04/11: Capitalism and the Family, part 3
Category: Religion & Public Policy
Posted by: an okie gardener
"It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed the Family in the modern world was Capitalism." G.K. Chesterton in "Three Foes of the Family" found in the collection of his essays The Well and the Shallows.
I want to continue stalking this quotation. First post. Second post.
Chesterton thought the Industrial Revolution to have been a tragedy for Britain and humanity. He not only objected to the noise, smoke, and ugliness of industrialization, but also to the commercial impulse behind it. He was the foe of Capitalism and of Communism.
Here is a long quote from his essay "Reflections on a Rotten Apple."
In all normal civilisations the trader existed and must exist. But in all normal civilisations the trader was the exception; certainly he was never the rule; and most certainly he was never the ruler. The predominance which he has gained in the modern world is the cause of the disasters of the modern world. The universal habit of humanity has been to produce and consume as part of the same process; largely conducted by the same people in the same place. Sometimes goods were produced and consumed on the same great feudal manor; sometimes even on the same small peasant farm. Sometimes there was a tribute from serfs as yet hardly distinguishable from slaves; sometimes there was a co-operation between free-men which the superficial can hardly distinguish from communism. But none of these many historical methods, whatever their vices or limitations, was strangled in the particular tangle of our own time; because most of the people, for most of the time, were thinking about growing food and then eating it; not entirely about growing food and selling it at the stiffest price to somebody who had nothing to eat. And I for one do not believe there is any way out of the modern tangle, except to increase the proportion of the people who are living according to the ancient simplicity.
To Chesterton, treating the world and the products derived from the world, merely as commodities for trade or sale, alienated society from its God-given human nature. Chesterton's economics was a part of his religious outlook. In the next post, Chesterton's Roman Catholicism.
I want to continue stalking this quotation. First post. Second post.
Chesterton thought the Industrial Revolution to have been a tragedy for Britain and humanity. He not only objected to the noise, smoke, and ugliness of industrialization, but also to the commercial impulse behind it. He was the foe of Capitalism and of Communism.
Here is a long quote from his essay "Reflections on a Rotten Apple."
In all normal civilisations the trader existed and must exist. But in all normal civilisations the trader was the exception; certainly he was never the rule; and most certainly he was never the ruler. The predominance which he has gained in the modern world is the cause of the disasters of the modern world. The universal habit of humanity has been to produce and consume as part of the same process; largely conducted by the same people in the same place. Sometimes goods were produced and consumed on the same great feudal manor; sometimes even on the same small peasant farm. Sometimes there was a tribute from serfs as yet hardly distinguishable from slaves; sometimes there was a co-operation between free-men which the superficial can hardly distinguish from communism. But none of these many historical methods, whatever their vices or limitations, was strangled in the particular tangle of our own time; because most of the people, for most of the time, were thinking about growing food and then eating it; not entirely about growing food and selling it at the stiffest price to somebody who had nothing to eat. And I for one do not believe there is any way out of the modern tangle, except to increase the proportion of the people who are living according to the ancient simplicity.
To Chesterton, treating the world and the products derived from the world, merely as commodities for trade or sale, alienated society from its God-given human nature. Chesterton's economics was a part of his religious outlook. In the next post, Chesterton's Roman Catholicism.
Tocqueville wrote:
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