Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

Ethics, Economics, and Government 167
Snobby Price, he will be tempted to imitate the capitalists by taking as
much as he can and doing as little as possible for it (Major Barbara 3:96).
The economic competition central to capitalist theory is itself destructive,
for it is easier to sabotage the competition than to create a better product.
The system favors the likes of Boss Mangan, who admits: “I may not know
anything about my own machinery; but I know how to stick a ramrod into
the other fellow’s” (Heartbreak House 5:164). And the unbridled operation
of the laws of supply and demand ensures that everyone has a vested
interest in reducing the supply of the goods in which he deals.
Individuals are constantly trying to decrease supply for their own
advantage. Gigantic conspiracies have been entered into to forestall
the world’s wheat and cotton harvests, so as to force their value to the
highest possible point. . . . All rings, trusts corners, combinations,
monopolies, and trade secrets have the same object. Production and
the development of the social instincts are alike hindered by each
man’s consciousness that the more he stints the community the more
he benefits himself. (“Economic Basis” 16–17)
Many people, particularly in the professions, have even greater conflicts
between their interests and those of the public. The consequence is that
“all professions . . . are conspiracies against the public” (Pref. Doctor’s Dilemma
3:237). Contrary to capitalist theory, the pursuit of maximum individual
gain results in a reduction in the public weal.
And as the use of a plot of land for growing wheat, or as the site of a
cathedral or college, may be less lucrative to its private owner than its
use as a site of a totalizator, an able merchant may make more money
out of the vices of mankind than an inventor or philanthropist out of
its needs and virtues. In England a surgeon can earn hundreds of
pounds by a major operation, and three guineas by declaring it to
be unnecessary. A doctor who cures his patients loses them. A victualler’s
“good bar customer,” meaning one who drinks more than
is good for him, is a bad citizen. The prudent plumber takes care not
to make his repairs too permanent. It is therefore disastrous from
the public point of view to give any person a pecuniary interest in
disease or in mischief of any sort. (Everybody’s Political What’s
What? 316–17)
But that is what capitalism does. The profitability of waste, inefficiency,
and destruction is embodied in the ubiquitous Breakages, Limited, the