It is widely agreed that plutocratic, often kleptocratic capitalism is a disaster, as we have seen in descriptions of many financial catastrophes, and will see again. But what can we do about it? Well, some look to Marxism, which has in practice been equally catastrophic. Social Democracy is the best result so far, but it is clearly not enough.
Our author today, G. K. Chesterton, is far better known for detective stories, literary studies, and Christian apologetics than as a serious political commentator, much less an economist. He was in no way an academic economist, but was a resolute opponent of both Capitalism and Marxism.
The practical tendency of all trade and business to-day is towards big commercial combinations, often more imperial, more impersonal, more international than many a communist commonwealth—things that are at least collective if not collectivist. It is all very well to repeat distractedly, “What are we coming to, with all this Bolshevism?” It is equally relevant to add, “What are we coming to, even with out Bolshevism?” The obvious answer is—Monopoly. It is certainly not private enterprise.
Now I am one of those who believe that the cure for centralization is decentralization. It has been described as a paradox. There is apparently something elvish and fantastic about saying that when capital has come to be too much in the hand of the few, the right thing is to restore it into the hands of the many. The [Marxist] Socialist would put it in the hands of even fewer people; but those people would be politicians, who (as we know) always administer it in the interests of the many.
Chesterton’s proposed solution has been called Distributism. Its central idea is spreading the wealth around (as candidate Barack Obama memorably said to Joe the Plumber in this century.)
When I say “Capitalism,” I commonly mean something that may be stated thus: “That economic condition in which there is a class of capitalists, roughly recognizable and relatively small, in whose possession so much of the capital is concentrated as to necessitate a very large majority of the citizens serving those capitalists for a wage.”
The truth is that what we call Capitalism ought to be called Proletarianism. The point of it is not that some people have capital, but that most people only have wages because they do not have capital.
Reaganomics in a nutshell, along with many other political ideologies that have set out to make the rich richer by impoverishing as many others as possible.
Socialism is a system which makes the corporate unity of society responsible for all its economic processes, or all those affecting life and essential living. If any thing important is sold, the Government has sold it; if anything important is given, the Government has given it; if anything important is even tolerated, the Government is responsible for tolerating it. This is the very reverse of anarchy; it is an extreme enthusiasm for authority.
IOW The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, in the persons of the Central Committee or the Maximum Leader.
