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The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Tressell's novel is about survival on the underside of the Edwardian Twilight, about exploitative employment when the only safety nets are charity, workhouse, and grave.
Following the fortunes of a group of painters and decorators and their families, and the attempts to rouse their political will by the Socialist visionary Frank Owen, the book is both a highly entertaining story and a passionate appeal for a fairer way of life.
It asks questions that are still being asked today: why do your wages bear no relation to the value of your work? Why do fat cats get richer when you don't? Tressell's answers are "The Great Money Trick" and the "philanthropy" of an unenlightened workforce, who give away their rights and aspirations to a decent life so freely.
Intellectually enlightening, deeply moving and gloriously funny (complete with exploding clergyman), The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a book that changes lives.
Following the fortunes of a group of painters and decorators and their families, and the attempts to rouse their political will by the Socialist visionary Frank Owen, the book is both a highly entertaining story and a passionate appeal for a fairer way of life.
It asks questions that are still being asked today: why do your wages bear no relation to the value of your work? Why do fat cats get richer when you don't? Tressell's answers are "The Great Money Trick" and the "philanthropy" of an unenlightened workforce, who give away their rights and aspirations to a decent life so freely.
Intellectually enlightening, deeply moving and gloriously funny (complete with exploding clergyman), The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a book that changes lives.
704 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 1914
1178 people are currently reading
18822 people want to read
About the author
Robert Tressell
8 books60 followersRobert Tressell (pen name used by Robert Noonan; April 17, 1870—February 3, 1911) was an Irish-British writer best known for his novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 807 reviews
January 11, 2019
Written and set in Edwardian England, ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ follows the working lives of a group of painters and decorators. Badly treated by their employers, it exposes the greed and corruption - the threat of eviction - and starvation etc which was prevalent at that time. The author himself was a painter and decorator, and it's not hard to see that he was writing about the grim reality of his own life and that of his colleagues in those days before state welfare was introduced. This really is a classic piece of social history in Great Britain, and in some ways is still relevant today.
November 13, 2019
SPECIAL ELECTION BROADCAST!
This ragged monsterpiece, also titled The Labour 2019 Election Manifesto, is Jeremy Corbyn’s favourite novel, a 600-page sprawling rant against the ruling capitalist elite and their exploitation of the conditioned workers. Reading the novel over 100 years on, the parallels between now and then are identical—the right-wing British press and psuedo-aristo politicians have managed to manipulate a vast swathe of working-class voters into trusting them on delivering “Brexit”, i.e. a literal punch in their faces, a literal sundering of their nations, a literal robbing of their trouser pockets, a literal fistfuck up the anus of their futures. Look, I am as indifferent as the next man to the plight of moronic Sun-readers in Workington. I am sitting here listening to the new Kim Gordon record, pondering last night’s teriyaki avocado and sweet potato curry, and praising Rodrigo Fresán’s translator on Twitter. I am not Workington man. I am a man who hates dimwits as much as the schemers manipulating dimwits into voting against their interests. But the time comes when right-wing press barons have to be kicked repeatedly in the shins, have to be Steve-Albinied up the keester, and that time is now, in this election. So, vote for anything other than Boris. Read this important, relentless, grinding, and timeless novel, not the Telegraph, the Express, or the Mail, and vote like a proper fucking human being.
THIS HAS BEEN AN ELECTION BROADCAST ON BEHALF OF GO-AND-ROBERT-TRESELL-THEIR-ASSES PARTY
This ragged monsterpiece, also titled The Labour 2019 Election Manifesto, is Jeremy Corbyn’s favourite novel, a 600-page sprawling rant against the ruling capitalist elite and their exploitation of the conditioned workers. Reading the novel over 100 years on, the parallels between now and then are identical—the right-wing British press and psuedo-aristo politicians have managed to manipulate a vast swathe of working-class voters into trusting them on delivering “Brexit”, i.e. a literal punch in their faces, a literal sundering of their nations, a literal robbing of their trouser pockets, a literal fistfuck up the anus of their futures. Look, I am as indifferent as the next man to the plight of moronic Sun-readers in Workington. I am sitting here listening to the new Kim Gordon record, pondering last night’s teriyaki avocado and sweet potato curry, and praising Rodrigo Fresán’s translator on Twitter. I am not Workington man. I am a man who hates dimwits as much as the schemers manipulating dimwits into voting against their interests. But the time comes when right-wing press barons have to be kicked repeatedly in the shins, have to be Steve-Albinied up the keester, and that time is now, in this election. So, vote for anything other than Boris. Read this important, relentless, grinding, and timeless novel, not the Telegraph, the Express, or the Mail, and vote like a proper fucking human being.
THIS HAS BEEN AN ELECTION BROADCAST ON BEHALF OF GO-AND-ROBERT-TRESELL-THEIR-ASSES PARTY
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April 30, 2020Not what I was expecting, no Hardy-style wife selling, or Dostoevsky-style pushing daughter into prostitution to earn some hard cash and less searing than Boys from the Blackstuff. Maybe it is too English and mild mannered, I mean there are only three deaths and only one couple forced into the workhouse - what kind of indictment of capitalism is this!
Perhaps that is the book's secret strength. It is not a picture of extreme hardship but it's working class characters are boxed in a trap from which there will only be one escape (or two if you include socialism ).
Set in the still shabby seaside town of Hastings, and dealing with a bunch of painters and decorators trying to earn a living working for a penny-pinching firm, it reads like the bastard son of Hard Times. There are some great character names of the Bodgit and Scarper type, while most of the characters labour under a pernicious philosophy that keeps people down. The use of pieces of bread to demonstrate why the hero's co-workers are, and will remain, the eponymous ragged trousered philanthropists is alone worth the cover price of the book .
Nice to see that some familiar stories like pushing a sheet of paper into a room to check for fleas and the misappropriation of the tea fund have a long pedigree. The bitterness of the story comes from how much is still the same today, like the children sent to school without any breakfast. It's good to know that we haven't abandoned all our ancient traditions in this modern age.
May 2015
In the last few days before the General Election here in the UK I remember another scene from the book. The painters and decorators among themselves save up some money to have a Beano - a lunch with plenty of booze in a country pub outside of town. Out of politeness they invite their bosses and pay their way, on the day by the time it comes round to making the toasts the bosses have taken charge of the proceedings and almost none of the workers has any sense of just how incongruous this is. And when the hero of the story tries to point it out, he is shouted down. The patriotic conservatism of the working men on the bring of poverty with no consciousness of the injustice of their own situation remains ever green too. Plus ca change...
Perhaps that is the book's secret strength. It is not a picture of extreme hardship but it's working class characters are boxed in a trap from which there will only be one escape (or two if you include socialism ).
Set in the still shabby seaside town of Hastings, and dealing with a bunch of painters and decorators trying to earn a living working for a penny-pinching firm, it reads like the bastard son of Hard Times. There are some great character names of the Bodgit and Scarper type, while most of the characters labour under a pernicious philosophy that keeps people down. The use of pieces of bread to demonstrate why the hero's co-workers are, and will remain, the eponymous ragged trousered philanthropists is alone worth the cover price of the book .
Nice to see that some familiar stories like pushing a sheet of paper into a room to check for fleas and the misappropriation of the tea fund have a long pedigree. The bitterness of the story comes from how much is still the same today, like the children sent to school without any breakfast. It's good to know that we haven't abandoned all our ancient traditions in this modern age.
May 2015
In the last few days before the General Election here in the UK I remember another scene from the book. The painters and decorators among themselves save up some money to have a Beano - a lunch with plenty of booze in a country pub outside of town. Out of politeness they invite their bosses and pay their way, on the day by the time it comes round to making the toasts the bosses have taken charge of the proceedings and almost none of the workers has any sense of just how incongruous this is. And when the hero of the story tries to point it out, he is shouted down. The patriotic conservatism of the working men on the bring of poverty with no consciousness of the injustice of their own situation remains ever green too. Plus ca change...
January 31, 2012
If you've ever reflected on the woes of the world, this novel might offer some relief.
Relief that is, from any illusion that things will probably be ok; that we have learnt from mistakes of the past, and that we are at the dawn of some enlightened benevolent age.
