Quotations: Belloc on Capitalism
Terms are used so loosely nowadays; there is such a paralysis in the power of definition, that almost any sentence using current phrases may be misinterpreted. If I were to say, "slavery under capitalism," the word "capitalism" would mean different things to different men. It means to one group of writers (what I must confess it means to me when I use it) "the exploitation of the masses of men still free by a few owners of the means of production, transport and exchange." When the mass of men are dispossessed_own nothing_they become wholly dependent upon the owners and when those owners are in active competition to lower the cost of production the mass of men whom they exploit not only lack the power to order their own lives, but suffer from want and insecurity as well.
But to another man, the term "capitalism" may mean simply the right to private property; yet to another it means industrial capitalism working with machines, and contrasted with agricultural production. I repeat, to get any sense in the discussion, we must have our terms clearly defined.
When the reigning Pope in his Encyclical talked of men reduced "to a condition not far removed from slavery," he meant just what has been said above. When the mass of families in a State are without property, then those who were once citizens become virtually slaves. The more the State steps in to enforce conditions of security and sufficiency; the more it regulates wages, provides compulsory insurance, doctoring, education, and in general takes over the lives of the wage-earners, for the benefit of the companies and men employing the wage-earners, the more is this condition of semi-slavery accentuated. And if it be continued for, say, three generations, it will become so thoroughly established a a social habit and frame of mind that there may be no escape from it in the countries where State Socialism of this kin has been forged and riveted on the body politic. - Hillaire Belloc "The Modern Attack" in Heresies.
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Michael Brendan Dougherty
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Reader Comments (9)
Art - your point about the enervating aspects of capitalism is exactly the theme around which this site was originally intended to dwell - the name of this blog is "Surfeited with Dainties" after all. For too long I've been holding back on a post about my recent excursion to Northampton Mass - which offers great occasion for reflecting on our market capitalist system.
I am not entirely ready to dump the thesis behind the Servile State - but it certainly needs some updating. The ethos against which it reacted was that of pre-WWII industrial capitalism and progressivism.
For an interesting (and scathing) critique on Novak, I suggest reading the forward to Amintore Fanfani's Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism published by IHS Press (www.ihspress.com).