Socialism is not a term I've always been able to understand. I've tried, certainly – but dictionary definitions, in their concise nature, are too vague. Encyclopaedic definitions, in their academic nature, are too biased toward academic language. Comprehensible, perhaps, but not necessarily engaging. And Socialism is a subject which, in a society where Capitalism is what most people know and have grown up with, needs a patient and engaging explanation.
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists does much to meet this demand. The picture painted by Robert Tressell, himself a workingman, of working-class life at the beginning of the 20th century, has enough pathos to allow people even a hundred years later to identify with his characters, their tribulations, and their exploitation – all for the sake of profit.
Tressell's story is set in the fictional Musgborough, a name that typifies the subtle irony he employs throughout the book. It depicts the lives of a group of workers employed by a painting and decorating firm in the South of England. We see the conditions under which the men have to work, often oppressed by their profit-minded masters – forced to work as shoddily and cheaply as possible to maximise profits. We see the men’s home lives, and how their poverty affects their wives, parents and children – very little to eat, or indeed to wear. We see the opposite side, the corrupt, yet affluent, lives of the masters – affected Christianity and corrupt control of the means of production and of council business.
Throughout the book we are treated to the vision of Frank Owen, one of the labourers, trying to convert his fellow workers to Socialist ideals. The workers themselves, by and large, dismiss these ideas, despite the obvious benefits they’d reap from such a system. Such is the indoctrination of these people that they believe that the status quo should remain because it’s simply the way things are. This is something we see all the time – workers will often happily accept the status quo because they don’t think that they have the authority, or the right, to question it. And it happens in other spheres of society, too. How long have people repressed homosexuality for fear that it wasn’t normal – and how many women have stayed at home to look after the kids and do the housework, because “that’s what’s supposed to happen”?
The book is therefore, a very clear Socialist manifesto, which, through Owen's lectures, gives us a picture of the Socialist ideal that is neither too simplified, nor too academic to understand. By placing it in a perfectly recognisable context, Tressell has made Socialism accessible to the working person. Granted, there is a difference between the book’s world and the world of today. The two are very different, so perhaps the vision of Socialism presented to us by Tressell might not be fully workable in this day and age, but that’s no reason to simply give it up as a bad job. Its core arguments still prevail - some things have not changed, yet some have changed and regressed. For instance, the workers back then didn't have the protection of trade unions. These days, such protection is often very weak or non-existent.
However, the book still makes enough of a good narrative to be entertaining. Though serious in its overall nature, it has a good sprinkling of comic moments, it has its tragedy, and its human interest. A worthwhile read for its political message – but also if politics has little appeal.
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