The Servile State is a 1912 economic and political treatise by Hilaire Belloc. It serves primarily as a history of capitalism, a critique of both capitalism and socialism, and a rebuke of developments Belloc believed would bring about a form of totalitarianism he called the "servile state". The "servile state" is a state in which the proletariat – defined as a majority of civil society dispossessed of the means of production – is compelled by positive law to work for those possessed of those same means. Belloc believed that capitalism is fundamentally unstable and therefore serves as a transitory state of affairs, viewing it as a disruption of the natural development of property and societal norms that arose during the Middle Ages. While Belloc writes about socialism – which he generally refers to as "collectivism" – as an alternative to capitalism, he believes that attempts at its implementation are ineffective and will only hasten and solidify the reintroduction of the servile state.
Background Author
Hilaire Belloc was a French-English writer and historian who served as a member of Parliament for the now-defunct Liberal Party from 1906 to 1910 and was one of the few Catholics among them. The book was written after his time in Parliament, but prior to the socialist revolutions that occurred shortly thereafter, most notably the Russian Revolution in 1917. As an MP, Belloc is considered to have been a continuation of the new liberals and British Radicals of the late 19th century, identified with John Bright, Richard Cobden, and William Cobbett. During his time in office, he developed an intense distaste for parliamentary politics, viewing it as unconcerned with the well-being of the proletariat and becoming frustrated by unreasonable compromise and the inability of his colleagues to challenge what he saw as systemic abuse of the working class.
Catholic social teaching
In the latter half of the 19th century, Catholic thought expanded its focus in the fields of economics and sociology, in large part due to the social upheaval brought about by the advent of mass production, the rise of a definitive capitalist framework, and the rise of labor rights movements. The Catholic social teaching became a central theme for Catholic activists of the era in the wake of Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, which was particularly influential on Belloc.: "A version of this idea, although not the precise phrase, had earlier been floated in British political debate by the sometime Liberal MP and Catholic social theorist Hilaire Belloc in The Servile State (1912). Influenced by Catholic social doctrine, especially Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical De Rerum Novarum , [...]" This encyclical explicitly addressed the condition of the working class and condemned "the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class". Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, who also was a massive influence on Belloc, was a significant contributor to the development of the encyclical and encouraged English Catholics to engage in politics and seek economic justice, even going so far as to support the 1889 London dock strike. A journalist for The Pall Mall Magazine referred to Rerum novarum as "a magnificent confirmation from the Papal Chair of Cardinal Manning's doctrines". The encyclical defended the right of workers to form unions and the institution of property.
Distributism
Belloc is considered – together with his lifelong friend and collaborator, G. K. Chesterton – founding theorists for the economic theory of distributism. The Servile State is the first such reference of the term and remains universally cited in discourse on distributism. Belloc later expanded the scope of distributism from a critical analysis of capitalism – what is principally described in The Servile State – to a more robust, descriptive economic theory. Later contributions Belloc made to distributism include Economics for Helen (1924) and An Essay on the Restoration of Property (1936).
Content Origins of servility and distribution Beginning with the pagan states of pre-Christian Europe, Belloc discusses the indispensability and universality of slavery among them and makes particular note that slaving states maintained members of their own tribe as slaves. The institution of slavery required perpetual recruitment andalthough boosted by the capture of prisoners of war, slave raids, and slave marketspoverty was the main driver of slavery in the pre-Christian economic and social order. Because slaves, who were dispossessed of property, worked under the command of another, possessing property and able to compel labor by positive law, a two-class system of servility developed. Slavery was natural to pagan society, where even slave revolts were attempts to escape the institution, but never to abolish it.
Belloc credits the Christianization of Europe with the dissolution of the servile state under the pagan states of Antiquity, though not directly. Slavery itself was not condemned by any particular contemporary Catholic dogma nor did the Church directly attack the institution of slavery. While early Christian evangelists did consider the emancipation of a slave laudable, Belloc is quick to note that pagans also considered it praiseworthy and early Christian contempt for the sale of Christians into slavery was not held in such a contempt because slavery itself was contemptible, but because it "was a sort of treason to civilisation to force men away from Civilisation to Barbarism". Despite this, Belloc says that slavery as an institution largely disappears anyway and credits this shift to the development of the villa, land usually owned by a single proprietor on which several others worked.
