Book Reflection: The Servile State

Early 20th Century Catholic text on Economics and Class

“If we do not restore the Institution of Property we cannot escape restoring the Institution of Slavery; there is no third course.”

This short book has been on my list for a while because many consider it to be the foundational text on the economic philosophy of ‘Distributism’ pioneered by G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc.  I’ve read a handful of Chesterton’s books, and while I love his writing style, I was impressed by Belloc’s attention to specifics in his book “The Great Heresies.”  Here is the quote that piqued my interest in Belloc’s approach to Distributism:

“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 into enforced conditions of security and sufficiency; the more it regulates wages, provides compulsory insurance, doctoring, education, and in general takes over the lives of 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 as a social habit and frame of mind that there may be no escape from it in the countries where the state Socialism of this kind has been forged and riveted on the body politic.”  – Hillaire Belloc, The Great Heresies

This book did not disappoint, and I feel that I have at least a slightly better understanding of what Distributism is, how it relates to history, how it relates to current events, and how it might relate to my own personal life.

Belloc

History and Wealth Concentration

I mentioned in my review on Belloc’s “The Great Heresies” that I was skeptical of his claim that the Protestant reformation led to capitalism.  This book goes into much greater depth on what percentage of the English population owned what percentage of property before and after Henry VIII decided to invent a Christian heresy to justify his divorce.  Thanks to this book as well as other reading I’ve done, I think I have a better understanding of Belloc’s point.  This hinges on some definitions that get conflated.

Working Definition of Capitalism

The word capitalism gets thrown around a lot, but I have noticed that people seem to have two separate notions of the word.  One school – let’s call it the Ayn Rand/Ben Shapiro version – regards capitalism nothing more than free exchange of privately owned goods and services.  The topic of the proletariat is either glossed over or completely ignored.  Thinkers like Rand and Shapiro regard the poor as future Carnegies rather than a permanent social class.

The second school of thought regards capitalism as the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few elite property-holders with a large, propertyless underclass.  This mass (even majority) of people only make money as employees rather than free agents trading their labor.  Speaking in general terms, both Marx and Belloc subscribe to this second school.  Marx regards this as a natural consequence of free trade while Belloc regards this as a more complex phenomenon which has to do not only with economics, but also with religion, culture, etc.  Belloc was 13 and also living in England when Marx died in London, and I imagine their views on the distribution of property were shaped by what they both saw in late 19th century England.

My experience teaching children of families that haven’t owned property in at least 3 generations (if at all) gives me sympathy to the second connotation of the word ‘capitalism’ even if I may disagree with both Marx and Belloc about what precisely brought about this state of affairs.

Protestantism and Capitalism

Understanding this second notion of capitalism helps me understand Belloc’s point about the reformation and economic systems.  Throughout the middle ages, the Catholic Church was a source of wealth and power that contended with, and sometimes exceeded the wealth and power of secular rulers (even today, the Catholic Church is still the largest landowner in the world).  Here in protestant America, I was taught that the reformation was a noble struggle against the autocratic Church hierarchy that organically occurred with the invention of the printing press and Martin Luther’s noble quest for authentic Christianity.  What I learned only recently is that many protestant movements were encouraged and funded by local nobles who used the reformation as justification to seize Church treasure, land, and authority.  Nowhere was this more obvious than in England with Henry VIII and his divorce.  Referring back to Belloc’s notion of Capitalism, the seizure of Church property in protestant areas (especially England and Germany) was a seminal moment serving to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few long before the industrial revolution.  Several times throughout the book, Belloc mentions Ireland and France as counterexamples with a ‘free peasantry.’  In this case, free means owning property.  It is worth noting that the often quoted “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from the American declaration of independence is a derivative of John Locke’s “Life, Liberty, and Property.”

What is the Servile State?

“The essence of the servile state is that the proletariat will be guaranteed subsistence and security in exchange for their old political freedoms” – Hillaire Belloc, ‘The Servile State’

A guarantee of subsistence and security is an appealing sales pitch.  It is useful to compare an existence of total security with the classical notion of ‘citizen’ originating in ancient Greece.  There, a citizen owned land; he kept the fruit of his labor; he was granted the ability to vote; and he had the responsibility of military service.  In essence, the classical citizen owned the fruits of his labor and had political power.  Today’s inhabitant of the servile state retains the rank of ‘citizen’ in name only.  He may never own land or a business, and his symbolic right to vote is nullified by an unelected, administrative bureaucracy.

