Freedom Adelphiasophism and Secular Christianity

Essays and Principles 1

George Bernard Shaw

Irish Playwright and Socialist

Website: askwhy.co.uk
What is Freedom? The object of all honest governments
should be to prevent your being imposed on
For half the day we are slaves to necessities in this way. But the object of most actual
which we cannot shirk, whether we are mon- governments is exactly the opposite. They
archs with a thousand servants or humble la- enforce your slavery and call it freedom. But
bourers with no servants but their wives. And they also regulate your slavery, keeping the
the wives must undertake the additional heavy greed of your masters within certain bounds.
slavery of child-bearing, if the world is still to When chattel slavery of the Negro sort costs
be peopled. These natural jobs cannot be more than wage slavery, they abolish chattel
shirked. But they involve other jobs which can. slavery and make you free to choose between
As we must eat we must first provide food, as one employment, or one master, and another,
we must sleep we must have beds and bedding and this they call a glorious triumph for free-
in houses with fireplaces and coals, as we must dom, though for you it is merely the key of the
walk through the streets we must have clothes street.
to cover our nakedness.
When you complain, they promise that in
future you shall govern the country for your-
self. They redeem this promise by giving you
“The people of a vote, and having a general election every
England… don't know five years or so. At the election, two of their
rich friends ask for your vote, and you are free
what freedom is—never to choose which of them you will vote for to
having had any.” spite the other, a choice which leaves you no
freer than you were before, as it does not
reduce your hours of labour by a single
Now, food and houses and clothes can be pro- minute. But the newspapers assure you that
duced by human labour. But when they are your vote has decided the election, and that
produced they can be stolen. If you like honey this constitutes you a free citizen in a demo-
you can let the bees produce it by their labour, cratic country.
and then steal it from them. If you are too lazy
to get about from place to place on your own The amazing thing about it is that you are fool
legs you can make a slave of a horse. And what enough to believe them.
you do to a horse or a bee you can also do to a
man or a woman or a child if you can get the The Slavery of Man to Man
upper hand of them by force or fraud or trick-
ery of any sort, or even by teaching them that
it is their religious duty to sacrifice their free- Now mark another big difference between the
dom to yours. natural slavery of man to Nature and the un-
natural slavery of man to man. Nature is kind
So beware! If you allow any person, or class of to her slaves. If she forces you to eat and
persons, to get the upper hand of you, they will drink, she makes eating and drinking so pleas-
shift all that part of their slavery to Nature that ant that when we can afford it we eat and drink
can be shifted on to your shoulders, and you too much. We must sleep or go mad, but then
will find yourself working from eight to four- sleep is so pleasant that we have great difficul-
teen hours a day when, if you had only yourself ty in getting up in the morning. And firesides
and your family to provide for, you could do it and families seem so pleasant to the young
quite comfortably in half the time or less. that they get married and join building socie-
ties to realize their dreams. Thus, instead of
resenting our natural wants as slavery, we take
the greatest pleasure in their satisfaction. We Eton—and when they quite unintentionally
write sentimental songs in praise of them. A changed the German, Austrian, Russian, and
tramp can earn his supper by singing Home, Ottoman Empires into republics.
Sweet Home.
When we grumble, we are told that all our
The slavery of man to man is the very opposite miseries are our own doing because we have
of this. It is hateful to the body and to the spirit. the vote. When we say, “What good is the
Our poets do not praise it, they proclaim that vote?” we are told that we have the Factory
no man is good enough to be another man's Acts, and the Wages Boards, and free educa-
master. tion, and the New Deal, and the dole, and what
more could any reasonable man ask for? We
The latest of the great Jewish prophets, a gen- are reminded that the rich are taxed a quarter, a
tleman named Marx, spent his life in proving third, or even a half and more, of their incomes,
that there is no extremity of selfish cruelty at but the poor are never reminded that they have
which the slavery of man to man will stop if to pay that much of their wages as rent in
it be not stopped by law. You can see for addition to having to work twice as long every
yourself that it produces a state of continual day as they would need if they were free.
civil war—called the class war—between the
slaves and their masters, organized as Trade Whenever famous writers protest against this
Unions on one side and Employers' Federa- imposture—say, Voltaire and Rousseau and
tions on the other. Tom Paine in the eighteenth century, or Cob-
bett and Shelley, Karl Marx and Lassalle in the
S Thomas More held that we shall never have nineteenth, or Lenin and Trotsky in the twenti-
a peaceful and stable society until this strug- eth—you are taught that they are atheists
gle is ended by the abolition of slavery alto- and libertines, murderers and scoundrels,
gether and the compulsion of everyone to do and often it is made a criminal offence to
his share of the world's work with his own buy or sell their books.
hands and brains, and not to attempt to put it on
anyone else. If their disciples make a revolution, England
immediately makes war on them and lends
“They enforce your slavery money to the other powers to join her in forc-
ing the revolutionists to restore the slave order.
and call it freedom.” When this combination was successful at Wa-
terloo, the victory was advertised as another
Naturally the master class, through its parlia- triumph for British freedom, and the British
ments and schools and newspapers, makes the wage slaves, instead of going into mourning
most desperate efforts to prevent us from real- like Lord Byron, believed it all and cheered
izing our slavery. From our earliest years we enthusiastically.
are taught that our country is the land of the
free, and that our freedom was won for us for When the revolution wins, as it did in Russia in
ever by our forefathers when they made King 1922, the fighting stops, but the abuse, the
John sign Magna Charta—when they defeated calumnies, the lies, continue until the revolu-
the Spanish Armada—when they cut off King tionized state grows into a first-rate military
Charles' head—when they made King William power. Then our diplomatists, after having for
accept the Bill of Rights—when they issued years denounced the revolutionary leaders as
