Shaw's social philosophy is remarkable. His
latest volume[10] deals with parents and children, the theme he touched
on in 1884; his social ideal is still a birthright life interest in
national wealth, and "an equal share in national industry," the latter a
phrase more suggestive than lucid. On the other hand, he, like the rest
of us, was then by no means clear as to the distinction between
Anarchism and Socialism. The old Radical prejudice in favour of direct
taxation, so that the State may never handle a penny not wrung from the
reluctant and acutely conscious taxpayer, the doctrinaire objection to
State monopolies, and the modern view that municipal enterprises had
better be carried on at cost price, are somewhat inconsistently
commingled with the advocacy of universal State competition in industry.
It may further be noticed that we were as yet unconscious of the claims
and aims of the working people. Our Manifesto covered a wide field, but
it nowhere touches Co-operation or Trade Unionism, wages or hours of
labour. We were still playing with abstractions, Land and Capital,
Industry and Competition, the Individual and the State.
In connection with the first tracts another point may be mentioned. The
Society has stuck to the format adopted in these early days, and with a
few special exceptions all its publications have been issued in the same
style, and with numbers running on consecutively.
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