 1 I. MACHINATIONS AND MANIPULATIONS OF THE STATE Whose Child is the NRA? 9 Forgive Us Our Debts 23 Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Roosevelt 37 The Case Against Deficit Spending 47 The New Deal: An Old Racket 54 The Experiment: "Noble in Purpose" 60 The Hand in Your Pocket 66 II.
    [Show full text]