Hilaire Belloc on Capitalism, it's parasite Socialism and Slavery

Ever wondered why Labour and National seem so much the same? Could it be that socialism and capitalism are two sides of the same coin. It certainly appears that way to me. Many National supporters expect National to save NZ when they get elected. I think they'll be disappointed.

Here's Hilaire Belloc on capitalism, socialism and slavery. Just a snippet from his book that I thought worth putting up and calling attention to.

If it were true that economic circumstances mainly decided the fate of society (and that is a more respectable error than the mechanical, for every human economic system or discovery or adaptation, proceeds from the mind) then we might waste our time, as so many do today, on discussing economic tendencies as determining the future of man. But it is not true that economic circumstance molds our destiny. Industrial Capitalism, for instance, did not develop of itself: it was the slow product of false religion. It arose out of the Reformation; and in particular from the influence of Calvin. But for the Reformation that economic arrangement would not be troubling us today. Its root is still in religion; a change in religion would kill it and its attendant parasite called Socialism.

Again, chattel slavery in the West slowly disappeared under the influence of the Catholic Church. There are those who regret its disappearance; the majority of us have been taught to approve its disappearance: at any rate it disappeared.

A group of intellectuals have argued that the gradual action of a Catholicism had no such effect upon the pagan world, and that the slow dissolution of slavery (it took more than a thousand years) was a function of material environment. They are wrong The old, absolute, pagan slavery which seemed essential to civilized society slowly dissolved because it was incompatible with the Catholic doctrine. It was not directly condemned by the Church, but it proved indirectly unable to live in an atmosphere not pagan. It had to be modified; and once it began to be modified it had started on its long road to dissolution: the slave became a serf, the serf a peasant. And by just so much as society is sinking back into paganism today, by just so much the institution of slavery begins to reappear in the new laws regulating labor.

Related Link: Survivals and New Arrivals: The Old and New Enemies of the Catholic Church