AIC

• Disillusioned


  Seeing the reality
• Exploitative


  Exploiting or taking advantage of others
• Political diatribe


  Criticizing politics
• Remorseless


  No guilt
• Remorseful


  Feeling guilt
• Collective social conscience


  Knowing right from wrong in society as a group
• Absolve


  Free from guilt and responsibility
• Interconnectedness


  The idea that everybody is interconnected in society
• Dehumanizing


  Treating people as less than human
• Bits of context for Inspector Calls


  • Politics
  • Priestley's intentions
  • Women
  • Class system
• The two main time periods are 1912 and 1945
• Laissez-faire


  Little government intervention, businesses could set their own rates
• In 1945 there was the biggest electoral swing in the 20th century, with the Labour party winning a landslide victory
• J.B. Priestley


  • Fought in World War I, so was critical of governmental abuse of authority
  • Co-founder of the Commonwealth Party, a socialist party that helped Labour win in 1945
• Disenfranchised


  Women had no vote in 1912
• In 1912


  There was little social mobility, with 25% living in poverty
• In 1945


  The Equal Franchise Act of 1928 meant men and women over 21 could vote, giving lower classes more of a voice
• Key themes


  • Social class
  • Capitalism vs socialism
  • Responsibility
  • Older vs younger generation
  • Guilt
  • Gender
• Priestley aims to vilify capitalism by making immorality, irresponsibility and exploitation synonymous with it
• Vilify


  To make something seem very bad or evil
• Priestley asserts that collective responsibility is a byproduct of adopting socialist beliefs, and that it serves as a solution to the division and segregation prevalent in society
• When analysing markets, a range of assumptions are made about the rationality of economic agents involved in the transactions
• The Wealth of Nations was written


  1776
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents will select the choice which presents the highest benefits
• Consumers act rationally by


  Maximising their utility
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Marginal utility


  The additional utility (satisfaction) gained from the consumption of an additional product
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• Collective social conscience


  Knowing right from wrong, inherent
• Capitalist ideologies


  Inherent immorality and irresponsibility
• Imperative verb 'make'


  Keeping a 'flat' in the power struggle between her and the inspector
• She is a capitalist, the inspector is a socialist
• Mrs Burling is of a higher social class than the rest of the Birlings
• The inspector has power from morality, not money
• Admitting responsibility would be conceding, threatening her status in the capitalist hierarchy
• Girls


  Connote innocence and vulnerability