G.K. Chesterton and Modernity

[Chris]

As I've stated many times now it has been capitalism that supplied the redistributive welfare socialism, the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution, promises. It is also capitalism, at least acording to Chesterton, that delivers on the agenda of the left, from Roussea through socialism to modern liberalism.

G.K. Chesterton and Modernity

...So what was his critique of modernity, and what was the alternative he proposed?

First, here is a passage that will evoke a snort from Neoconservatives. “It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed the Family in the modern world was Capitalism. No doubt it might have been Communism, if Communism had ever had a chance, outside that semi-Mongolian wilderness where it actually flourishes. But so far as we are concerned, what has broken up households and encouraged divorces, and treated the old domestic virtues with more and more open contempt, is the epoch and power of Capitalism.”

He went on:

It is Capitalism that has forced a moral feud and a commercial competition between the sexes; that has destroyed the influence of the parent in favor of the influence of the employer; that has driven men from their homes to look for jobs; that has forced them to live near their factories or their firms instead of near their families; and, above all, that has encouraged for commercial reasons, a parade of publicity and garish novelty, which is in its nature the death of all that was called dignity and modesty by our mothers and fathers— Chesterton’s “The Three Foes of the Family” in The Common Man

...“The coming peril is the intellectual, educational, psychological and artistic overproduction, which, equally with economic overproduction, threatens the wellbeing of contemporary civilisation. People are inundated, blinded, deafened, and mentally paralysed by a flood of vulgar and tasteless externals, leaving them no time for leisure, thought, or creation from within themselves” (Chesterton speaking in Toronto in 1930).

[Mister D]

Semi-Mongolian wilderness... that's a great line.

[Mister D]

Anyway, I wouldn't say capitalism supplied redistributive welfare. The logic of capitalism entails no such thing. In fact, as you can readily observe here on this forum free marketers are generally hostile to welfare.
That said, it is true that welfare developed more or less in tandem with the wealth generated by capitalism. It is that wealth that makes it possible. Redistributive welfare was and remains a compromise that keeps the system intact.

[Peter1469]

Anyway, I wouldn't say capitalism supplied redistributive welfare. The logic of capitalism entails no such thing. In fact, as you can readily observe here on this forum free marketers are generally hostile to welfare.
That said, it is true that welfare developed more or less in tandem with the wealth generated by capitalism. It is that wealth that makes it possible. Redistributive welfare was and remains a compromise that keeps the system intact.

Social welfare programs began to be developed just after the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution created changes on many fronts: cultural, political, demographic, economic, etc. These changes over time saw the rise of communism and socialism as valid options to capitalism. Western nations, probably beginning with Germany, began to offer social welfare programs in order to compete with socialism and communism. Don't forget that around the time of WWII there were serious discussions in the West, to include the US, that capitalism was dead and that we would have to adopt either socialism, communism, or their kissing cousin fascism.

[Chris]

"Redistributive welfare was and remains a compromise that keeps the system intact" is a good way to put it. That economic liberalism is also coupled with liberal democracy led to other protectionism as Polanyi calls it.

[Lummy]

... if Communism had ever had a chance, outside that semi-Mongolian wilderness where it actually flourishes ...

I've never read or heard such a reference as that before, but kinda interesting. Seems to me that it would have been the economic mindset of Genghis Khan as he conquered and subjugated what are now parts of Western Russia, Poland and Hungary in Eastern Europe. On the contrary, it seems, there is this:

During Medievel times, there was a large group of trade routes and cities connecting Europe and Asia, known collectively as the silk road. In the early 13th century the Silk Road began to be used less. When Genghis Khan and his Mongols conquered Asia, most of the Silk Road came under his power. This allowed for great economic growth for his subjects, because crime was taken care of by the Mongols.
Genghis Khan also set the foundation for an effective mail delivery service. He set out posts with fresh horses and supplies to allow news to travel very quickly throughout his expansive empire. Similar concepts were later used with other civilizations like the U.S.

Without knowing much about Khan, that quote doesn't appear on the surface to support Chesterton's remark.

