An Evil Means to a Good End? - Another Reflection on Hilaire Belloc’s “An Essay on the Restoration of Property”

By John Creech

I ended my last reflection on Hilaire Belloc’s An Essay on the Restoration of Property by asking whether the government redistribution of property is the only way to make the transition from a non-proprietary state to a proprietary one, and if so, whether this would be a permissible means to achieve the good end of economic freedom that a more wide-spread control of the means of production by families would, according to Belloc, produce.  John Médaille’s five part series on distributism, as well as his comments to my last post, give plenty of reasons to believe that such extreme measures are not necessary.  Nevertheless, given comments expressing concern that government redistribution of property would be necessary to achieve the goals of distributism, I want to consider, if for nothing else but the sake of argument, whether, according to Belloc, the good of economic freedom justifies government intervention and whether their should be limits to the type and extent of government intervention necessary to make this good a reality.  In other words, does Belloc’s proposed transition to a proprietary economy leave us with only an evil means to otherwise good end?   

In answering this question, it is important to remember that to whatever extent government is necessary to achieve the principle good of a proprietary economy, the intended result is, according to Belloc, more widespread private ownership of property and, consequently, greater economic freedom.  Before addressing how a society implements a proprietary economy, Belloc first considers what kind of economy is best suited to the nature of man.  Belloc argues that the nature of man requires economic freedom and that such freedom requires that the family unit control the means of production, which he equates with property.  Capitalism and socialism deprive too many families of economic freedom, the former because property is concentrated into the hands of only a few private owners, the latter because property is owned by the state.  A proprietary state maximizes the economic freedom required by human nature because it is one in which such a sufficient number of families own private property “as to give color to the whole.”  The principle good of a proprietary economy is that it ensures economic freedom for a greater number of citizens. The use of government intervention to transition to a proprietary economy would therefore aim at an increase of freedom and private property, two goods that a free market depends on and preserves.  Thus, if Belloc is right about the relationship between private property and economic freedom, government involvement in transitioning to a proprietary state would not reduce freedom and private ownership of property on the whole, but would allow a greater number of families to possess these goods.  

Reflections on Hilaire Belloc’s "An Essay on the Restoration of Property"

By John Creech

The recent posts on distributism and the many comments in response raised a number of interesting questions and also revealed that a number of readers, including myself, were to varying degrees perplexed as to both distributism’s aims and methods of implementation.  While John Médaille’s five part series on distributism clarified a great deal, the discussion inspired me to return to one of the original proponents of distributism, Hillare Belloc, in order to understand something of the intellectual heritage of a view of political economy about which I had only heard that it was “perhaps good in theory, but utterly impracticable.”  What follows is the first of a few reflections on Belloc’s An Essay on the Restoration of Property, one Belloc’s three works in which he advocates a distributist economy. 

A Matter of Mere Semantics?

Some comments in response to the recent posts on distributism suggest that the term "distributism" smacks of redistribution -- the idea that wealth should be taken from the have's and given to the have not's.  While I agree that distributism does perhaps bear this unfortunate connotation, Belloc's works on distributism contains language that elucidates the main premise of distributism.   Additionally, Belloc uses another name for his economy that may help to eliminate the terminological confusion that "distributism" might somehow be synonymous with what could be called "redistributism." 

In his Essay on the Restoration of Property, Belloc describes distributism as a society in which sufficiency and security are joined with freedom because "property is so 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."  Belloc contrasts this type of society, where many, if not most, families own property, with a capitalist one, where the private ownership of property is concentrated in the hands of very few, as well as with a communist one, where most, if not all, property is owned by the state.  Thus, according to Belloc, distributism aims principally at two things: (1) more widespread ownership of private property; and (2) the economic freedom that results from the the ownership of private property.