Belloc gives a broad history of the origins of the servile state in Rome, how Europe grew out of the servile state, how Europe reached a point of maximal economic freedom toward the end of the Middle Ages, how the English nobility used the Protestant Reformation to seize disproportionate economic power, and how industrial capitalism tends toward the servile state. Although Marxism has been proposed as a solution, it is in fact a managerial state no different than the servile state. Belloc finally describes distributism, in which property is not consolidated in the hands of managers of money, but distributed amongst the common people.
Description:
Belloc gives a broad history of the origins of the servile state in Rome, how Europe grew out of the servile state, how Europe reached a point of maximal economic freedom toward the end of the Middle Ages, how the English nobility used the Protestant Reformation to seize disproportionate economic power, and how industrial capitalism tends toward the servile state. Although Marxism has been proposed as a solution, it is in fact a managerial state no different than the servile state. Belloc finally describes distributism, in which property is not consolidated in the hands of managers of money, but distributed amongst the common people.