Written and set in the Edwardian era of 1901 to 1910, Robert Tressell describes his work ...
"My main object was to write a readable story full of human interest and based on the happenings of everyday life, the subject of Socialism being treated incidentally."
Drawn heavily from, and perhaps because of, his own life experience; Tressle's fictional novel is about a group of 'working' men and their families, fighting for survival in a relentless and mortal struggle, to avoid poverty, and starvation.
Their work as hired 'temporary hands' in a painter and decorating firm, is short term and uncertain. Desperately trying to keep themselves and their families out of the workhouse, this vulnerability is fully exploited by their employers. Tressle who worked as a painter and decorator himself, uses his knowledge of this trade, and almost certainly anecdotal experience, to describe their profession, and therefore their 'plight' with a dark realism.
His working men lead harsh lives at the whim of their bosses, with little praise or pay for their labours, and harsh penalties or dismissal for the slightest of mistakes.
With unflinching attention to detail he reveals the drama unfolding in the daily routine of their lives, their happiness, and their misery. The importance of this work lies not with the subjects and their circumstances, but with the author's socioeconomic analysis of them. With the dedication of a master-craftsman, he describes each chararacter's difficult situation in context, and explains their limited options with factual fatalism. His ability to place you in the very skin of his characters is perhaps a measure of the integrity of this work.
The characters are strongly detailed in vivid technicolour, not from outward apearance, but from their circumstances and the particular ways they each have of dealing with the world in which they find themselves. The drama of their lives is interwoven with a narrative, that arranges each scene, then lets it play out as we voyeuristically watch, like helpless bystanders to one car crash after another.
With surgical skill, and sometimes without the tenderness of foreplay, the reader is sand-blasted. Bleak tales of desperate poverty unfold in minute detail. You are immersed in and become part of the drama in ways that feel immediate and uncomfortabe. As you read, you may occasionally need to set the book aside and compose yourself. This isn't real, it's just a story! ... or is it?
This is a human story, and it is eminently readable, but it also chillingly reveals the schism and vice at the heart of the capitalist so-called civilisation, based on the system of money.
With ingenuity, and in the mode of tragedy, we are shown in a hundred different and nasty ways, how man abuses his fellow man. Thankfully we are also shown how alternatives to this dystopia might be possible.
Readers may realise and underscore the moral message of this novel. Not only because (given the circumstances of Tressle's life), it is remarkably balanced, but also because driven to despair by poverty, the author almost destroyed his amazing work, and ultimately died from TB, a disease suffered by the impoverished and the down-trodden.
And the message ...that society's repeated failure to fairly distribute the necessities of human life, and a pathalogical tendency towards corruption and vain consumption are so prevalent, so manifestly routine, that our doom is all but certain. Our very survival as a species may lie in re-organizing our affairs efficiently for the benefit of all, rather than the priviledge of few.
Almost 100 years after it was first published, the relevance of this work, and it's ability to speak to us in the 21st century is surely a stark indictment of our time.
Engaging and informative - for the socially conscious, and ethically minded. Essential reading.
Dedicated to J & P Batty, who lent me this brilliant book to read. Thank you so much. (Jerome Willner).
Relief that is, from any illusion that things will probably be ok; that we have learnt from mistakes of the past, and that we are at the dawn of some enlightened benevolent age.
Written and set in the Edwardian era of 1901 to 1910, Robert Tressell describes his work ...
"My main object was to write a readable story full of human interest and based on the happenings of everyday life, the subject of Socialism being treated incidentally."
Drawn heavily from, and perhaps because of, his own life experience; Tressle's fictional novel is about a group of 'working' men and their families, fighting for survival in a relentless and mortal struggle, to avoid poverty, and starvation.
Their work as hired 'temporary hands' in a painter and decorating firm, is short term and uncertain. Desperately trying to keep themselves and their families out of the workhouse, this vulnerability is fully exploited by their employers. Tressle who worked as a painter and decorator himself, uses his knowledge of this trade, and almost certainly anecdotal experience, to describe their profession, and therefore their 'plight' with a dark realism.
His working men lead harsh lives at the whim of their bosses, with little praise or pay for their labours, and harsh penalties or dismissal for the slightest of mistakes.
With unflinching attention to detail he reveals the drama unfolding in the daily routine of their lives, their happiness, and their misery. The importance of this work lies not with the subjects and their circumstances, but with the author's socioeconomic analysis of them. With the dedication of a master-craftsman, he describes each chararacter's difficult situation in context, and explains their limited options with factual fatalism. His ability to place you in the very skin of his characters is perhaps a measure of the integrity of this work.
The characters are strongly detailed in vivid technicolour, not from outward apearance, but from their circumstances and the particular ways they each have of dealing with the world in which they find themselves. The drama of their lives is interwoven with a narrative, that arranges each scene, then lets it play out as we voyeuristically watch, like helpless bystanders to one car crash after another.
With surgical skill, and sometimes without the tenderness of foreplay, the reader is sand-blasted. Bleak tales of desperate poverty unfold in minute detail. You are immersed in and become part of the drama in ways that feel immediate and uncomfortabe. As you read, you may occasionally need to set the book aside and compose yourself. This isn't real, it's just a story! ... or is it?
This is a human story, and it is eminently readable, but it also chillingly reveals the schism and vice at the heart of the capitalist so-called civilisation, based on the system of money.
With ingenuity, and in the mode of tragedy, we are shown in a hundred different and nasty ways, how man abuses his fellow man. Thankfully we are also shown how alternatives to this dystopia might be possible.
Readers may realise and underscore the moral message of this novel. Not only because (given the circumstances of Tressle's life), it is remarkably balanced, but also because driven to despair by poverty, the author almost destroyed his amazing work, and ultimately died from TB, a disease suffered by the impoverished and the down-trodden.
And the message ...that society's repeated failure to fairly distribute the necessities of human life, and a pathalogical tendency towards corruption and vain consumption are so prevalent, so manifestly routine, that our doom is all but certain. Our very survival as a species may lie in re-organizing our affairs efficiently for the benefit of all, rather than the priviledge of few.
Almost 100 years after it was first published, the relevance of this work, and it's ability to speak to us in the 21st century is surely a stark indictment of our time.
Engaging and informative - for the socially conscious, and ethically minded. Essential reading.
Dedicated to J & P Batty, who lent me this brilliant book to read. Thank you so much. (Jerome Willner).
May 19, 2014
This book makes me feel like a bad leftie. I wanted to like it so much more than I did, and while parts of it are very powerful, the book is overlong, and treads the same ground so often that I had to force myself to finish it.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
June 26, 2018
I’ve had a long and somewhat strange relationship with this book. My father asked me to read it when I was about 11 and I started it, but must have only read the first couple of chapters. All the same, and that was over 40 years ago, I remembered bits of it as I read it again this time.
This is an ideological book, and it is a work of fiction. Part of me believes that fiction and ideology make bad bedfellows. Part of the reason for that is that fiction nearly always allows (and frequently implies) an ironic reading, and ideology doesn’t really expect that and so is undermined by not seeing the possible ironic reading. But this book is perhaps a little too didactic to allow an ironic reading.
My father was a house painter – and this is set amongst a group of house painters. I worked with my father for a couple of years while I was finishing my first degree. I’ve never really had a head for heights, and so that made a lot of the job an exercise in terror for me. But one of the things that painting does, that most of the other jobs I’ve done since don’t do, is it allows you to see a job finished. So much work today is task based and all part of an extreme division of labour, such that nothing one does ever really feels like it was you that did it. Painting isn’t like that. Although, oddly enough, it is here in this book, because of the forced cutting of corners the bosses require.
This book is about the ugly side of capitalism and the hardships it causes working people, it is a book calling for socialism by pointing out the systemic failures of the capitalist system and how these will only be overcome once private ownership is abolished. There would have been quite a long period after the second world war when people might have smugly felt that that harsh face of capitalism had become a thing of the past and that now the abject poverty facing people as described in this book, where people were required to be able and willing to work all day and all week, and still live in poverty, had become unthinkable. But we have returned to a time when people can work (and even work in multiple jobs) while still not having the basic requirements of life: shelter, food, clothing.
