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LECTURE FIVE Chartism/Lower Class Socialism Contrasted to George Bernard Shaw’s Fabianism in Major
Barbara

The differences between the various brands of socialism developed in the Victorian age come from the
paths adopted for bringing the poor on a par with the rich. Wilde had advocated the spiritual benefits of
abolishing property as the source of the discrepancies between the life of the poor and the life of the
rich. He merely speculated and “preached ” a splendid future when all men should be equal. 1Wilde’s
speculative, utopian socialism, the socialism of the artist who worships beauty and wishes to change the
ugly life of the poor, must be compared to the political means for changing it, as championed by the
Chartist Movement, on the one hand, and to the concrete economic means, on the other hand, as
illustrated in another kind of militant writer’s text, the play Major Barbara (1905) by George Bernard
Shaw.

The Chartist movement petitioned parliament from outside (with means that were deemed untechnical
and which made them politically inefficient), and it was followed by street demonstrations in support of
charts/petitions,fighting for similar political rights for the poor as for the rich. The movement began
when the poor people feeling betrayed by the middle classes after the 1832 Reform Bill, which
enfranchised only men of property. A Wikipedia summary explains the following:

In 1838 a People's Charter was drawn up for the London Working Men's Association (LWMA) by William Lovett and
Francis Place, two self-educated radicals, in consultation with other members of LWMA. The Charter had six
demands:

 All men to have the vote (universal manhood suffrage)

 Voting should take place by secret ballot
 Parliamentary elections every year, not once every five years
 Constituencies should be of equal size
 Members of Parliament should be paid
 The property qualification for becoming a Member of Parliament should be abolished

In June 1839, the Chartists' petition was presented to the House of Commons with over 1.25 million signatures. It
was rejected by Parliament. This provoked unrest which was swiftly crushed by the authorities.

A second petition was presented in May 1842, signed by over three million people but again it was rejected and
further unrest and arrests followed.

In April 1848 a third and final petition was presented. A mass meeting on Kennington Common in South London
was organised by the Chartist movement leaders, the most influential being Feargus O'Connor, editor of 'The
Northern Star', a weekly newspaper that promoted the Chartist cause.

O'Connor was known to have connections with radical groups which advocated reform by any means, including
violence. The authorities feared disruption and military forces were on standby to deal with any unrest. The third
petition was also rejected but the anticipated unrest did not happen.

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Wilde advocated changing the outlook on life of the poor by liberating them from “that sordid necessity of living
for others” (as the hands which produced the capitalists’ wealth). The luminous future he envisaged has been dealt
with previously)
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Despite the Chartist leaders' attempts to keep the movement alive, within a few years it was no longer a driving
force for reform.

The question of what means can be employed to alleviate the working class life conditions is an essential
one. Chartism failed, utopian socialism was put into practice by corrupt Marxian/Marxist political
economists in the totalitarian communist states in the twentieth century (for which see the second
semester), Fabian socialism led to the development of Western sociology (in the early twentieth century
work of Ferdinand Tonnies and Max Weber) and to the creation of mixed economies (both centralized,
i.e., state-controlled and liberal, i.e., non-interventionist – for example in Britain, for which see the
second semester lectures, too).

Whereas both Oscar Wilde and Thomas Carlyle had used poignant, poetic words to criticize property and
its unjust laws and to correct them, Fabians went about the task of improving the life of the poor
deliberatively (by appealing to reason, and practical reason, also, for that matter). Their moderate kind
of utopian socialism believed in the capacity of slow reforms to change the system from within and
gradually (slowly, biding one’s time, i.e., taking one’s time). Fabian socialism took its name from the one
of Fabius Cunctator (“Fabius the Delayer”, a Roman general who played for time in order to win by
delaying rather than fighting battles). It envisaged the gradual accommodation of the lower classes into
the economic and political liberal structures in the course of time.

George Bernard Shaw’s play Major Barbara put side by side spiritual with practical means of salvation
and contrasted the conditions for spiritual with the ones for practical salvation. The play, first staged in
1905, looks back upon the Victorian institutions, learning and the life of individuals in an upper middle-
class family. It is not a typical family, because the children were raised by the mother who had chosen to
separate from the father for material rather than any higher reasons: because he would not bequeath
his wealth to their children but to a stranger, in accordance with the contract that had bound his own
inheritance of the wealth. The first conflict in the play, consequently, is the one between the wife and
her principles, on the one hand, and the husband with his contractual stipulations, on the other hand. It
is also a conflict between the bearers of the ideological mainstream positions of the middle classes and
their socialist condemnation. The socialist condemnation of the upper classes is doubled by a
demonstration about the practical socialist emancipation of the poor. The accumulation, preservation
and inheritance of wealth are countered, in the play, from a liberal (principled, high-minded) and
practical position, at the same time. By comparison to his wife, who is only interested in transmitting
wealth in the family, Andrew Undershaft also organizes the production of wealth with help from below,
namely from the lower classes whom he can employ by a contract which is the best opportunity for their
practical emancipation. The other conflict in the play is one between the latter form of emancipation and
the spiritual emancipation of the poor, a project organized institutionally by the Salvation Army. The
Major of the Salvation Army, Barbara, is Andrew Undershaft’s daughter and this configures the play’s
other conflict, one between an outmoded religious ideology and the practical, modern, cult of work (and
the ensuing production relations which should also be practically managed, not only discussed in
principle). Oscar Wilde had debated this issue speculatively in the beginning of “The Soul of Man under
Socialism”, when he said:
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it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.
Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally
set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the
disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

Hence, the ironical conclusion of Wilde’s words:

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very
advanced school, by amusing the poor.

