Product Description

This short work is a program for property distribution as an alternative to how it is planned by socialist states or naturally happens in capitalist societies. It is a landmark of European social thought, attempting to rectify the wrongs in both of the major economic theories by approaching the problem from an entirely new angle. The essay is thus an anticapitalist and antisocialist work of Christian and Catholic social thought in which basic truths about society and human nature are applied to socioeconomics. It is a manifesto and a program for the Distributist League, of which Belloc and G. K. Chesterton were the primary figures. It marks a key point in the history of economic thought, and it is a fundamental text illustrating the influence of religion and philosophy on social thought and their practical application to societal questions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #214382 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 104 pages

Review
"Belloc's essay will be both illustrative and instructive." -- Tom Allen, editor, Catholicexchange.com, December 30, 2002

"IHS is to be commended . . . for another recent reprint of an important Belloc work, The Restoration of Property." -- Scott J. Bloch, director, Hilaire Belloc Society, Washington, D.C. March 1, 2003

"This book deserves widespread readership." -- John Miller, editor, Social Justice Review

"[C]ommended for bringing faith-based alternative texts once more into the public arena as a basis for informed debate." -- Peter Mercer, writer, Social Crediter, Autumn 2003

"[Does] us all, Catholics as well as the average human being, a lot of good." -- Dr. Jean-Francois Orsini, editor, St. Antoninus Newsletter, Fall 2002

About the Author
Hilaire Belloc began his academic career with a lecture tour of the United States in 1892. He became a member of the Fabian Society in the early 1900s and met George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, who helped him obtain work with newspapers such as the Daily News and The Speaker. Eventually he became literary editor of the Morning Post. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1906. He also wrote several novels, such as Mr. Clutterbuck's Election and A Change in the Cabinet, along with historical works such as The French Revolution and the History of England. Belloc also published a series of historical biographies: Oliver Cromwell, James II, Richelieu, Wolsey, Napoleon, and Charles II.

Customer Reviews

Towards a Restoration of Property.
_An Essay on the Restoration of Property_ by Roman Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc, reprinted by IHS Press, is an essay which outlines Belloc's distributist scheme to restore widespread ownership of private property. As explained in a previous book _The Servile State_, Belloc contrasts three separate forms society may come to take: that of the servile state, that of communism, and that of the proprietary state (or distributism). Belloc explains this as follows: "There is a third form of society, and it is the only one in which sufficiency and security can be combined with freedom, and that form is a society in which property is well distributed and so large a proportion of families in the state severally OWN and therefore control the means of production as to determine the general tone of society; making it neither Capitalist nor Communist, but Proprietary." Distributism arose as a response to the excesses of industrial capitalism in which many families had been ruined, and the vast majority of the population was reduced to the level of wage slaves. In contradistinction to communism, distributism allowed for the maintenance of private property (communism basically reducing all individuals to the status of slaves to the state). In the Middle Ages, the serfs were at least allowed to own the means of production and made use of them through a guild system. With the breakdown of medieval society and the decline of Christendom, property was seized by the capitalist class. Belloc makes the analogy that it is necessary to achieve a restoration of property in the same manner as it is necessary to achieve a re-afforestation of barren land. In order to do this, Belloc offers several proposals, including the return to a guild system as well a system of taxation on large businesses which operate at the expense of the small businessman. Belloc's theories along with those of his fellow writer G. K. Chesterton, both published in the periodical _The New Age_ by Alfred Richard Orage, continued in the line of Catholic social teachings which arose as a response to the excesses of industrial capitalism and the dangers of communism in the beginning of the modern era.

Steps Toward the Distributive State
Hilaire Belloc wrote three excellent books setting forth his theory of economics, distributivsm. His first, in order of publication, was "The Servile State". In that book, published in 1912, Belloc argued that the distributive state, characterized by widespread ownership of property was the natural and proper political economy for man. But he argued that capitalism would tend toward a return to the Servile state, a state based on servitude. And, in the decades following 1912, this certainly took place throughout the world.

Belloc's "The Servile State" was well received. But he realized that there was a terrible lack of comprehension of economic issues in the reading public when his first work on economics was published. Therefore, he wrote "Economics for Helen" as a needed corrective.

With these two books in print, some criticized Belloc, and his colleague, G.K. Chesterton, for setting forth a doctrine that, though certainly ethically appealing was void of a practical program. Belloc's "An Essay on the Restoration of Property" and Chesterton's "Outline of Sanity" were the responses to this criticism.

This work is short, but brimming with wisdom. Belloc argues most persuasively of the importance, and even the urgency of a return to distributivism, the natural state of man. And he is even good enough to provide us with a workable approach to get there from here. The book is exellent, important, and well worth reading. God bless.