on his seventith birtday
George Bernard Shaw
July 26, 1926
Of late years the public have been trying to tackle me in every way they possibly can, and failing to make anything of it they have turned to treating me Bs a great
man. This is a dreadful fate to over- take anybody. There has been a distinct attempt to do it again now, and for that reason I absolutely decline to say anything about the celebration of my seventieth birthday. But when the Labor Party, my old friends the Labor Party, invited me here I knew that l should be all right.
Now, however, we have built up a constitutional Party. We have built it up on a socialistic basis. My friend, Mr. Sidney Webb, Mr. Macdonald and myself said definitely at the beginning that what we had got to do was to make the Socialist Party a constitutional party to which any respectable God-fearing man could belong without the slightest compromise of his respectability. We got rid of all those traditional that is why Governments in the present day are more afraid of us than they were of any of the Radical people.
Our position is a perfectly simple one and we have the great advantage of understanding our position. We oppose socialism to capitalism.
According to the capitalists, there will be a guara11tee to the world that every man in tile country would get a job. They didn‘t contend it would be a well-paid job, because if it was well paid a man would save up enough one week to stop working the next week, and they were determined to keep a man working the whole time on a bare subsistence wage - and, on the other hand, divide an accumulation of capita1.
They said capita1ism not only secured this for the working man, but, by insuring fabulous wealth in the hands of a small class of people, they would save money whether they liked it or not and would have to invest it. That is capitalism, and this Government is always interfering with capitalism. Instead of giving a man a job or letting him starve they are giving him doles - after making sure he has paid for them first. They are giving capitalists subsidies and making all sorts of regulations that are breaking up their own system. All the time they are doing it, and we are telling them it is breaking up, they don‘t understand.
We say in criticism of capitalism: Your system has never kept its promises for one single day since it was promulgated. Our production is ridiculous. We are producing eighty horsepower motor cars when many more houses should be built. We are producing most extravagant luxuries while children starve. You have stood production on its head. Instead of beginning with the things the nation needs most, you are beginning at just the opposite end. We say distribution has become so glaringly ridiculous that there are only two people out of the 47,000,000 people in this country who approve of the present system of distribution-one is the Duke of Northumberland and the other is Lord Banbury.
We are opposed to that theory. Socialism, which is perfectly clear and unmistakable, says the thing you have got to take care of is your distribution. We have to begin with that, and private property, if it stands in the way of good distribution, has got to go.
A man who holds public property must hold it on the pub1ic condition on which, for instance, I carry my walking stick. I am not al1owed to do what I like with it. I must not knock you on the head with it. We say that if distribution goes wrong, everything else goes wrong-religion, morals - government. And we say, therefore (this is the whole meaning of our socialism}, we must begin with distribution and take all the necessary steps.
I think we are keeping it in our minds because our business is to take care of the distribution of wealth in the worId1 and I tell you, as I have told you be fore, that I don‘t think there are two men, or perhaps one man, in our 47,000,000 who approves of the existing distribution of wealth. I will go even further and say that you will not find a single person in the whole of the civilized world who agrees with the existing system of the distribution of wealth. It has been reduced to a blank absurdity.
I think the day will come when we will be able to make the distinction between us and the capitalists. We must get certain leading ideas before the people. We should announce that we are not going in for what was the old-fashioned idea of redistribution, but the redistribution of income. Let it always be a question of income.
I have been very happy here to night. I entirely understand the distinction made by our Chairman to night when he said you hold me in social esteem and a certain amount of personal affection. I am not a sentimental man, but l am not 1nsensible to all that. I know the value of all tl1at, and it gives me, now that 1 have come to the age of seventy (it will not occur again and I am saying it for the first time), a great fee1ing of pleasure that l can say what a good many people can‘t say.