And what is particularly interesting about this book is that all of the excuses and explanations and victimisations and lies that were told then to justify why we have poverty and unemployment and hardship are exactly the same ones that are used today. For this alone, it is worth reading this book.
There is a bit of this towards the end where a socialist confronts someone who had been a socialist but has sold out. The ex-socialist says he still knows that the only hope for the future is socialism, but then he says that his problem isn’t with the idea of socialism, but with the utter stupidity of the working class – because he knows that the working class will fight till the death to defend the rights of their masters to exploit and starve them and their families. They would literally beat socialists to death for questioning the right of ‘their betters’ to have riches while they are denied even the crumbs. That while the socialists try to use reason as their weapon to make the world a better place, the working class have received a lifetime of lies about socialism from the media, their employers, politicians, and ministers of religion and would sooner kill the messenger than disturb the status quo. Basically, truth is not enough – something truth-tellers have been learning since Socrates.
Like I said, this is a book with an unashamed ideological message, it presents, in fictional form, many of the ideas and arguments socialists have put about the nature of money, exploitation, and how the socialisation of production, distribution and exchange might usher in a world for the benefit of all humanity, even including the rich. As such, reading this might save you from having to read what are much harder texts to read, such as Capital.
One of the parts of this book I really wasn’t expecting was the number of times when Owen considered killing his wife and child, rather than leave them to a world where he wasn’t going to be there to support them. This was a dark theme that haunted this book, I felt. There are many interesting parts to this book – and I can’t help feeling it is as relevant today as it was when it was originally published.
This is an ideological book, and it is a work of fiction. Part of me believes that fiction and ideology make bad bedfellows. Part of the reason for that is that fiction nearly always allows (and frequently implies) an ironic reading, and ideology doesn’t really expect that and so is undermined by not seeing the possible ironic reading. But this book is perhaps a little too didactic to allow an ironic reading.
My father was a house painter – and this is set amongst a group of house painters. I worked with my father for a couple of years while I was finishing my first degree. I’ve never really had a head for heights, and so that made a lot of the job an exercise in terror for me. But one of the things that painting does, that most of the other jobs I’ve done since don’t do, is it allows you to see a job finished. So much work today is task based and all part of an extreme division of labour, such that nothing one does ever really feels like it was you that did it. Painting isn’t like that. Although, oddly enough, it is here in this book, because of the forced cutting of corners the bosses require.
This book is about the ugly side of capitalism and the hardships it causes working people, it is a book calling for socialism by pointing out the systemic failures of the capitalist system and how these will only be overcome once private ownership is abolished. There would have been quite a long period after the second world war when people might have smugly felt that that harsh face of capitalism had become a thing of the past and that now the abject poverty facing people as described in this book, where people were required to be able and willing to work all day and all week, and still live in poverty, had become unthinkable. But we have returned to a time when people can work (and even work in multiple jobs) while still not having the basic requirements of life: shelter, food, clothing.
And what is particularly interesting about this book is that all of the excuses and explanations and victimisations and lies that were told then to justify why we have poverty and unemployment and hardship are exactly the same ones that are used today. For this alone, it is worth reading this book.
There is a bit of this towards the end where a socialist confronts someone who had been a socialist but has sold out. The ex-socialist says he still knows that the only hope for the future is socialism, but then he says that his problem isn’t with the idea of socialism, but with the utter stupidity of the working class – because he knows that the working class will fight till the death to defend the rights of their masters to exploit and starve them and their families. They would literally beat socialists to death for questioning the right of ‘their betters’ to have riches while they are denied even the crumbs. That while the socialists try to use reason as their weapon to make the world a better place, the working class have received a lifetime of lies about socialism from the media, their employers, politicians, and ministers of religion and would sooner kill the messenger than disturb the status quo. Basically, truth is not enough – something truth-tellers have been learning since Socrates.
Like I said, this is a book with an unashamed ideological message, it presents, in fictional form, many of the ideas and arguments socialists have put about the nature of money, exploitation, and how the socialisation of production, distribution and exchange might usher in a world for the benefit of all humanity, even including the rich. As such, reading this might save you from having to read what are much harder texts to read, such as Capital.
One of the parts of this book I really wasn’t expecting was the number of times when Owen considered killing his wife and child, rather than leave them to a world where he wasn’t going to be there to support them. This was a dark theme that haunted this book, I felt. There are many interesting parts to this book – and I can’t help feeling it is as relevant today as it was when it was originally published.
December 2, 2023
This masterpiece describes the struggles of the disempowered working classes in the UK early in the 20th century, about the time the Labour Party was founded and long before social housing, unemployment benefits, and the NHS. Written in a highly entertaining and humorous style by someone who clearly knew life as a prole, the message is serious and rabidly political. With the current drift to the political right all over the Western world, this book is sadly becoming relevant again beyond a historical record. As George Orwell apparently said: ‘a book that everyone should read.’
December 16, 2020
A really brilliant read – compelling, moving and thought-provoking, with wonderful characterisation. I loved it.
October 22, 2013
Everyone should read this book. 100 years on we have a welfare state, the NHS and numerous rights at work. These are precious and well fought for but recent government is trying to undermine and backtrack on these achievements. Privatisation of parts of the NHS, selling off Royal Mail - a profitable state-owned public service, zero-hour contracts and demonisation in the press (run by those who have a massive stake in the system) of the poor, disabled, working poor and anyone else who is considered 'outside' of the faux-moral norm are attempts to allow one group to become stinking rich at the expense of another. Let this book both show how far we have come but also act as a warning - be careful who you vote for!
October 18, 2025
A considerable amount of literature has been written on working-class people and the conditions of their lives. All of these, to various degrees, have exposed the utter poverty in which people of the working class live, not even earning enough to provide for the basic needs of their families. Being malnourished and unprotected from cold and damp weather due to the scarcity of food and clothes, many saw an early grave, while the "lucky" survivors ended up in workhouses. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists belongs to this literary canon and also explores similar issues. But what makes The Ragged Trousered Philanthropistsstand apart from the lot is the author's unbiased study of this state of affairs.
Many literary works that I have read on the theme of the working class directly blame the "masters" for the undue exploitation of the workers to make a profit. Without providing suitable working and living conditions for their workmen, and sometimes underpaying them, these "masters" run behind profit, disregarding the well-being of their workers. The inhuman conditions in which they work and live, and being treated almost like animals, their sufferings and pain have poured abundantly from the pages of this sympathetic literature. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists also does this. But it also shows another side to the problem. That is the part in which the workers play in their own suffering.
Most of the working-class people are uneducated, hence, they are ignorant. Lack of education and ignorance make them think that masters are superior and their betters. This, in turn, leads to the feeling in working men that they are inferior and that the actions of the masters are just, even if they exploit them mercilessly. When some intelligent man within the working class tries to show his fellow men the folly of their thinking, they resent him for speaking the truth. The working class, although not too happy with their condition of life and at times resentful towards their masters, is not ready to renounce their physical and mental slavery to their masters. This is the area that Tressell addresses in his novel.
Tressell calls these ignorant workmen, "the ragged trousered philanthropists" because of their "charity" towards their masters, allowing them to exploit their labour. In the story, two socialist workers try to educate their fellow men about why the capitalist system is detrimental to them, and how the system makes the masters rich while they, whose labor made it all possible, have sunk into abject poverty. Instead of listening and trying to understand the truth, the workers simply ridicule the efforts of their educators. They even become hostile towards them, calling them "bloody socialists". What is pathetic about this situation is that these workers understand that they are underpaid and that their living conditions are unsuitable for human dignity. Yet, they are not ready to change, not ready to raise their voice against their masters. They submit passively and believe that is what they deserve. This degradation to which they subject themselves is more injurious to themselves than the degradation to which the masters subject them. Their feelings of unworthiness make them bow down to their masters' actions as just, even though they suffer and are unhappy.
Tressell saw the working class itself as an obstacle to their deliverance into a better life. Their ignorance and belief in their inferiority and their apathy towards working on a collective action for change made exploitation easy and salvation difficult. Belonging to the working class and socialist movement, Tressell was exasperated by the inaction of his fellow men in a cause that he believed to provide the only remedy for uplifting their lives and the lives of their children. His anger and frustration clearly manifest throughout the pages of the novel.
