Critique of Capitalism by Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc on Industrial Capitalism.

Some quotes from his essay.

"It is equally clear that the more Catholic a country is, the less easily does it accommodate itself to the social arrangement of a proletariat subjected to millionaire monopolists."

"There is the point of Usury, which I have dealt with elsewhere, there is the all-important point of the Just Price, there is the point of the "Panis Humanus"-----man's daily bread, the right possessed by the human being according to Catholic doctrine to live, and to live decently."

"and what moral authority has mere money? Why should I reverence or obey the man who happens to be richer than I am?"

“Everything about Industrial Capitalism-----its ineptitude, its vulgarity, its crying injustice, its dirt, its proclaimed indifference to morals [making the end of man an accumulation of wealth, and of labor itself an inhuman repetition without interest and without savor] is at war with the Catholic spirit.”

“In the absence, the gradual decline [where it is declining] of the Catholic ethic, slavery is coming back. Anyone with eyes to see can watch it coming back slowly but certainly-----like a tide. Slowly but certainly the proletarian, by every political reform which secures his well-being under new rules of insurance, of State control in education, of State medicine and the rest, is developing into the slave, leaving the rich man apart and free. All industrial civilization is clearly moving towards the re-establishment of the Servile State, a matter I have discussed at greater length under the title of "the New Paganism." 2”

To what does Belloc refer in his essay? Is it the market economy? A market economy wouldn't have "State control in education". What then is it?

Your thoughts...

HT: Lucas Bernet