The Acquisitive Society

R H Tawney

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English

Binker North
09 June 2023

The Acquisitive Society was written by R. H. Tawney and published in 1920. Tawney herein criticizes the selfish individualism of modern industrial societies. He argues that capitalism corrupts via the promotion of economic self-interest, leading to aimless production in response to greed and insatiable acquisitiveness, and hence to perversions of industrialism. He attests further that, by extension, nationalism leads to the perversion of imperialism and to a necessarily failed balance of power strategy, resulting in unnecessary wars.

It is a commonplace that the characteristic virtue of Englishmen is their power of sustained practical activity, and their characteristic vice a reluctance to test the quality of that activity by reference to principles. They are incurious as to theory, take fundamentals for granted, and are more interested in the state of the roads than in their place on the map. And it might fairly be argued that in ordinary times that combination of intellectual tameness with practical energy is sufficiently serviceable to explain, if not to justify, the equanimity with which its possessors bear the criticism of more mentally adventurous nations. It is the mood of those who have made their bargain with fate and are content to take what it offers without re-opening the deal. It leaves the mind free to concentrate undisturbed upon profitable activities, because it is not distracted by a taste for unprofitable speculations. Most generations, it might be said, walk in a path which they neither make, nor discover, but accept; the main thing is that they should march. The blinkers worn by Englishmen enable them to trot all the more steadily along the beaten {2} road, without being disturbed by curiosity as to their destination.

By: R H Tawney
Imprint: Binker North
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 6mm
Weight: 299g
ISBN: 9781774419700
ISBN 10: 177441970X
Pages: 94
Publication Date: 09 June 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Richard Henry Tawney (30 November 1880 - 16 January 1962) was an English economic historian, social critic, ethical socialist, Christian socialist, and important proponent of adult education. The Oxford Companion to British History (1997) explained that Tawney made a ""significant impact"" in these ""interrelated roles"". A. L. Rowse goes further by insisting that ""Tawney exercised the widest influence of any historian of his time, politically, socially and, above all, educationally""Born on 30 November 1880 in Calcutta, British India (present-day Kolkata, India), Tawney was the son of the Sanskrit scholar Charles Henry Tawney. He was educated at Rugby School, arriving on the same day as William Temple, a future Archbishop of Canterbury; they remained friends for life. He read Greats at Balliol College, Oxford. The college's ""strong ethic of social service"" combined with Tawney's own ""deep and enduring Anglicanism"" helped shape his sense of social responsibility. After graduating from Oxford in 1903, he and his friend William Beveridge lived at Toynbee Hall, then the home of the recently formed Workers' Educational Association (WEA). The experience was to have a profound effect upon him. He realised that charity was insufficient and major structural change was required to bring about social justice for the poor."