I enjoyed the thematic exposition of the story, which is about the exploitation of the labour of the working class by the capitalist system. And I also enjoyed Tressell's balanced perspective that censured not only the masters and the capitalist system for exploiting the labour but also the workers who allowed them to be exploited. However, as a story of fiction, it fell short. Tressell's socialist theories dominated and occupied much of the novel, pushing the story aside. Many chapters were devoted to explaining these theories, making the novel almost nonfiction. The story and the message Tressell was trying to convey through the story didn't blend; they ran separately and in parallel.
Despite the structural flaw of the story, however, it is an important novel in the canon of working-class literature. And as George Orwell said, it is a novel that "everyone should read".
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
Many literary works that I have read on the theme of the working class directly blame the "masters" for the undue exploitation of the workers to make a profit. Without providing suitable working and living conditions for their workmen, and sometimes underpaying them, these "masters" run behind profit, disregarding the well-being of their workers. The inhuman conditions in which they work and live, and being treated almost like animals, their sufferings and pain have poured abundantly from the pages of this sympathetic literature. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists also does this. But it also shows another side to the problem. That is the part in which the workers play in their own suffering.
Most of the working-class people are uneducated, hence, they are ignorant. Lack of education and ignorance make them think that masters are superior and their betters. This, in turn, leads to the feeling in working men that they are inferior and that the actions of the masters are just, even if they exploit them mercilessly. When some intelligent man within the working class tries to show his fellow men the folly of their thinking, they resent him for speaking the truth. The working class, although not too happy with their condition of life and at times resentful towards their masters, is not ready to renounce their physical and mental slavery to their masters. This is the area that Tressell addresses in his novel.
Tressell calls these ignorant workmen, "the ragged trousered philanthropists" because of their "charity" towards their masters, allowing them to exploit their labour. In the story, two socialist workers try to educate their fellow men about why the capitalist system is detrimental to them, and how the system makes the masters rich while they, whose labor made it all possible, have sunk into abject poverty. Instead of listening and trying to understand the truth, the workers simply ridicule the efforts of their educators. They even become hostile towards them, calling them "bloody socialists". What is pathetic about this situation is that these workers understand that they are underpaid and that their living conditions are unsuitable for human dignity. Yet, they are not ready to change, not ready to raise their voice against their masters. They submit passively and believe that is what they deserve. This degradation to which they subject themselves is more injurious to themselves than the degradation to which the masters subject them. Their feelings of unworthiness make them bow down to their masters' actions as just, even though they suffer and are unhappy.
Tressell saw the working class itself as an obstacle to their deliverance into a better life. Their ignorance and belief in their inferiority and their apathy towards working on a collective action for change made exploitation easy and salvation difficult. Belonging to the working class and socialist movement, Tressell was exasperated by the inaction of his fellow men in a cause that he believed to provide the only remedy for uplifting their lives and the lives of their children. His anger and frustration clearly manifest throughout the pages of the novel.
I enjoyed the thematic exposition of the story, which is about the exploitation of the labour of the working class by the capitalist system. And I also enjoyed Tressell's balanced perspective that censured not only the masters and the capitalist system for exploiting the labour but also the workers who allowed them to be exploited. However, as a story of fiction, it fell short. Tressell's socialist theories dominated and occupied much of the novel, pushing the story aside. Many chapters were devoted to explaining these theories, making the novel almost nonfiction. The story and the message Tressell was trying to convey through the story didn't blend; they ran separately and in parallel.
Despite the structural flaw of the story, however, it is an important novel in the canon of working-class literature. And as George Orwell said, it is a novel that "everyone should read".
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
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February 7, 2017
Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.
Just wonderful. At times sickening, but also heartening and exactly what one needs in this era, for good and bad. Moreso brilliant for what it stands for rather than how it is written or the plot, but even so the plot is worthy in its own right. Full review to follow.
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Just wonderful. At times sickening, but also heartening and exactly what one needs in this era, for good and bad. Moreso brilliant for what it stands for rather than how it is written or the plot, but even so the plot is worthy in its own right. Full review to follow.
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April 21, 2020
Have ever hear of the joke about watching paint dry. This the book that sets right This union book not an easy read but very rewarding one it is like The Grapes of Wrath set in wallpaper.
Set in poor man's wages & the North around bad wages workers who are treat like filth I loved it.
A book that is set long before anyone thought of minimum wages .A socialist Nightmare that is filthy shades of grey , this the very edge of being of labour party a time when a roll of wallpaper cost men's weeks wage packet and more. The idea of block raised wallpaper by William Morris that cost in to days money £250 handcrafted.
Tressell create 's a book that isn't as popular today because it has been forgotten about and is not on the school corclica or I never hear of it been televised which I can't see it been popular.
It is very funny book, very sad book and very Union book. The sadness part of this book is that it was published in April 1914 to show paint trade was been treat and by end of year it didn't matter because WWI started and the paint was drying in the poppy fields in blood.
This isn't anything like watching paint dry.
.
Set in poor man's wages & the North around bad wages workers who are treat like filth I loved it.
A book that is set long before anyone thought of minimum wages .A socialist Nightmare that is filthy shades of grey , this the very edge of being of labour party a time when a roll of wallpaper cost men's weeks wage packet and more. The idea of block raised wallpaper by William Morris that cost in to days money £250 handcrafted.
Tressell create 's a book that isn't as popular today because it has been forgotten about and is not on the school corclica or I never hear of it been televised which I can't see it been popular.
It is very funny book, very sad book and very Union book. The sadness part of this book is that it was published in April 1914 to show paint trade was been treat and by end of year it didn't matter because WWI started and the paint was drying in the poppy fields in blood.
This isn't anything like watching paint dry.
.
July 21, 2007
I read the complete, unedited text, after being given it as a rather thoughtful Christmas present. It is rightly heralded as a classic piece of working-class literature, as it takes you into the brutish yet everyday horrors endured by the British working-class, at a time when socialism was beginning to gain ground.
One of the most arresting aspects, is how little our lives have changed in the time since it was written (1914). Certainly there have been great strides forward in many aspects, but the essence of domination, resistance, apathy and endurance remain. It is the way that this book makes them all the more visible in our present lives-cutting through the plethora of appearances/desires-to reveal a world of deep inequality, abuses of power and adherence to orders of the day.
Don't be put of by the density and length, it really works in creating a convincing atmosphere of the times and allows room for a rather surprising ending.
The authors own life, and the route to this books production is worth reading also;
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragg...]
One of the most arresting aspects, is how little our lives have changed in the time since it was written (1914). Certainly there have been great strides forward in many aspects, but the essence of domination, resistance, apathy and endurance remain. It is the way that this book makes them all the more visible in our present lives-cutting through the plethora of appearances/desires-to reveal a world of deep inequality, abuses of power and adherence to orders of the day.
Don't be put of by the density and length, it really works in creating a convincing atmosphere of the times and allows room for a rather surprising ending.
The authors own life, and the route to this books production is worth reading also;
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragg...]
June 7, 2019
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is by far one of my favourite books. It's so much more than just a novel or just an essay - and incredibly, the observations Tressell makes are (sadly) just as timely today as they were 100 years ago.
July 11, 2019
A profoundly moving and patriotic book, which should be read by everyone who lives in the UK and professes to care about the country and its people. Written just before WWI, it has become a classic of the socialist movement, and as such is perhaps not so well-known as it should be.
The great socialist injustices of the day are exposed and explored in a fly-on-the-wall reportage of the lives of a group of semi-skilled and skilled workmen in a fictional English town. One of the things that struck me most is how much some things have never changed since then, despite two world wars and several Labour governments. And how in some ways society is regressing today, back to those very dark days. In many ways this book lays the groundwork for the late Harry Leslie Smith's masterpiece Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down, and What We Can Do to Save It. Make sure you read it!
The great socialist injustices of the day are exposed and explored in a fly-on-the-wall reportage of the lives of a group of semi-skilled and skilled workmen in a fictional English town. One of the things that struck me most is how much some things have never changed since then, despite two world wars and several Labour governments. And how in some ways society is regressing today, back to those very dark days. In many ways this book lays the groundwork for the late Harry Leslie Smith's masterpiece Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down, and What We Can Do to Save It. Make sure you read it!
