Hilaire Belloc
Anglo-French writer and historian (1870 to 1953); author of The Servile State.
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What they believe
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A capitalist state's collectivist theory produces the servile state, not collectivism
The Capitalist State breeds a Collectivist Theory which in action produces something utterly different from Collectivism: to wit, the Servile State.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1912This on korrents
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Beliefs
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A capitalist state's collectivist theory produces the servile state, not collectivism
The Capitalist State breeds a Collectivist Theory which in action produces something utterly different from Collectivism: to wit, the Servile State.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Servitude is the law compelling some people to labour for others who are not so compelled
Its test is, I repeat, the withdrawal from a man of his free choice to labour or not to labour, here or there, for such and such an object; and the compelling of him by positive law to labour for the advantage of others who do not fall under the same compulsion.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Slavery was the institution on which all of ancient European society rested
In no matter what field of the European past we make our research, we find, from two thousand years ago upwards, one fundamental institution whereupon the whole of society reposes; that fundamental institution is Slavery.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
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Ancient master and slave were of one race and recognised each other's human equality
Indeed, the most striking feature of that Servile Basis upon which Paganism reposed was the human equality recognised between master and slave. The master might kill the slave, but both were of one race and each was human to the other.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
No Church dogma ever declared slavery immoral or a sin
No dogma of the Church pronounced Slavery to be immoral, or the sale and purchase of men to be a sin, or the imposition of compulsory labour upon a Christian to be a contravention of any human right.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Medieval guilds deliberately guarded the division of property against both proletariat and monopoly
Above all, most jealously did the Guild safeguard the division of property, so that there should be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the one side, and no monopolising capitalist upon the other.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Machinery did not cost the English their freedom; the loss of a free mind did
It was not machinery that lost us our freedom; it was the loss of a free mind.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
The transfer of the monastic lands to great landowners tipped England against its peasantry
But the great main fact upon which the whole thing is dependent is the fact that the Monastic Lands, at least a fifth of the wealth of the country, had been transferred to the great landowners, and that this transference had tipped the scale over entirely in their favour as against the peasantry.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
The capitalist state is unstable, a transitory phase between two stable kinds of society
The Capitalist State is unstable, and indeed more properly a transitory phase lying between two permanent and stable states of society.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Most so-called free labour contracts today are one-sided, because one party's alternative is starvation
The vast bulk of so-called “free” contracts are to-day leonine contracts: arrangements which one man was free to take or to leave, but which the other man was not free to take or to leave, because the second had for his alternative starvation.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Most people now fear dismissal more than legal punishment; the capitalist is the Englishman's true master
Most men now fear the loss of employment more than they fear legal punishment, and the discipline under which men are coerced in their modern forms of activity in England is the fear of dismissal. The true master of the Englishman to-day is not the Sovereign nor the officers of State, nor, save indirectly, the laws; his true master is the Capitalist.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Only slavery, socialism or widely held property can replace capitalism
There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Restoring widespread property works against the grain of capitalist society, while collectivism works with it
In a word, the man who desires to re-establish property as an institution normal to most citizens in the State is working against the grain of our existing Capitalist society, while a man who desires to establish Socialism—that is Collectivism—is working with the grain of that society.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Most wage-earners would welcome even a servile life-contract of guaranteed employment as a boon
What proportion would refuse it no one can determine; but I say that even as a voluntary offer, and not as a compulsory obligation, a contract of this sort which would for the future destroy contract and re-erect status of a servile sort would be thought a boon by the mass of the proletariat to-day.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
The Insurance Act follows in every particular the lines of a servile state
We have of this an example in actual law at this moment. And that law the Insurance Act (whose political source and motive I am not here discussing) follows in every particular the lines of a Servile State.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Compulsory unemployment benefits inevitably lead to a statutory minimum wage
The provision of a fixed schedule during unemployment thus inevitably leads to the examination, the defining, and at last the imposition of a minimum wage during employment; and every compulsory provision for unemployed benefits is the seed of a minimum wage.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
A minimum wage brings with it, as its converse, compulsory labour
I have said that the principle of a minimum wage involves as its converse the principle of compulsory labour.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Capitalism comes out a winner from municipal and state purchase, a form of sham socialism
Capitalism has seen to it that it shall be a winner and not a loser by this form of sham Socialism, as by every other.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
Probably no more than two answers to capitalism exist: well-divided property or restored servitude
For my part, as I have said in these pages, I do not believe there are more than two: a reaction towards well-divided property, or the re-establishment of servitude. I cannot believe that theoretical Collectivism, now so plainly failing, will ever inform a real and living society.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
The drift toward the servile state, a sinking back into paganism, will likely in time be reversed
And as I am upon the whole hopeful that the Faith will recover its intimate and guiding place in the heart of Europe, so I believe that this sinking back into our original Paganism (for the tendency to the Servile State is nothing less) will in due time be halted and reversed.
The Servile State (1912) Said c. 1912
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