Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love
by Sheila Rowbotham
Verso, £25
SHEILA ROWBOTHAM has written a wonderfully moving and inspiring account of the personal and political life of the English Utopian socialist, author, poet and philosopher Edward Carpenter. Largely now forgotten, Carpenter (1844-1929) was once a doyen of the British left, revered and celebrated as a pioneering thinker and campaigner for what we would now call green socialism.
Decades ahead of his time on many social issues Carpenter advocated, among other things, women’s suffrage, contraception, curbs on pollution, sex education in schools, pacifism, animal rights, recycling, prison reform, worker’s control, self-sufficiency, vegetarianism, homosexual equality, naturism and free love.
His socialism was libertarian, decentralised, self-governing, co-operative and environmentalist, with a strong streak of anarchism, individualism and non-religious spiritualism. He argued that socialism was as much about the way we live our personal lives as about changing the economic, political, social and cultural systems. We need to transform our hearts and minds before we can overturn the iniquities of capitalism, he observed. Otherwise, we might end up replacing one tyranny and ugliness with another.
Echoing the left wing Arts & Crafts movement, which was often derided by the Marxists of the Social Democratic Federation, Carpenter’s vision of socialism included a cultural renaissance to promote access to the arts for everyone, not just the rich. He saw things of beauty as a way to lift up the human spirit.
Carpenter himself was not without fault; occasionally expressing anti-Semitic sentiments, which were standard and rife (but not therefore excusable) in the late 19th century. For someone who distanced himself from the mainstream and the mob on most issues, these lapses are particularly surprising and lamentable.
Briefly a member of the Social Democratic Federation (a forerunner of the Communist Party), he had disagreements with its advocacy of revolutionary violence and its dismissal of ethical socialism. This prompted Carpenter to leave the SDF in 1884 and help found the Socialist League where he worked closely with Eleanor Marx, William Morris and Edward Aveling.
In 1893 he joined with Keir Hardie, George Bernard Shaw and Ben Tillett to form the Independent Labour Party. He stuck with the left, despite the homophobic asides of some left wingers including Frederick Engels and, later, George Orwell.
Carpenter was one of the greatest socialist thinkers of the last 100 years.
Peter Tatchell