The villa was the peri- and post-feudal institution that gave way to the manorial order. This development created the conditions by which pagan slavery was transmuted into the earliest distributive states. Belloc writes of the transition:
Reformation and Industrial Revolution
Belloc did not agree with his contemporaries that the Industrial Revolution caused the rise of capitalism in Europe, but rather saw it as a tool that only capitalists had been able to effectively utilize because the distributive state had already been dispossessed of its economic power. Principally responsible for the rise of capitalism, which Belloc says ultimately disrupted the development of the distributive state, was the Protestant Reformation.
The English Reformation and the subsequent dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII led to the redistribution of church-owned property, amounting to by Belloc's estimate between 25 and 30 percent of the economic power of England, into the hands of the Crown. Critically, the King was unable to maintain control of these lands. Landowners whose large holdings were still relics of the feudal order remained powerful in English politics, owning again, by Belloc's estimation "anything from a quarter to a third of the agricultural values of England", were able to gain control of these newly seized lands. The Crown, unable to reestablish ownership of the land, created the conditions that led to the collapse of the manorial order. Belloc writes:
Economic power was now held by a few powerful landlords instead of a plurality of such who had been distributed throughout the country under the distributive state. Under manorialism, according to Belloc, ownership had not been completely extractive; tenants paid a certain "customary" due and rent to the lord, but anything produced over that allotted payment had been the rightful property of the tenant. The new ownership class ignored the customary dues and rents, instead opting for a completely extractive approach by laying claim to all of a tenant's surplus value. By 1700, Belloc estimates that at least half the land in England belonged to the new owner class, and this class had therefore become a capitalist class in the truest sense of the word – that is, a minority of citizens who own the means of production and extract the greatest surplus value from its proletariat – prior to the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
Belloc believed that the Industrial Revolution expedited the dispossession of ownership from the many into the hands of the new capitalist class, but was not the principal cause of capitalism. He wrote that, under the correct conditions, the discoveries and inventions of the Industrial Revolution "would have blest and enriched mankind", but, because they could only run into the possession of those who owned the means of production, only exacerbated the disparity that already existed between the possessed and the dispossessed.
Instability of capitalism Belloc viewed capitalism as inherently unstable. He states that the combination of a dispossessed majority who live under "a conscious, direct, and planned exploitation" will cause two major strains. The first is that there is a strain between the moral framework that the state uses to legitimize itself to the majority and the social facts which refute it. The second is that the exploitation of the masses creates an atmosphere of anxiety and insecurity, even among the capitalist class, but especially among the masses. Belloc writes that each alone would be enough to destroy the social fabric, but "the two combined make destruction certain".
Moral framework of the state Belloc describes the moral tension of the state as a perversion of laws and traditions understood and accepted by the public. To him, the law presupposes that the state is composed primarily of free citizens, both acquainted with and having respect for the concept of property, who are more or less equal in property and power. Theft and fraud are crimes because they are understood to be immoral transgressions against a socially and morally agreed upon view of property. A social contract like this permits all persons to own property and to have that property defended by threat of law, thus freeing all persons from the anxiety of having that property stolen or unjustly revoked. Under capitalism, the inviolability of property is still accepted by the public, but corrupted by the capitalist class to defend itself from theft while exploiting the dispossessed. Belloc writes:
In other words, because the ownership class has collected so much property and wealth from the many, the courts can no longer exercise the truest sanctions in society; the ownership class can willingly withhold livelihood from the working class. This, Belloc writes, is attested in the fact that a man fears the loss of employment more than he fears legal punishment. This conflict between a person's almost innate respect for property and his belief in law being an extension of moral justice creates a disjunctive view of right and wrong, causing "acute spiritual conflict".
Capitalism and security