FREEDOM (Kaleidoscope)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) IS a believer and proponent of democratic socialism, Shaw condemns the devices of the elites and the rich who foster an environment of false freedom and enslavement of the poor and underprivileged.

Prodigious – remarkable
Humbug- false talk
Delude- make someone believe something which is not true
Snobbery- the quality of being a snob
Snob - a person who seeks to associate with social superiors and looks down on those who are regarded as socially inferior.
Calumny – the making of false and defamatory statements about someone in order to damage their reputation.
Abominable – atrocious, horrible.
Canonized – to declare (a deceased person as) an officially recognized saint.

A chattel slave is an enslaved person who is owned for ever and whose children and children's children are automatically enslaved. Chattel slaves are individuals treated as complete property, to be bought and sold. Chattel slavery was supported and made legal by European governments and monarchs.

Wage slavery is a term describing a situation in which a person's livelihood depends on wages or a salary, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.

Magna Charta is a charter that King John was forced in 1215 to sign by the powerful Dukes, and Lords of England. In the charter the king agreed to respect the rights of every Englishman. It is one of the foundations of the British constitution.

Trafalgar is a Spanish cape North-West of Gibraltar. In 1805 The British Navy under Nelson defeated the combined naval fleet of France and Spain.

Wages Boards are organizations set up by the British Government to determine the wages of factory workers and settle disputes regarding wages.

The Factory Acts lay down rules and regulations regarding who protest against the imposture of the ruling class? factory work the length of working hours, pay and working conditions, and all other aspects of factory work.

Leisure is the old English name of freedom.

A conundrum is a confusing problem or question that is very difficult to solve.

The Bill of Rights 1689, also known as the Bill of Rights 1688, is a landmark Act in the constitutional law of England that sets out certain basic civil rights and clarifies who would be next to inherit the Crown. It also includes no right of taxation without Parliament's agreement.

The Spanish Armada was a Habsburg Spanish fleet of 130 ships that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588 under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, with the purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to invade England.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in Belgium, part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the time. At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history. The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s.

1. What are the links between natural jobs, labour and slavery?

According to George Bernard Shaw there are links between natural jobs, labour and slavery because natural jobs can be slavery in their context we are doing natural jobs to earn a living for that we are using other living beings as our slaves and we are also the slaves of the masters who provide us the job and he will be a slave of some other and this cycle continues in the society therefore there is a link between natural jobs, labour and slavery.

2. What ought to be the objects of all governments, and what actually find it to be?

The object of all honest governments should be to protect the citizens from slavery and to ensure a peaceful living condition to them and their family. They enforce our slavery and call it freedom. But they also regulate our slavery, keeping the greed of our masters within certain bounds.

3. Which British saint says that we cannot achieve peace and harmony unless we abolish slavery?

Saint Thomas More, who has just been canonized, held that we shall never have a peaceful and stable society until this struggle is ended by the abolition of slavery altogether, and the compulsion of everyone to do his share of the world's work with his own hands and brains, and not to attempt to put it on anyone else.

4. What is Shaw’s conclusion about two types of slavery?

He tells his readers to wipe out the idea of attaining complete freedom and the thought of doing what we like to do all the time. According to him people have to remain occupied in natural slavery for twelve hours a day while unnatural slavery is controlled and regulated by legal and administrative system of the country.

5. What is Shaw’s opinion about right to vote?

Shaw thinks that the governments deceive the people by simply saying that they have the power to govern the country by choosing their representatives through right to vote. A general election is held every five years and at the elections only two persons who are quite rich and unaware of the problems of common man become candidates for election. The candidates themselves are unworthy therefore in spite of having the right to vote people are not free to do whatever they want to do.

6. What are Shaw’s views on working hours and retirement?

At the end of the essay Shaw kindles our mind by asking the readers if given complete freedom will they be able to handle it responsibly? He therefore, leave the readers with a conundrum to think over. If they had a choice, would they work for eight hours a day and retire with a full pension at forty-five, or would rather work four hours a day and keep on working until you are seventy? She urges the readers to talk about this to their wives and to send any replies to him.

7. What causes the master class to be more deluded than the enslaved classes?

A gentleman whose mind has been formulated at a primary school about the privileges the sons of gentlemen could enjoy in the society, followed by a public school and university course, is much more thoroughly taken in by the misleading history and dishonest political economy and the snobbery taught in these places than any worker can possibly be, because the gentleman’s education teaches him that he is a very fine fellow, superior to the common run of men whose duty it is to brush his clothes, carry his parcels, and earn his income for him, and as he thoroughly agrees with this view of himself, he honestly believes that the system which has placed him in such an agreeable situation and done such justice to his merits is the best of all possible systems, . But the great mass of our rack-rented, underpaid, treated-as-inferiors cast-off-on the-poor workers cannot feel so sure about it as the gentleman.

8. According to Aristotle, what are the conditions to be fulfilled for the common people to accept law and order, and government, and all that they imply?

According to Aristotle the condition to be fulfilled for the common people to accept law and order and government and all that they imply is that they must make men ignorant idolaters before they will become obedient workers and law-abiding citizens so that they will obey each and every rule implemented by the government since they are ignorant idol worshippers.

9. How can reasonable laws, impartially administered, contribute to one’s freedom?

If we live in a civilized country our freedom is restricted by the laws of the land enforced by the police, who compel us to do this, and not to do that, and to pay rates and taxes. If we do not obey these laws the courts will imprison us, and, if we go too far, they will subject us to death

10. What did Aristotle say about the maintenance of law and order?

Great men like Aristotle have held that law and order and government would be impossible unless the rulers are beautifully dressed and decorated, robed and uniformed, speaking with special accent, travelling in first class carriages etc. You must make men ignorant idolaters before they will become obedient workers and law-abiding citizens

11. What do the British ruling class do when people make a revolution?
When the people make a revolution, England immediately declares war against them and lends money to other powers to join her to crush the revolutionaries and restore the slave order.
12. What happens when the revolution wins?
When the revolution wins, as for example in Russia in 1922 the fighting stops, but the abuse and calumnies continue till the revolutionised state grows into a first-rate military power. Then the British diplomats do an about turn and invite the leaders of the revolutionised state to dinner.