Though the Salvation Army did not wish to amuse, but to save, the poor, its action is reduced by Shaw’s
masterful demonstration in Major Barbara to the same thing.

Indeed, the Salvation Army provides the “remedy which do[es] not cure the disease but
merely prolongs it”, whereas Andrew Undershaft’s productive enterprise, a cannon
factory, creates work-places for people taken off the street, instead of forcing them to live
on the charity of the Salvation Army. 2 Major Barbara is the partisan of gathering the poor
from the streets to make them saints from tramps by being given food, shelter and the
gospels to become converted members of the Salvation Army (God’s own army of saved
people). Andrew Undershaft, the father, is a pragmatic entrepreneur who knows that
people and the society as a whole will progress if his factory prospers (in an age when so
many wars were fought to keep the British Empire going and enlarge it), being manned by
poor people reclaimed from the streets, trained and turned into decent members of
society, earning their own wages and capable to fend for themselves.

The following exchange of cues from Shaw’s play demonstrates that the battle between
what Oscar Wilde called “sympathy with suffering” and “sympathy with thought” (in the
passage highlighted above) is one between idealism and pragmatic industriousness.
Undershaft has sympathy with thought and Major Barbara has idealistic sympathy with
suffering.

UNDERSHAFT. Shall I contribute the odd twopence, Barbara? The millionaire's mite, eh? [He
takes a couple of pennies from his pocket.]

BARBARA. How did you make that twopence?

UNDERSHAFT. As usual. By selling cannons, torpedoes, submarines, and my new patent Grand
Duke hand grenade.

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The Salvation Army founders, Catherine and William Booth, sought to bring salvation to the
poor, destitute and hungry by meeting both their "physical and spiritual needs". Set up in 1865,
as a branch of the Methodist church, the Salvation Army church/organization is still in existence
– one of their churches being in Judetului Street in Bucharest, sector 2.
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BARBARA. Put it back in your pocket. You can't buy your Salvation here for twopence: you must
work it out.

UNDERSHAFT. Is twopence not enough? I can afford a little more, if you press me.

BARBARA. Two million millions would not be enough. There is bad blood on your hands; and
nothing but good blood can cleanse them. Money is no use. Take it away. [She turns to
Cusins].

The more thoughtful than emotive Fabian socialist wins, in Shaw’s play, because he sees
life more realistically. Andrew Undershaft’s realism can be seen in the following exchange:

UNDERSHAFT. Not at all. I had the strongest scruples about poverty and starvation. Your
moralists are quite unscrupulous about both: they make virtues of them. I had rather be a
thief than a pauper. I had rather be a murderer than a slave. I don't want to be either; but if
you force the alternative on me, then, by Heaven, I'll choose the braver and more moral one.
I hate poverty and slavery worse than any other crimes whatsoever. And let me tell you this.
Poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading articles: they
will not stand up to my machine guns. Don't preach at them: don't reason with them. Kill
them.

BARBARA. Killing. Is that your remedy for everything?

UNDERSHAFT. It is the final test of conviction, the only lever strong enough to overturn a social
system, the only way of saying Must. Let six hundred and seventy fools loose in the street;
and three policemen can scatter them. But huddle them together in a certain house in
Westminster; and let them go through certain ceremonies and call themselves certain names
until at last they get the courage to kill; and your six hundred and seventy fools become a
government. Your pious mob fills up ballot papers and imagines it is governing its masters;
but the ballot paper that really governs is the paper that has a bullet wrapped up in it.

CUSINS. That is perhaps why, like most intelligent people, I never vote.

UNDERSHAFT Vote! Bah! When you vote, you only change the names of the cabinet. When you
shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and set up
new.

Because the play ends with everybody being won over by Andrew Undershaft, it is
obvious which way Shaw’s sympathies turned: towards the pragmatic, rather than the
idealistic, changes anticipated by socialists. Shaw was a friend of Beatrice and Sidney
Webb, who were the leaders of Fabian socialism at its beginning.
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The means for improving the life of the poor and making society healthy remains a point open for
debate. It is worth considering that, whereas utopian socialism was put into practice by corrupt
Marxian/Marxist political economists in the totalitarian communist states in the early twentieth century
(for which see the second semester), Fabian socialism led to the development of Western sociology (in
the early twentieth century work of Ferdinand Tonnies and Max Weber) and to the creation of mixed
economies (both centralized, i.e., state-controlled and liberal, i.e., non-interventionist – for example in
Britain).