譯文：
在七十壽辰宴會上的講話
喬治·蕭伯納
1926年7月26日
近幾年來，公眾輿論想方設法對我發難，在一無所獲之後，又轉而把我捧為偉人。不管誰碰上這種事都是可怕的災難。現在，顯然又有人想故伎重演。因此，對于慶祝我70壽辰的活動，我完全拒絕發表任何意見。不過，當我的工黨老朋友們請我到這裏來時，我知道不會有麻煩。
不管怎樣，我們現在已經建立了一個立憲黨，我們已經把它建立在社會主義的基礎之上。我和我的朋友西德尼·韋布先生及麥克唐納先生一開始就明確說過，我們必須做的就是把社會黨變成一個擁護憲法的黨，使任何可敬的、虔誠的人都能在個人尊嚴絲毫不受侵犯的情況下加入這個黨。我們革除了陳規陋習，這就是為什麽比起任何持激進觀點的人來，政府目前更怕我們。
我們的立場是非常簡單明確的，我們的極大優勢在于理解自己的立場。我們用社會主義來反對資本主義。 按照資本家的觀點，完全可以保證這個國家人人都能得到一份職業。他們不主張那份職業工資很高，因為如果工資很高，一個星期就可以攢下足夠的錢，下個星期就不必工作了。他們決心以僅能糊口的工資使人們始終不停地工作，而他們自己則分享著一份資本增益。
他們說，資本主義不僅為工人提供了上述保證，而且，由于確保巨額財富掌握在一個人數很少的階級手中，這些人不論願意與否都會把錢積攢下來，並且不得不用于投資。這就是資本主義，而我們的政府卻總是妨礙資本主義。政府既不為一個人提供工作，又不讓他挨餓，而是在肯定他已經為得到救濟而先付過錢之後，給他一點救濟金。政府給資本家補助金，卻又製訂出各種破壞自己的製度的規定。政府一直在幹這樣的事。我們告訴政府這是破壞，政府卻不懂。
我們在批評資本主義時說：你們的製度自公布以來，從未有哪一天信守過自己的諾言。我們的生產是荒唐的。需要建造更多的房屋時，我們卻在生產80馬力的汽車。孩子們正在挨餓時，我們卻在生產最豪華的奢侈品。你們把生產顛倒了。你們不先生產國民最需要的東西，卻反其道而行之。我們說分配已經變得絕頂荒謬，以致在我國四千七百萬人口中，隻有兩個人贊成現行的分配製度——一個是諾森伯蘭公爵，另一個是班伯裏勛爵。 我們反對那種理論。明白無誤的社會主義理論指出，你們必須註意的問題是你們的分配我們必須由此著手，而如果私有財產妨礙公正的分配，就必須予以廢除。
掌握公共財產的人必須受到社會的製約，比如，我帶著手杖也要受社會製約。我不能拿著它隨心所欲。我不能拿它敲諸位的腦袋。我們說如果分配出了問題，一切都會出問題，包括宗教、道德、政府等等。因此，我們說(這是我們的社會主義的全部意義)，我們必須從分配著手，採取一切必要的步驟。
我想我們都能銘記這一點，因為我們的任務就是要註意世界是財富的分配問題。我剛才對你們說過，現在還要對你們說，我認為在我國四千七百萬人口中，不會有兩個人，也許不會有一個人贊成現行的財富分配製度。我甚至要進一步說，你們在整個文明世界也找不出一個贊同現行財富分配製度的人。這種分配製度分配製度已經墮落為極其荒謬的東西了。
我認為，總有一天我們將能夠把自己同資本主義者區別開來。我們必須把某些指導思想公布于眾。我們必須宣布，我們所為之努力的不是陳舊的再分配觀念，而是收入再分配。我們要讓再分配始終成為一個收入問題。
今晚我在這裏感到非常高興。我們今晚的主席說，你們認為我享有社會的尊敬，並頗受你們個人的喜愛。我完全理解這番褒獎。我不是一個容易動感情的人，但是這一切感動了我。我知道這一切的價值，在我年屆70的時候(人生70歲隻有一次，因此我這樣說也是最後一次了)，它使我能說出許許多多人不能說的話，這使我感到極大的快樂。