The Servile State

A clear boundary exists between the servile and the non-servile condition of labour, and the conditions upon either side of that boundary utterly differ one from another, Where there is compulsion applicable by positive law to men of a certain status, such compulsion enforced in the last resort by the powers at the disposal of the State, there is the institution of Slavery ; and if that institution be sufficiently expanded the whole State may be said to repose upon a servile basis, and is a Servile State.

By : Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953)

Section 01 Section 02 Section 03 Section 04 Section 05 Section 06 Section 07 Section 08 Section 09 Section 10 Section 11 Section 12 Section 13 Section 14 Section 15 Section 16 Section 17 Section 18

This book lays out, in very broad outline, Belloc's version of European economic history, starting with ancient pagan states, in which slavery was critical to the economy, through the medieval Christendom process which transformed an economy based on serf labour in a state in which the property was well distributed, to 19th and 20th century capitalism. Belloc argues that the development of capitalism was not a natural consequence of the Industrial Revolution, but a consequence of the earlier dissolution of the monasteries in England, which then shaped the course of English industrialisation. English capitalism then spread across the world.

Belloc then makes his case for the natural instability of pure capitalism and discusses how he believes that attempts to reform capitalism will lead almost inexorably to an economy in which state regulation has removed the freedom of capitalism and thereby replaced capitalism with the Servile State, which shares with ancient slavery the fact that positive law (as opposed to custom or economic necessity by themselves) dictates that certain people will work for others, who likewise must take care of them.

In the ninth section of the book, titled "The Servile State Has Begun," Belloc explores various ways the servile state has started to creep its way back into modern life. Among these he includes minimum wage laws, employers liability laws, the Insurance Act, and compulsory arbitration.

Belloc used his Catholicism and his experience of living alongside the small-scale peasant farmers of the Sussex Weald to advocate his thesis of having a property-owning democracy based on peasant smallholdings that would bring together the different social classes.