Bernard Shaw and Economics [1946]

The logical outcome of the social appropriation of economic rent must be the State acquisition of the source of that rent as well: namely, the socialisation of land and capital. But it is probably as a mode of exposition, rather than as a systematic construction of novel economic doctrine, that Mr. Bernard Shaw’s economic writings ought properly to be judged in any attempt to estimate the influence they have had on their age and their enduring importance. What some would term the eclecticism of Mr. Shaw’s ideas on economic questions is responsible for much of their individual character; and his failure to adhere consistently to the Jevonian economics he espoused would be regarded by many as a saving virtue. What must have repeatedly struck those concerned with the advocacy of socialism, and contributed to a steeling of their hearts and minds, is the absence in any of Mr. Shaw’s economic writings of the least trace of an apologetic note.