Description

[003657] Pocock, Roger. Rottenness – A Study of America and England. London: Neville Beeman, 1896. First Edition. 8vo. Hardback. Good / No Jacket. [4], v-xii, [1], 2-208pp. Original decorative cloth

Cloth lightly soiled, slightly rubbed. Internally lightly browned, but generally fairly clean

An idiosyncratic work, anti-socialist and anti-capitalist; critical of journalism and Christianity; condemns plutocracy, mentions anarchism and the Homestead strike but calls Justice (the journal of the Social Democratic Federation), a ‘comic’ and pronounces that “we do not believe in the salvation of man by co-operative production and co-operative distribution … we do not believe in salvation by socialism … [and] we do not believe in philosophical anarchism” (page 195), but later proclaims “our whole civilisation is debased with the worship of that great god Property … let us have Parliaments which represent the people. Let us take the ground rents in the name of the Commonwealth, compensate the landlords, then let the land, with its minerals, soil, and economic rents, pay all the expenses of government” (page 207)

For Pocock, see Pocock, Outrider of Empire – The Life and Adventures of Roger Pocock 1865-1941