Also, I don't think it's quite accurate to call free trade "capitalism".

[Chris]

I've never read or heard such a reference as that before, but kinda interesting. Seems to me that it would have been the economic mindset of Genghis Khan as he conquered and subjugated what are now parts of Western Russia, Poland and Hungary in Eastern Europe. On the contrary, it seems, there is this:



Without knowing much about Khan, that quote doesn't appear on the surface to support Chesterton's remark.

Also, I don't think it's quite accurate to call free trade "capitalism".

The capitalism Adam Smith described and advocated was free trade. Today's capitalism is fixed trade, fixed by regulations to provide the welfares and protections spoken of above.

[Lummy]

a) I meet an organ grinder who wants to sell his street organ for $2000 and I buy it because I think I can sell it for $3000 and am delighted when I actually get $5000. That does not make me a capitalist, and it is not the same thing as;
b) I find a spanky mint 1955 Chevy Coupe that the owner wants to sell immediately for $20,000 cash and I know I can get $80,000 for it tomorrow but I only have $2,000 to spend and so get 10 people to pitch in for the purchase at $1,800 a pop with assurance of 50% return on their investment as soon as next week, they -- my investors -- are capitalists because they are investing money to make money on their money with no direct interest in what I'm selling, which could be cow pies if cow pies were worth that. They never even see the car, just the $1,000 profit from their $2,000 investment. That's capitalism.

They are not interchangable terms, I don't think, except that most trade in modern times, certainly all international trade, relies on capitalism.

[Chris]

a) I meet an organ grinder who wants to sell his street organ for $2000 and I buy it because I think I can sell it for $3000 and am delighted when I actually get $5000. That does not make me a capitalist, and it is not the same thing as;
b) I find a spanky mint 1955 Chevy Coupe that the owner wants to sell immediately for $20,000 cash and I know I can get $80,000 for it tomorrow but I only have $2,000 to spend and so get 10 people to pitch in for the purchase at $1,800 a pop with assurance of 50% return on their investment as soon as next week, they -- my investors -- are capitalists because they are investing money to make money on their money with no direct interest in what I'm selling, which could be cow pies if cow pies were worth that. They never even see the car, just the $1,000 profit from their $2,000 investment. That's capitalism.

They are not interchangable terms, I don't think, except that most trade in modern times, certainly all international trade, relies on capitalism.

There are many definitions of capital. Here we're talking main street markets not Wall Street markets.

#1 is the free market so long as it's not regulated.

#2 gets into the commodification of money, trading money.

[Chris]

Here we can return to Patrick Deneen and Why Liberalism Failed… and Can’t Be Fixed, where liberalism is meant in the broadest sense to include classical right and contemporary left.

...Dr. Deneen says that “Liberalism has failed—not because it fell short but because it was true to itself.” As liberalism progresses, it is the victim of the success of its internal contradictions. It creates its own conditions to fail. There is no “fix.”...

...This is a shocking statement because liberalism has been the dominant ideology of the West for centuries. Under this regime, the West has prospered and produced unimaginable material abundance. It is the foundation of the democratic secular state that has dominated the political scene.

However, liberalism also produced a cultural wasteland that only grows greater with time. The liberal period has been far from peaceful. It has been regularly punctuated with grand conflicts, social upheaval, and spiritual desolation.

...Perhaps the best way to explain what has happened to liberalism is to look at its internal contradictions. They also help explain why its failure is only happening now.

Dr. Deneen cites two of these contradictions: the “achieving of complete and supreme freedom,” and the liberation of an autonomous individual from “places, relationships, memberships and even identities.” He shows how radical autonomy and supreme freedom undermine the unifying principles around which society might gather.

As people self-identify as almost anything, personal autonomy is making life impossible in society. Supreme freedom is erasing the social capital balance amassed over centuries. The result is an accelerated deterioration of society that is reaching its apex in the present state of disillusionment and fragmentation.

That’s why liberalism now has problems. It really has wildly succeeded beyond all expectations.