Social Class Today

Consider the situation of America’s (increasingly large) landless population to that of a medieval serf.  Today’s landless man pays as much or more of his income in rent and taxes, but rather than having an aristocracy take up arms in his defense, he is expected to answer the call of the selective service should the need arise. Unlike Medieval Europe or Republican Rome¹, our elites do not risk their own lives on our behalf.

Consider the situation of an American today to the factory worker of the 19th Century.  A friend of mine – college educated and in the medical field – recently bought a small row home in an old industrial part of our city.  This two bedroom, one bedroom house would probably have been occupied but not owned by an illiterate textile worker and his family in the 19th century.  If current conditions continue, my college-educated, middle-class, working professional friend will pay off his house one year after he is eligible for social security.  What exactly does ‘middle class’ mean in this instance?  The economic significance of the term ‘middle class’ has been replaced by a cultural one.

Public and Private Law

I did not copy down this exact quote, but Belloc points out that men of his time will endure indignities in their jobs far exceeding what they would stand for in the public square because they ‘fear the sack.’  He then takes this a step further to explain that this shows that ‘once again private law has exceeded public law.’  It is no coincidence that when Biden wanted to force people to take a vaccine, he didn’t contract the police to go door to door gestapo-style.  He put the mandate on companies with 100 or more employees because his handlers know that ‘private law has exceeded public law.’  The power of ‘private law’ has now progressed beyond what Belloc could have foreseen.  Banks and credit card processors have gotten in the habit of freezing accounts of right-wing political dissidents.  These toxic relationships have now bled over from employee-boss conflict to customer-business conflict.  Ever try to get Google or Facebook customer service on the phone?  Good luck.

Confiscation?

Belloc describes at length different scenarios that could potentially free up capital from the hands of the powerful few, but he arrives at the conclusion that the only realistic option is confiscation (he does not endorse this).  If the means of production are purchased from the capitalist, he will simply maintain his position by investing his capital elsewhere.  Belloc points out that past reforms have only served to entrench the capitalist class.  An easy example from my lifetime is the so-called ‘Affordable Care Act.’  A quick Google search shows that since this law was passed 13 years ago, Elevance health, the parent company of blue cross blue shield has increased their stock price by 7.5x.  Gee whiz, I’d love the government to stick it to me in such a way that my net worth increases by a factor of seven.

I’d need to think more on the implications of Belloc’s seemingly bulletproof claim here, but suffice to say, “you can’t vote your way out of this.”

Convenience

Belloc devotes another section of the book on why he believes dogmatic socialists, Communists, and pragmatic reformers will eventually form a consensus around instituting some form of the servile state. It most effectively serves each of their goals.  There is significant overlap here with James Burnham’s thesis from ‘The Managerial Revolution.’

The Servile State Today: Great Resets, ESG, etc…

“The capitalist replies: ‘I refuse to be dispossessed, and it is short of catastrophe impossible to dispossess me, but if you will define the relation between my employees and myself, I will undertake particular responsibilities due to my position.  Subject the proletarian as a proletarian, and because he is a proletarian to special laws.  Clothe me, the capitalist, as a capitalist because I am a capitalist with special converse duties under those laws.  I will faithfully see that they are obeyed.  I will compel my employees to obey them, and I will undertake the new role imposed upon me by the state.  Nay, I will go further, and I will say that such a novel arrangement will make my own profits perhaps larger, and certainly more secure.” – Hillaire Belloc, ‘The Servile State’

Belloc presents a rhetorical question:  How many today would eagerly accept a life of guaranteed employment as a servant if the wage secured a comfortable material standard of living?

How many would give up the ability to own land for a 32 hour work week?  Many musicians choose exactly this not in legal terms, but in real terms because they are too proud/selfish/lazy to work a day job.  Belloc takes this line of questioning to a conclusion I had never considered: the fight over benefits, minimum wage, hours, and employment conditions in the legal sphere not only shows that workers are left without options, but also that they see themselves as a permanent social class rather than potential future property owners (the essence of the American dream).