and made good the American Declaration of the most abominable villains and tyrants, have
Independence—when they won the battles of to do a right turn and invite them to dinner.
Waterloo and Trafalgar on the playing-fields of
Believing the Propaganda member that though nobody likes to be called a
slave, it does not follow that slavery is a bad
Now though this prodigious mass of humbug is thing. Great men, like Aristotle, have held that
meant to delude the enslaved class only, it endslaw and order and government would be impos-
in deluding the master class much more com- sible unless the persons the people have to obey
pletely. A gentleman whose mind has been are beautifully dressed and decorated, robed
formed at a preparatory school for the sons of and uniformed, speaking with a special accent,
gentlemen, followed by a public school and travelling in first-class carriages or the most
University course, is much more thoroughly expensive cars or on the best-groomed and
taken in by the falsified history and dishonest best-bred horses, and never cleaning their own
political economy and the snobbery taught in boots or doing anything for themselves that can
these places than any worker can possibly be, possibly be done by ringing a bell and ordering
because the gentleman's education teaches him some common person to do it.
that he is a very fine fellow, superior to the
common run of men whose duty it is to brush
his clothes, carry his parcels, and earn his in- “No man is good enough
come for him, and as he thoroughly agrees to be another man's
with this view of himself, he honestly believes
that the system which has placed him in such
master.”
an agreeable situation and done such justice
to his merits is the best of all possible sys- And this means, of course, that they must be
tems, and that he should shed his blood, and made very rich without any other obligation
yours, to the last drop in its defence. than to produce an impression of almost god-
like superiority on the minds of common peo-
But the great mass of our rack-rented, under- ple. In short, it is contended, you must make
paid, treated-as-inferiors, cast-off-on-the-dole men ignorant idolaters before they will become
workers cannot feel so sure about it as the obedient workers and law abiding citizens. To
gentleman. The facts are too harshly against it. prove this, we are reminded that although nine
In hard times, such as we are now passing out of ten voters are common workers, it is
through, their disgust and despair sometimes with the greatest difficulty that a few of them
lead them to kick over the traces, upset every- can be persuaded to vote for members of
thing, and have to be rescued from mere gang- their own class.
sterism by some Napoleonic genius who has a
fancy for being an emperor, and who has the When women were enfranchised and given the
courage and brains and energy to jump at the right to sit in Parliament, the first use they
chance. But the slaves who give three cheers for made of their votes was to defeat all the
the emperor might just as well have made a women candidates who stood for the free-
cross on a British or American ballot paper as dom of the workers and had given them
far as their freedom is concerned. years of devoted and distinguished service.
They elected only one woman—a titled lady of
So far I have mentioned nothing but plain, great wealth and exceptionally fascinating per-
natural, and historical facts. I draw no conclu- sonality.
sions, for that would lead me into controversy,
and controversy would not be fair when you Now this, it is said, is human nature, and you
cannot answer me back. I do not even ask you cannot change human nature. On the other
to draw your own conclusions, for you might hand, it is maintained that human nature is the
draw some very dangerous ones unless you easiest thing in the world to change if you
have the right sort of head for it. Always re- catch it young enough, and that the idolatry of
the slave class and the arrogance of the mas- unless you either earn your living or get some-
ter class are themselves entirely artificial body else to earn it for you.
products of education and of a propaganda
that plays upon our infants long before they If you live in a civilized country your freedom is
have left their cradles. An opposite mentality restricted by the laws of the land enforced by the
could, it is argued, be produced by a contrary police, who oblige you to do this, and not to do
education and propaganda. You can turn the that, and to pay rates and taxes. If you do not obey
point over in your mind for yourself, do not these laws the courts will imprison you and, if
let me prejudice you one way or the other. you go too far, kill you. If the laws are reasonable
and are impartially administered you have no
The practical question at the bottom of it all reason to complain, because they increase your
is how the income of the whole country can freedom by protecting you against assault, high-
best be distributed from day to day. If the way robbery, and disorder generally. But as soci-
earth is cultivated agriculturally in vast farms ety is constituted at present, there is another far
with motor ploughs and chemical fertilizers, more intimate compulsion on you, that of your
and industrially in huge electrified factories landlord and that of your employer.
full of machinery that a girl can handle, the
produce may be so great that an equal distri-
bution of it would provide enough to give the “…continual civil war,
unskilled labourers as much as the managers
and the men of the scientific staff.
called the class war, be-
tween the slaves and
But do not forget that when you hear tales of their masters…”
modern machinery enabling one girl to pro-
duce as much as a thousand men could pro-
duce in the reign of good Queen Anne, that
Your landlord may refuse to let you live on his
this marvellous increase includes things like
estate if you go to chapel instead of to church, or
needles and steel pens and matches, which we
if you vote for anybody but his nominee, or if you
can neither eat nor drink nor wear. Very
practise osteopathy, or if you open a shop. Your
young children will eat needles and matches
employer may dictate the cut, colour, and condi-
eagerly—but the diet is not a nourishing one.
tion of your clothes, as well as your hours of
And though we can now cultivate the sky as
work. He can turn you into the street at any
well as the earth, by drawing nitrogen from it
moment to join the melancholy band of lost spir-
to increase and improve the quality of our
its called the Unemployed. In short, his power
grass—and, consequently, of our cattle and
over you is far greater than that of any political
milk and butter and eggs—Nature may have
dictator could possibly be. Your only remedy at
tricks up her sleeve to check us, if the
present is the Trade Union weapon of the
capitalists exploit her too greedily.
strike, which is only the old oriental device of
starving on your enemy's doorstep until he does
Using Freedom you justice.

