Tawney was a prominent figure in English socialism in the early twentieth century. His Christian Socialism, and critique of capitalism, rested on a view of each person’s equality in the eyes of God. What humans shared in common was vastly more important than differences between them (such as genetic, intellectual or artistic differences or abilities).

In Tawney’s words, it is “the truth that it is absurd and degrading for humans to make much of their intellectual and moral superiority to each other, and still more of their superiority in the arts which bring wealth and power, because, judged by their place in any universal scheme, they are all infinitely great or infinitely small”.