Acquisitive society

In The Acquisitive Society R. H. Tawney presents an acute criticism of British society and its institutions. From a Christian and Socialist. position he analyses the acquisitive, individualist nature of society, posing the questions: what are the relations between work and pay, be tween industry and ownership? What, under a better system, could they be?

He advocates the need for a purposeful Christian community to opt firmly but democratically for socialised ownership and profes sionalised control in preference to the selfishness and inefficiency of modern capitalism. Reappraising the need for private ownership, Tawney argues lucidly and cogently for collectivism and the moral support and external restraint of a corporate society. Here is a well-timed re-publication of a work that helped to form the mind of modern social criticism, providing a fascinating and stimulating insight into the history of Left-Wing, Collectivist and Fabian thought.

This new edition contains a preface by Peter Townsend, who com ments that Tawney "argues the case throughout with an ardour and an eye for changes in attitudes and the distribution of resources which bears closely on the argument which has wracked the Labour Party during the late 1970s and early 1980s.... All kinds of readers will gain from this controlled and intelligent examination of how things can go wrong in the construction and development of society- and how they might be put right".