Proletarianization of Education

Just as the capitalist above regards himself as a man of superior status than the proletarian, our education system has formalized this relationship.  Belloc says the British schools were ‘proletarianized’ in the late 19th century.  I am not sure when this happened here, but from my experience, this is still/more true today.  Many of the schools I have worked at are in rough neighborhoods, and my students are either orphaned, or children of proletarian and/or welfare class parent(s).  Naturally, students with tumultuous home lives will have poorer academic results, but a turn in the last several years I have noticed is a lowering of standards in behavior.  

Many words have been written on school suspension policies, but I just wanted to share an anecdote.  Once when I was teaching, the teacher responsible for the school’s entire music program informed me that a no-cellphone policy was unrealistic.  I needed to ‘build a relationship’ before imposing rules, and my class wasn’t ‘fun anymore’ so the kids were skipping class.  Understandably, this teacher was under pressure to keep as many kids in his program as possible, and if that meant being lax on discipline, then that was a necessary sacrifice for the sake of keeping the music program alive.  We argued about musical standards, but what I only realized days later was that the problem wasn’t musical standards – it was behavioral standards.  I did not expect these kids to be virtuosos (you don’t get that with one class a week in the best of circumstances, and this was far from that).  I just expected the students to give an honest effort for 45 minutes a week without distraction.  The implication from this other teacher, the school discipline system at large, as well as society’s norms around education was that these children are a lower quality of homo sapiens, and for a teacher to expect a level of impulse control that involved keeping their phones put away for 45 minutes was unrealistic.  This is the proletarianization of education.  The school administration has effectively prevented these kids from escaping the circumstances of their upbringing before they even step in the door…

Great Resets

With Belloc’s quote in mind, it may very well be true that ‘15 minute cities’ are more convenient.  It may be true that cashless societies are more efficient.  It may be true that ‘owning nothing and being happy’ will create a more harmonious society than what we have now.  It may be true that semiannual vaccine boosters reduce disease.  All that being said, do you think Klaus Schwab has your best interests at heart?  What about Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Larry Fink?  Of course not.  They perfectly embody the capitalists in the quote above.  They are begging the state to ‘burden’ them with extra duties while we, the proletarians, are subjected to special laws.  Do you think Bill Gates gets to set his own thermostat?  You don’t.  These men are not stupid.  They know full well “such a novel arrangement will make my own profits perhaps larger, and certainly more secure.”

Closing Thoughts

A few months ago, I was speaking with a friend on Distributism, and she expressed something to the effect that she wasn’t sure what to make of it because it doesn’t give a clear prescription for a course of action.  Belloc describes a social problem.  He also describes a desired state of affairs, but he does not describe how to accomplish this goal.  I’ve thought about this and concluded that the seeming vagueness of Distributist thought is really an understanding of nuance, and one of its greatest strengths.  Even though this book is focused on material circumstances (what % of people own property), Belloc makes specific mention of religion and culture.  This is a breath of fresh air for me, as I have become accustomed to the constant bombardment of two-dimensional “Base and Superstructure” tirades from within academia, education, and the arts.

Thinkers like Chesterton and Belloc have handed off this torch to us – the goal of a distributed society.  The fact that the exact details have not been fleshed out doesn’t mean these men believe in ends over means. It means they have described an approach rather than an ideology. This means that we need to find our own means.

Would lowering mortgage requirements help home ownership?  Nope – see 2008.  Should Microsoft have actually been broken up in 2000?  Maybe.  Could a stable currency help the institution of property?  Yes.  Is confiscation necessary?  I’d like to say no, but the truth is I don’t know.  Would a hefty child tax credit help the working class buy and keep property?  Maybe.  Does the state of the institution of marriage affect the ability for families to form and own property?  Yes. How can the decades-long decline in marriage be reversed?

These are just a few miscellaneous issues that spring to the top of my mind.  Chesterton and Belloc have described a goal, and we are to chart the course…

1. Credit here goes to Rob Henderson for discovering this passage.