ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY
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.
在七十寿辰宴会上的讲话
乔治·萧伯纳
1926年7月26日
近几年来，公众舆论想方设法对我发难，在一无所获之后，又转而把我捧为伟人。不管谁碰上这种事都是可怕的灾难。现在，显然又有人想故伎重演。因此，对于庆祝我70寿辰的活动，我完全拒绝发表任何意见。不过，当我的工党老朋友们请我到这里来时，我知道不会有麻烦。
不管怎样，我们现在已经建立了一个立宪党，我们已经把它建立在社会主义的基础之上。我和我的朋友西德尼·韦布先生及麦克唐纳先生一开始就明确说过，我们必须做的就是把社会党变成一个拥护宪法的党，使任何可敬的、虔诚的人都能在个人尊严丝毫不受侵犯的情况下加入这个党。我们革除了陈规陋习，这就是为什么比起任何持激进观点的人来，政府目前更怕我们。
我们的立场是非常简单明确的，我们的极大优势在于理解自己的立场。我们用社会主义来反对资本主义。 按照资本家的观点，完全可以保证这个国家人人都能得到一份职业。他们不主张那份职业工资很高，因为如果工资很高，一个星期就可以攒下足够的钱，下个星期就不必工作了。他们决心以仅能糊口的工资使人们始终不停地工作，而他们自己则分享着一份资本增益。
他们说，资本主义不仅为工人提供了上述保证，而且，由于确保巨额财富掌握在一个人数很少的阶级手中，这些人不论愿意与否都会把钱积攒下来，并且不得不用于投资。这就是资本主义，而我们的政府却总是妨碍资本主义。政府既不为一个人提供工作，又不让他挨饿，而是在肯定他已经为得到救济而先付过钱之后，给他一点救济金。政府给资本家补助金，却又制订出各种破坏自己的制度的规定。政府一直在干这样的事。我们告诉政府这是破坏，政府却不懂。
我们在批评资本主义时说：你们的制度自公布以来，从未有哪一天信守过自己的诺言。我们的生产是荒唐的。需要建造更多的房屋时，我们却在生产80马力的汽车。孩子们正在挨饿时，我们却在生产最豪华的奢侈品。你们把生产颠倒了。你们不先生产国民最需要的东西，却反其道而行之。我们说分配已经变得绝顶荒谬，以致在我国四千七百万人口中，只有两个人赞成现行的分配制度——一个是诺森伯兰公爵，另一个是班伯里勋爵。 我们反对那种理论。明白无误的社会主义理论指出，你们必须注意的问题是你们的分配我们必须由此着手，而如果私有财产妨碍公正的分配，就必须予以废除。
掌握公共财产的人必须受到社会的制约，比如，我带着手杖也要受社会制约。我不能拿着它随心所欲。我不能拿它敲诸位的脑袋。我们说如果分配出了问题，一切都会出问题，包括宗教、道德、政府等等。因此，我们说（这是我们的社会主义的全部意义），我们必须从分配着手，采取一切必要的步骤。
我想我们都能铭记这一点，因为我们的任务就是要注意世界是财富的分配问题。我刚才对你们说过，现在还要对你们说，我认为在我国四千七百万人口中，不会有两个人，也许不会有一个人赞成现行的财富分配制度。我甚至要进一步说，你们在整个文明世界也找不出一个赞同现行财富分配制度的人。这种分配制度分配制度已经堕落为极其荒谬的东西了。
我认为，总有一天我们将能够把自己同资本主义者区别开来。我们必须把某些指导思想公布于众。我们必须宣布，我们所为之努力的不是陈旧的再分配观念，而是收入再分配。我们要让再分配始终成为一个收入问题。
今晚我在这里感到非常高兴。我们今晚的主席说，你们认为我享有社会的尊敬，并颇受你们个人的喜爱。我完全理解这番褒奖。我不是一个容易动感情的人，但是这一切感动了我。我知道这一切的价值，在我年届70的时候（人生70岁只有一次，因此我这样说也是最后一次了），它使我能说出许许多多人不能说的话，这使我感到极大的快乐。