And now to sum up. Wipe out from your Now, as the police in this country will not allow
dreams of freedom the hope of being able to you to starve on your employer's doorstep, you
do as you please all the time. For at least must starve on your own—if you have one. The
twelve hours of your day Nature orders you extreme form of the strike—the general strike of
to do certain things, and will kill you if you all workers at the same moment—is also the
don't do them. This leaves twelve hours for extreme form of human folly, as, if completely
working, and here again Nature will kill you carried out, it would extinguish the human race in
a week. And the workers would be the first to parliamentary candidate who talks about
perish. The general strike is Trade Unionism gone our freedom and our love of liberty, for
mad. Sane Trade Unionism would never sanction whatever political name he may give him-
more than one big strike at a time, with all the self, he is sure to be at bottom an oppor-
other trades working overtime to support it. tunist who wants to live on our labour
without being taken up by the police for it
Now let us put the case in figures. If you have to as he deserves.
work for twelve hours a day, you have no free-
dom at all. If you work eight hours a day you have And now suppose we at last win a lot more
four hours a day to do what you like with, subject leisure and a lot more money than we are
to the laws of the land and your possession of accustomed to. What are we going to do with
money enough to buy an interesting book or pay them? I was taught in my childhood that
for a seat at the pictures, or at a football match, or Satan will find mischief still for idle hands to
whatever your fancy may be. But even here Na- do. I have seen men come into a fortune and
ture will interfere a good deal, for if your eight lose their happiness, their health, and finally,
hours' work has been of a hard physical kind, and their lives by it as certainly as if they had
when you get home you want to spend your four taken daily doses of rat poison instead of
hours in reading my books to improve your mind, champagne and cigars. It is not at all easy to
you will find yourself fast asleep in half a minute, know what to do with leisure unless we have
and your mind will remain in its present benight- been brought up to it.
ed condition.
I will therefore leave you with a conundrum
I take it, then, that nine out of ten of us desire to think over. If you had your choice, would
more freedom, and that this is why we listen to you work for eight hours a day and retire
wireless talks about it. As long as we go on as we with a full pension at 45, or would you rather
are—content with a vote and a dole—the only work four hours a day and keep on working
advice we can give one another is that of Shake- until you are 70? Now, don't send the answer
speare's Iago: “Put money in thy purse.” to me, please: talk it over with your wife.

But as we get very little money into our purses on

pay day, and all the rest of the week other people “We shall never have
are taking money out of it, Iago's advice is not
very practical. We must change our politics be-
a peaceful and stable
fore we can get what we want, and meanwhile we society until this
must stop gassing about freedom, because the struggle is ended.”
people of England in the lump don't know
what freedom is—never having had any. Al- Thomas More
ways call freedom by its old English name of
leisure, and keep clamouring for more leisure and
-oOo-
more money to enjoy it in return for an honest
share of work.
Freedom
And let us stop singing Rule, Britannia until we
BBC talk by G B Shaw, 1935
make it true. Until we do, let us never vote for a