September 29, 2020
Please read this book. It will explain backdoor
1) trowel - handed
2) driving work machinery
3) posing as if using a Monday Hammer
4) sticking his hand up a cows arse
1) trowel - handed
2) driving work machinery
3) posing as if using a Monday Hammer
4) sticking his hand up a cows arse
April 3, 2021
This is one of the greatest books that I have ever read and it brilliantly illustrates the reasoning why I am a fully paid up, card carrying member of the Labour party and wear a red ‘A’ lapel badge! It’s not so much the book that changed my life as reassured me that I was right in the first place.
This novel is set at the start of the 20th century and the birth of Britain’s Labour party as they attempt to bring about a Socialist utopia for the working classes. Outlining the resistance to change by the Liberal and Tory governing classes as well as the very workers that would benefit the most from the changes highlights the idiocy of the day. The working classes did not seek to better their lot condemning their children to the same fate even when the Socialists demonstrate the folly of continuing with the current state of affairs. ‘The Great Money Trick’ is brilliantly illustrated by Frank Owen – one of the Socialist heroes of the book – where the factory owners reap the benefits of the worker’s labour, pay them a wage which they must use to purchase the very necessities that they created to survive and so remain in poverty. The book also highlights the idiocy of the Socialists in trying to reason with people by rational argument that the change would benefit them when they are too set in their ways. George Barrington – the other Socialist hero of the story – demonstrates that money is the root cause of poverty and how the work can be fairly carried out for a fair wage so that nobody should suffer the indignity of destitution.
So if you think that the wages you receive for the work that you do does not tally with the value of what you produce; read on and the reasons shall be revealed.
This novel is set at the start of the 20th century and the birth of Britain’s Labour party as they attempt to bring about a Socialist utopia for the working classes. Outlining the resistance to change by the Liberal and Tory governing classes as well as the very workers that would benefit the most from the changes highlights the idiocy of the day. The working classes did not seek to better their lot condemning their children to the same fate even when the Socialists demonstrate the folly of continuing with the current state of affairs. ‘The Great Money Trick’ is brilliantly illustrated by Frank Owen – one of the Socialist heroes of the book – where the factory owners reap the benefits of the worker’s labour, pay them a wage which they must use to purchase the very necessities that they created to survive and so remain in poverty. The book also highlights the idiocy of the Socialists in trying to reason with people by rational argument that the change would benefit them when they are too set in their ways. George Barrington – the other Socialist hero of the story – demonstrates that money is the root cause of poverty and how the work can be fairly carried out for a fair wage so that nobody should suffer the indignity of destitution.
So if you think that the wages you receive for the work that you do does not tally with the value of what you produce; read on and the reasons shall be revealed.
December 12, 2011
A passionately written socialist polemic describing the hardships Edwardian housepainters had to endure. There are no shades of grey in this novel, and the author believes that if you have a point to make, dont make it once when you can do it twenty times. Additionally the solution presented in the book with the benefit of being able to look back at the 20th century is naive to say the least. What however endures in this book beyond any doubt and provides it with a compelling voice even today is what happens when the weak have no rights, the inhumanity of greed, and finally the self defeating cooperation the oppressed show the oppressors.
January 14, 2018
I first came across this while reading the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole - a "sacred text" of mine when I was about 12. Adrian, wanting to be an intellectual, had got hold of the book but - I think - wasn´t sure he wanted to read a book about badly dressed stamp collectors. Now this book itself has become something of a sacred text to a lot of people and - finally getting around to reading it at 44 years young - I can see why.
I don´t have much to add to what you can read in the other reviews or in summaries of the book except that there is a lot of humour in the book. It´s a wry, funny read, from the author´s punning name to the characters - my favourite being Diddlum. The horror of poverty is there, of course, in all it´s stark reality - and behind that ironic smile, you can never get away from the writer´s burning sense of injustice and unfairness. There are unexpectedly gentle, moving moments too. Tressell can really write.
I love the story of the book itself - rejected by publishers during the author´s lifetime and boxed up in a tin under the dead writer´s bed - recovered, rescued and somehow brought back to life, albeit in gutted, manipulated form, only to be finally saved and fully restored thanks to iron steam and the love of a devotee who bought the original manuscript in a cafe and went to work on it. Truly a sacred book - a very unique read and important, whichever political flag you fly and follow.
Perhaps the socialism outlined in the book has dated rather (this was written when there was no National Health Service or Social Security system, but workhouses were still very much in operation) but the basic critique of the capitalist system and how it benefits those pulling the strings is spot on and still very relevant. There are detailed, amusing accounts, of how politicans and the media are complicit in keeping everyone in their place - although the final verdict is damning: we live under this system because we are too blinkered, lazy or unenlightened to do anything about it - it´s just how it is.
If overlong, well worth a read. A keeper.
I don´t have much to add to what you can read in the other reviews or in summaries of the book except that there is a lot of humour in the book. It´s a wry, funny read, from the author´s punning name to the characters - my favourite being Diddlum. The horror of poverty is there, of course, in all it´s stark reality - and behind that ironic smile, you can never get away from the writer´s burning sense of injustice and unfairness. There are unexpectedly gentle, moving moments too. Tressell can really write.
I love the story of the book itself - rejected by publishers during the author´s lifetime and boxed up in a tin under the dead writer´s bed - recovered, rescued and somehow brought back to life, albeit in gutted, manipulated form, only to be finally saved and fully restored thanks to iron steam and the love of a devotee who bought the original manuscript in a cafe and went to work on it. Truly a sacred book - a very unique read and important, whichever political flag you fly and follow.
Perhaps the socialism outlined in the book has dated rather (this was written when there was no National Health Service or Social Security system, but workhouses were still very much in operation) but the basic critique of the capitalist system and how it benefits those pulling the strings is spot on and still very relevant. There are detailed, amusing accounts, of how politicans and the media are complicit in keeping everyone in their place - although the final verdict is damning: we live under this system because we are too blinkered, lazy or unenlightened to do anything about it - it´s just how it is.
If overlong, well worth a read. A keeper.
May 13, 2009
This classic example of early socialist fiction, little read at the time of its publication nearly a hundred years ago, has found favour in recent times following the questioning of the capitalist system brought on by the credit crunch. Concentrating on working conditions in a painting and decorating outfit, the book celebrates the labour theory of value and condemns the exploiting class.
Whilst occasionally subsiding into a ranting, didactic style, Tressell writes with enough verve, humour and intelligence to create a varied cast of characters including the malevolent Hunter (also known by the charming nickname of "Misery"), corpulent Crass and working class hero Owen. The book has a myriad of targets including the Church, Edwardian philanthropy and the unthinking working class, who just accept their lot unblinkingly. The book is fascinating from an historical point of view in that it was written at about the point that organised labour was getting off the ground.
Whilst occasionally subsiding into a ranting, didactic style, Tressell writes with enough verve, humour and intelligence to create a varied cast of characters including the malevolent Hunter (also known by the charming nickname of "Misery"), corpulent Crass and working class hero Owen. The book has a myriad of targets including the Church, Edwardian philanthropy and the unthinking working class, who just accept their lot unblinkingly. The book is fascinating from an historical point of view in that it was written at about the point that organised labour was getting off the ground.
April 1, 2017
Socialist classic and allegedly the book that won the 1945 election for Labour, I had the good fortune to find a cheap copy in the small independent book shop near the University when I was a student in Sheffield. I would never have believed that thirty years later, and with the book itself now over 100 years old, we would be back in a world where workers in underpaid, irregular work can literally go hungry.
I still think there's no better explanation of the failings of capitalism than Owen's demonstration of the system using his colleagues' slices of bread, and the scene late in the story where Barrington encounters the workers' children outside the toyshop moves me to tears every time I read it.
It's too long, it's sentimental, the politics is laid on with a trowel (or a well-loaded paintbrush) and the 'bad guys' are rather two-dimensional and get their just desserts in somewhat contrived circumstances. But what the heck - it's 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' and it's an inspiration!
