Published in 1928 when Shaw was seventy-two, this book draws on decades of political activity and remains one of his brilliant exercises in propaganda. Ramsay MacDonald, Labour leader, hailed the work as the world’s most important book since the Bible.
As a Fabian and lifelong socialist, Shaw believed that economic inequality was a poison destroying every aspect of our lives. Family affections and relations between the sexes were perverted by it. From Parliament to eduction our institutions were ‘corrupted at the root by pecuniary interest’. Idealism, integrity and piecemeal attempts at political reform were all futile in the face of the gross injustice built into our economic system. And because a capitalist economy could never function smoothly, private property was not merely a form of robbery, but robbery with violence.