The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.”
Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State
Capitalism is a bogeyman.
There is a type of capitalism rightly condemned by my heroes Chesterton and Belloc, but it was first and foremost a type of capitalism born of privilege bestowed by government. That's the type of capitalism symbolized by GKC's villains, Hudge and Gudge; it is the type of capitalism brilliantly vilified in Belloc's Servile State.
I'm afraid both Chesterton and Belloc went past the point of Hudge and Gudge and embraced a thing called “Distributism,” and, to be honest, they and I part ways at that point, but I believe that, if it weren't for the atrocities born of Parliament and Big Business in England, their romantic commitment to Distributism wouldn't have existed or would at least have been much more mitigated.
The above Belloc quote is featured at the beginning of Chapter Seven of Hayek's Road to Serfdom.