I still think there's no better explanation of the failings of capitalism than Owen's demonstration of the system using his colleagues' slices of bread, and the scene late in the story where Barrington encounters the workers' children outside the toyshop moves me to tears every time I read it.
It's too long, it's sentimental, the politics is laid on with a trowel (or a well-loaded paintbrush) and the 'bad guys' are rather two-dimensional and get their just desserts in somewhat contrived circumstances. But what the heck - it's 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' and it's an inspiration!
December 22, 2015
A must read for anybody interested in socialism or the life of the working class before its emergence. Told before the NHS and before welfare, reading it now is a reminder of what current governments are trying to take us back to. The book tries to expose greed and exploitative working conditions and it's quite disheartening to think that 100 years on the battle remains, quite possibly even more so.
The worst thing about this book is that it is still relevant.
The worst thing about this book is that it is still relevant.
June 17, 2011
For what could have easily turned out as a really long political tratise, this was a fabulous good read! I loved everything about it. The names of the characters (Tressell names all the baddies in the story with names that describe their character like Dickens, only actually funny), the dialect, the era, the details of the work the characters were doind. ALL of it was great. It's not often you get to the end of a 620 page novel and then go back to the beginning and read all the notes, the preface, the footnotes and still enjoy it. I wish it had gone on for longer!
April 14, 2012
What a book. This is a novel exposing greed, corruption and the pusillanimous nature of the class system which is as relevant today as it was on the day it was published.
The story revolves around the plight of working men and how they are perceived by and treated as sub-human commodities by their bosses and the bosses underlings. Tressell (a nom-de-plume for Robert Noonan)was a journeyman painter and decorator and moved from his native Ireland to follow any work he could find. The novel is a distillation of his experiences until he died a pauper in a Liverpool workhouse and was buried in a communal pauper's grave along with twelve other unfortunates.
The novel is written in a clear and concise style devoid of verbosity and plunges a stilletto deep into the heart of a grasping and uncaring society. If you have a belief in an equal society where those who require help can access it without shame or vitriol, this is a must-read book.
The story revolves around the plight of working men and how they are perceived by and treated as sub-human commodities by their bosses and the bosses underlings. Tressell (a nom-de-plume for Robert Noonan)was a journeyman painter and decorator and moved from his native Ireland to follow any work he could find. The novel is a distillation of his experiences until he died a pauper in a Liverpool workhouse and was buried in a communal pauper's grave along with twelve other unfortunates.
The novel is written in a clear and concise style devoid of verbosity and plunges a stilletto deep into the heart of a grasping and uncaring society. If you have a belief in an equal society where those who require help can access it without shame or vitriol, this is a must-read book.
January 22, 2020
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a novel by Robert Tressell first published in 1914 after his death in 1911. An explicitly political work, it is widely regarded as a classic of working-class literature. Robert Tressell was the pen name of Irish writer Robert Croker, who later changed his name to Robert Noonan. It seems to me it would be easier to just keep your name then try to go through whatever it is to go through to change your name not only once but twice. The name Crocker was the name of his father, Samuel. Tressel was Crocker's illegitimate son, but his father, who had a family of his own, provided for Tressell until his death. I don't think a man with a family should have an illegitimate son, but he did. His mother's name was Mary Noonan and she raised him. I found it interesting that on May 27, 1890 he broke into the house of his sister's employer, Charles Fay junior, a shipping agent. He then had stolen a quantity of silver and electro-plated articles, whatever they are. He was given a six month prison sentence. I wonder why he broke into a house in the first place, I also wonder why, of all people he would pick his sister's employer, I would think his sister just might lose her job over that, also he must not have been very good at it, he got caught. After living in a whole bunch of places he eventually ended up in Hastings, Sussex. Here, he found work as a sign writer, I know a man who used to be a sign painter, he was amazing, he could keep all the letters and such perfectly matched just free handing them. Anyway, Tressell's work as a sign writer was at much lower wages and in far poorer conditions than he had experienced in other places he had lived. Tressell became a Socialist, believe me if you read the book you'll figure that out pretty fast, and that is why he wrote under the name Tressell, he feared his socialist views expressed in the book would have him blacklisted. Blacklisted from what I don't know. I'm moving on to the book now.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is based on his own experiences of poverty and his terror that he and his daughter whom he was raising alone, would be consigned to the workhouse if he became ill- which he did, Tressel wrote a detailed and scathing analysis of the relationship between working-class people and their employers. The "philanthropists" of the title are the workers who, in his view, acquiesce in their own exploitation in the interests of their bosses. That's for sure, you will know that just by reading the preface:
"I designed to show the conditions resulting from poverty and unemployment: to expose the futility of the measures taken to deal with them and to indicate what I believe to be the only real remedy, namely - Socialism. I intended to explain what Socialists understand by the word "Poverty"; to define the Socialist theory of the causes of poverty, and to explain how Socialists propose to abolish poverty."
That is fine, I have no objection to learning what Socialists feel about poverty or anything else, I have certainly learned it now. What bothered me is that every time our main character, Frank Owen opened his mouth it was to tell us once again about Socialism. Instead of getting me more and more interested as the book goes on it makes me want to cry out "no, not again"! I would feel the same way if each time I walk out of my house one of my Christian brothers or sisters started telling me about going to church. It also made me wonder if every time someone comes near me do I start telling them about Christmas. I'll have to pay attention to what I'm saying for awhile. Here are some of Owen's beliefs we get to hear over and over again:
"We've had Free Trade for the last fifty years and today most people are living in a condition of more or less abject poverty, and thousands are literally starving. When we had Protection things were worse still. Other countries have Protection and yet many of their people are glad to come here and work for starvation wages. The only difference between Free Trade and Protection is that under certain circumstances one might be a little worse that the other, but as remedies for Poverty, neither of them are of any real use whatever, for the simple reason that they do not deal with the real causes of Poverty.'
'Over-population!' cried Owen, 'when there's thousands of acres of uncultivated land in England without a house or human being to be seen. Is over-population the cause of poverty in France? Is over-population the cause of poverty in Ireland? Within the last fifty years the population of Ireland has been reduced by more than half. Four millions of people have been exterminated by famine or got rid of by emigration, but they haven't got rid of poverty. P'raps you think that half the people in this country ought to be exterminated as well."
"Your question has really nothing to do with the subject we are discussing: we are only trying to find out why the majority of people have to go short of the benefits of civilization. One of the causes is--the majority of the population are engaged in work that does not produce those things; and most of what IS produced is appropriated and wasted by those who have no right to it."
"These are the wretches who cause poverty: they not only devour or waste or hoard the things made by the worker, but as soon as their own wants are supplied--they compel the workers to cease working and prevent them producing the things they need. Most of these people!' cried Owen, his usually pale face flushing red and his eyes shining with sudden anger, 'most of these people do not deserve to be called human beings at all! They're devils! They know that whilst they are indulging in pleasures of every kind--all around them men and women and little children are existing in want or dying of hunger.' "
These are some of the things he thinks about his fellow workers:
"As Owen thought of his child's future there sprung up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against the majority of his fellow workmen."
"THEY WERE THE ENEMY. Those who not only quietly submitted like so many cattle to the existing state of things, but defended it, and opposed and ridiculed any suggestion to alter it."
"THEY WERE THE REAL OPPRESSORS--the men who spoke of themselves as 'The likes of us,' who, having lived in poverty and degradation all their lives considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for the children they had been the cause of bringing into existence."
"He hated and despised them because they calmly saw their children condemned to hard labour and poverty for life, and deliberately refused to make any effort to secure for them better conditions than those they had themselves."
"It was because they were indifferent to the fate of THEIR children that he would be unable to secure a natural and human life for HIS. It was their apathy or active opposition that made it impossible to establish a better system of society under which those who did their fair share of the world's work would be honoured and rewarded. Instead of helping to do this, they abased themselves, and grovelled before their oppressors, and compelled and taught their children to do the same. THEY were the people who were really responsible for the continuance of the present system."
"Those who worked were looked upon with contempt, and subjected to every possible indignity. Nearly everything they produced was taken away from them and enjoyed by the people who did nothing. And then the workers bowed down and grovelled before those who had robbed them of the fruits of their labour and were childishly grateful to them for leaving anything at all."
