Equality [antikvár]

Introduction by RICHARD M, TITMUSS (I) When Tawney wrote his Epilogue and Preface to the 1951 edition of Equality the British economy had not fully recovered from the Second World War. Substantial progress had been made, more progress indeed in terms of annual rates of growth than was to occur in the 1950s, but much still remained to be done to make up for the long years when the garment of hardship had been willingly and quietly worn by the British people. Liberty, which they had prized so highly, had to be paid for not only during the war but for years afterwards. But what was borne in the heat of a civiUans' war was not so acceptable in peacetime. The right to choose between satisfying different economic and social wants became available again. And properly so. Patience lost some of its pristine virtue, especially among those who, imlike Tolstoy's creatures, had not been inured by custom and class to shuffle their feet. For the more privileged, whose vision of Britain in the approach-ing 1950s bore some resemblance to the placid country-house glories of Edwardian England, it was hard to accept the merits of planning, nationaUzation and 'The Welfare State'. Like the Trade Unions, the British Medical Association and the Law Society they wanted to be left undisturbed to live out the destinies of tradition. They had not the imagination at that time to see how much benefit they would gain from using (and knowing far better than others how to use) what we call the 'social services'; they had not reaUzed tliat 'classless' services (in the sense of equalizing opportimities for people in imequal circumstances) were impossible to attain in a deeply class-divided society; nor could they then appreciate one of the positive achievements of a Socialist administration in negatively holding at bay for six years the predatory vulgarities of land speculators and property developers. Finally, they had hardly begun to see that more equahty in income and wealtfi, education, and the enjoyment of the decencies of social hving might con-