"No wonder the rich despised them and looked upon them as dirt. They WERE despicable. They WERE dirt. They admitted it and gloried in it. "
"Thousands of people like himself dragged out a wretched existence on the very verge of starvation, and for the greater number of people life was one long struggle against poverty. Yet practically none of these people knew or even troubled themselves to inquire why they were in that condition; and for anyone else to try to explain to them was a ridiculous waste of time, for they did not want to know.
The remedy was so simple, the evil so great and so glaringly evident that the only possible explanation of its continued existence was that the majority of his fellow workers were devoid of the power of reasoning. If these people were not mentally deficient they would of their own accord have swept this silly system away long ago. It would not have been necessary for anyone to teach them that it was wrong."
You would think his thoughts toward the people he is trying to help would be just a little bit nicer than his. However, it's not only the workers he seems to hate, he has spared plenty of hatred for the "bosses" too:
"Any profit that it was possible to make out of the work, Rushton meant to secure for himself. He was a smart man, this Rushton, he possessed the ideal character: the kind of character that is necessary for any man who wishes to succeed in business--to get on in life. In other words, his disposition was very similar to that of a pig--he was intensely selfish."
"Most of these people!' cried Owen, his usually pale face flushing red and his eyes shining with sudden anger, 'most of these people do not deserve to be called human beings at all! They're devils! They know that whilst they are indulging in pleasures of every kind--all around them men and women and little children are existing in want or dying of hunger!"
Anyway, you get the idea, his views on Christians are, if anything, worse. I could list those but the more I think about these things the more tired I get of thinking of these things. I will say though if the workers, bosses, and Christians really acted in Tressill's time the way they do in the book, no wonder he wrote Owen the way he did. When Owen wasn't giving us another one of his speeches I could have liked the book. There were many interesting characters, and most of them had interesting names such as Mr. Grinder, the green grocer; Mr. Sweater the draper; Mrs. Starvem, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Belcher, Rev. Bosher, and Mr. Rushton who owns both Rushton & Co., Builders and Decorators, and the funeral parlor. Which got me wondering what building and funerals could have in common, and that got me thinking of my childhood when there were three funeral homes in the valley that were also furniture stores. I think they've all dropped the furniture by now, but what was the link I wonder, in the first place? Anyway, some of the workers are, Slyme, Joe Philpot, who indulges freely, and Crass; then there's the Besotted Wretch and the Semi-drunk, if they had other names I never saw it.
I was interested in the story. I wanted to know things like, would Easton and Ruth's child die, what illness did Owen have, what about Nora, how sick is she? Will I ever find out what Besotted Wretches real name is? Things like that, I was interested in the character's lives, even Owen's if he could stop talking once in a while. I will give the book two stars, maybe three I haven't decided. If you read the book and see a link between building and funerals let me know, I'm going to ask my husband if he knows what the link between furniture and funerals would be. Then it's on to the next book.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is based on his own experiences of poverty and his terror that he and his daughter whom he was raising alone, would be consigned to the workhouse if he became ill- which he did, Tressel wrote a detailed and scathing analysis of the relationship between working-class people and their employers. The "philanthropists" of the title are the workers who, in his view, acquiesce in their own exploitation in the interests of their bosses. That's for sure, you will know that just by reading the preface:
"I designed to show the conditions resulting from poverty and unemployment: to expose the futility of the measures taken to deal with them and to indicate what I believe to be the only real remedy, namely - Socialism. I intended to explain what Socialists understand by the word "Poverty"; to define the Socialist theory of the causes of poverty, and to explain how Socialists propose to abolish poverty."
That is fine, I have no objection to learning what Socialists feel about poverty or anything else, I have certainly learned it now. What bothered me is that every time our main character, Frank Owen opened his mouth it was to tell us once again about Socialism. Instead of getting me more and more interested as the book goes on it makes me want to cry out "no, not again"! I would feel the same way if each time I walk out of my house one of my Christian brothers or sisters started telling me about going to church. It also made me wonder if every time someone comes near me do I start telling them about Christmas. I'll have to pay attention to what I'm saying for awhile. Here are some of Owen's beliefs we get to hear over and over again:
"We've had Free Trade for the last fifty years and today most people are living in a condition of more or less abject poverty, and thousands are literally starving. When we had Protection things were worse still. Other countries have Protection and yet many of their people are glad to come here and work for starvation wages. The only difference between Free Trade and Protection is that under certain circumstances one might be a little worse that the other, but as remedies for Poverty, neither of them are of any real use whatever, for the simple reason that they do not deal with the real causes of Poverty.'
'Over-population!' cried Owen, 'when there's thousands of acres of uncultivated land in England without a house or human being to be seen. Is over-population the cause of poverty in France? Is over-population the cause of poverty in Ireland? Within the last fifty years the population of Ireland has been reduced by more than half. Four millions of people have been exterminated by famine or got rid of by emigration, but they haven't got rid of poverty. P'raps you think that half the people in this country ought to be exterminated as well."
"Your question has really nothing to do with the subject we are discussing: we are only trying to find out why the majority of people have to go short of the benefits of civilization. One of the causes is--the majority of the population are engaged in work that does not produce those things; and most of what IS produced is appropriated and wasted by those who have no right to it."
"These are the wretches who cause poverty: they not only devour or waste or hoard the things made by the worker, but as soon as their own wants are supplied--they compel the workers to cease working and prevent them producing the things they need. Most of these people!' cried Owen, his usually pale face flushing red and his eyes shining with sudden anger, 'most of these people do not deserve to be called human beings at all! They're devils! They know that whilst they are indulging in pleasures of every kind--all around them men and women and little children are existing in want or dying of hunger.' "
These are some of the things he thinks about his fellow workers:
"As Owen thought of his child's future there sprung up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against the majority of his fellow workmen."
"THEY WERE THE ENEMY. Those who not only quietly submitted like so many cattle to the existing state of things, but defended it, and opposed and ridiculed any suggestion to alter it."
"THEY WERE THE REAL OPPRESSORS--the men who spoke of themselves as 'The likes of us,' who, having lived in poverty and degradation all their lives considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for the children they had been the cause of bringing into existence."
"He hated and despised them because they calmly saw their children condemned to hard labour and poverty for life, and deliberately refused to make any effort to secure for them better conditions than those they had themselves."
"It was because they were indifferent to the fate of THEIR children that he would be unable to secure a natural and human life for HIS. It was their apathy or active opposition that made it impossible to establish a better system of society under which those who did their fair share of the world's work would be honoured and rewarded. Instead of helping to do this, they abased themselves, and grovelled before their oppressors, and compelled and taught their children to do the same. THEY were the people who were really responsible for the continuance of the present system."
"Those who worked were looked upon with contempt, and subjected to every possible indignity. Nearly everything they produced was taken away from them and enjoyed by the people who did nothing. And then the workers bowed down and grovelled before those who had robbed them of the fruits of their labour and were childishly grateful to them for leaving anything at all."
"No wonder the rich despised them and looked upon them as dirt. They WERE despicable. They WERE dirt. They admitted it and gloried in it. "
"Thousands of people like himself dragged out a wretched existence on the very verge of starvation, and for the greater number of people life was one long struggle against poverty. Yet practically none of these people knew or even troubled themselves to inquire why they were in that condition; and for anyone else to try to explain to them was a ridiculous waste of time, for they did not want to know.
The remedy was so simple, the evil so great and so glaringly evident that the only possible explanation of its continued existence was that the majority of his fellow workers were devoid of the power of reasoning. If these people were not mentally deficient they would of their own accord have swept this silly system away long ago. It would not have been necessary for anyone to teach them that it was wrong."
You would think his thoughts toward the people he is trying to help would be just a little bit nicer than his. However, it's not only the workers he seems to hate, he has spared plenty of hatred for the "bosses" too:
"Any profit that it was possible to make out of the work, Rushton meant to secure for himself. He was a smart man, this Rushton, he possessed the ideal character: the kind of character that is necessary for any man who wishes to succeed in business--to get on in life. In other words, his disposition was very similar to that of a pig--he was intensely selfish."
"Most of these people!' cried Owen, his usually pale face flushing red and his eyes shining with sudden anger, 'most of these people do not deserve to be called human beings at all! They're devils! They know that whilst they are indulging in pleasures of every kind--all around them men and women and little children are existing in want or dying of hunger!"
Anyway, you get the idea, his views on Christians are, if anything, worse. I could list those but the more I think about these things the more tired I get of thinking of these things. I will say though if the workers, bosses, and Christians really acted in Tressill's time the way they do in the book, no wonder he wrote Owen the way he did. When Owen wasn't giving us another one of his speeches I could have liked the book. There were many interesting characters, and most of them had interesting names such as Mr. Grinder, the green grocer; Mr. Sweater the draper; Mrs. Starvem, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Belcher, Rev. Bosher, and Mr. Rushton who owns both Rushton & Co., Builders and Decorators, and the funeral parlor. Which got me wondering what building and funerals could have in common, and that got me thinking of my childhood when there were three funeral homes in the valley that were also furniture stores. I think they've all dropped the furniture by now, but what was the link I wonder, in the first place? Anyway, some of the workers are, Slyme, Joe Philpot, who indulges freely, and Crass; then there's the Besotted Wretch and the Semi-drunk, if they had other names I never saw it.
I was interested in the story. I wanted to know things like, would Easton and Ruth's child die, what illness did Owen have, what about Nora, how sick is she? Will I ever find out what Besotted Wretches real name is? Things like that, I was interested in the character's lives, even Owen's if he could stop talking once in a while. I will give the book two stars, maybe three I haven't decided. If you read the book and see a link between building and funerals let me know, I'm going to ask my husband if he knows what the link between furniture and funerals would be. Then it's on to the next book.
March 3, 2024
"Men do not starve because there is no food in the world, but because the food is not where they are."
This line cut me to the quick because the timing in my receiving it was exact: I just returned from a two week journey through Cuba and watched as tourists and upper classes freely partook of water and meat and other foods that the Cuban people cannot afford and cannot access. Punctuate that deeply with the occupation of Gaza and the current forced starvation of the Palestinians (not to mention the Flour Massacre that just occurred in the last two days) and one can't help but wonder who controls the food in this world and who is being left out.
Clearly, this is a book advocating for socialism. It's a fictional (though semi autobiographical) story about the struggle of blue collar workers in England that was published just a couple of months before the outbreak of WWI and three years before the Bolshevik Revolution. The actual plot is tender and mirrors the destitute life of the lower classes that Dickens and Hugo painted. Tressell, however uses full chapters to go into depth about the fundamentals and benefits of socialism as a teaching tool and then illustrates the necessity of the ideology in a real-life setting. Those who balk at even the mention of socialism would find this to be propaganda in its highest form.
It's persuasive.
Capitalism might be persuasive (not an endorsement, Ayn Rand), but in a world that's pretty much shown that the only hope for any economic system—any good government—is contingent on people with integrity running the show (where are they?), I'm not fully convinced that corruption won't show up in whatever form. Power begets corruption.
Unarguably, the current systems aren't working.
This line cut me to the quick because the timing in my receiving it was exact: I just returned from a two week journey through Cuba and watched as tourists and upper classes freely partook of water and meat and other foods that the Cuban people cannot afford and cannot access. Punctuate that deeply with the occupation of Gaza and the current forced starvation of the Palestinians (not to mention the Flour Massacre that just occurred in the last two days) and one can't help but wonder who controls the food in this world and who is being left out.
Clearly, this is a book advocating for socialism. It's a fictional (though semi autobiographical) story about the struggle of blue collar workers in England that was published just a couple of months before the outbreak of WWI and three years before the Bolshevik Revolution. The actual plot is tender and mirrors the destitute life of the lower classes that Dickens and Hugo painted. Tressell, however uses full chapters to go into depth about the fundamentals and benefits of socialism as a teaching tool and then illustrates the necessity of the ideology in a real-life setting. Those who balk at even the mention of socialism would find this to be propaganda in its highest form.
It's persuasive.
Capitalism might be persuasive (not an endorsement, Ayn Rand), but in a world that's pretty much shown that the only hope for any economic system—any good government—is contingent on people with integrity running the show (where are they?), I'm not fully convinced that corruption won't show up in whatever form. Power begets corruption.
Unarguably, the current systems aren't working.
April 4, 2012
This book, as well as being a socialist's bible, is a gripping commentary on the social conditions of the time...a detailed and scathing Marxist analysis of the relationship between the working class people and their employers. The "philanthropists" of the title are the workers who, in Noonan 's view, acquiesce in their own exploitation in the interests of their bosses.
Clearly frustrated at the refusal of his contemporaries to recognise the inequalities and corruption of society, Tressell's cast of hypocritical Christians, exploitative capitalists and corrupt councillors provide a backdrop for his main target — the workers who think that a better life is "not for the likes of them". Hence the title of the book; Tressell paints the workers as "philanthropists" who throw themselves into the grind of back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters.
The hero of the book, Frank Owen, is a socialist who believes that the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees all around him. To no avail he tries to convince his fellow workers of his world view, but finds that their education has trained them to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their "betters". It will make you laugh, cry and gasp in amazement....it may well plant an ideological seed that may change your view on life....it is still very relevant today.
Clearly frustrated at the refusal of his contemporaries to recognise the inequalities and corruption of society, Tressell's cast of hypocritical Christians, exploitative capitalists and corrupt councillors provide a backdrop for his main target — the workers who think that a better life is "not for the likes of them". Hence the title of the book; Tressell paints the workers as "philanthropists" who throw themselves into the grind of back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters.
The hero of the book, Frank Owen, is a socialist who believes that the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees all around him. To no avail he tries to convince his fellow workers of his world view, but finds that their education has trained them to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their "betters". It will make you laugh, cry and gasp in amazement....it may well plant an ideological seed that may change your view on life....it is still very relevant today.
January 26, 2013
I originally got this book from my local library and set about reading it daily on my commute to work. my commute used to be 40 minutes and the time flew by as I turned page after page of this book.
I have always been a bookworm and can say hand on heart that this is one of two books that I call the best books I have ever read. The other is To Kill a Mockingbird. I cannot explain to people why I love this book as much as I do, it is the only book that has ever made me laugh and cry.
Since I read this book, I have been suggesting it to everyone I know but I can never ever tell them what is so good about it, it's just a fantastic book.
I won't lie and say that it is all easy reading, there are bits which are tough going but fight through them and you'll realise why this book is now considered a classic.
I have now read this book about five times and every time I notice new things which I've previously missed..
BBC Radio 4 had a recording of this book an I remember listening to it on my tv as I had just set it up and was checking the channels. I recall that Johnny Vegas did one of the voices and now whenever I read the book, I hear only his voice only head.
I have always been a bookworm and can say hand on heart that this is one of two books that I call the best books I have ever read. The other is To Kill a Mockingbird. I cannot explain to people why I love this book as much as I do, it is the only book that has ever made me laugh and cry.
Since I read this book, I have been suggesting it to everyone I know but I can never ever tell them what is so good about it, it's just a fantastic book.
I won't lie and say that it is all easy reading, there are bits which are tough going but fight through them and you'll realise why this book is now considered a classic.
I have now read this book about five times and every time I notice new things which I've previously missed..
BBC Radio 4 had a recording of this book an I remember listening to it on my tv as I had just set it up and was checking the channels. I recall that Johnny Vegas did one of the voices and now whenever I read the book, I hear only his voice only head.
August 8, 2022
Gig economy, wages not meeting the cost of living, unscrupulous bosses, working people dependent on handouts, extortionate rent, competitive tendering, cutting corners and underpaying to maximise returns, profiteering utility companies, corrupt councils, people having to choose between rent and food, everyone criticising a socialist solution even though they don't understand socialism. Written over 100 years ago, reads as though it was written today.
December 7, 2015
I read this on the recommendation of an ex brick layer, who said reading this book at a young age helped define his life.
What is really striking is how little so many things seem to have changed in the labour market.
Written with humour, compassion , and love.
What is really striking is how little so many things seem to have changed in the labour market.
Written with humour, compassion , and love.
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