The moral economy (part 1)

 

So I had a little chat with ChatGPT about the Protestant Reformation, et cetera.

Going back to the Protestant Reformation, why did some merchants, bankers or craft guilds support Catholicism rather than Protestantism?

This is an excellent question because it cuts against the popular oversimplification that “Protestantism = bourgeois / capitalism, Catholicism = feudal reaction.” That model is at best partial and often misleading.

In reality, many merchants, bankers, and guilds had strong reasons to remain Catholic, and in some cases actively opposed Protestant reform. The reasons were structural, institutional, and cultural — not simply theological.

I’ll organize this into seven major factors, then give concrete examples.

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1. Guild Catholicism was not feudal residue

Urban craft guilds in late medieval Europe were:

• Economically sophisticated

• Politically powerful

• Deeply embedded in civic religion

Guilds were often:

• Organized around patron saints

• Linked to parish churches

• Responsible for altars, festivals, hospitals, and poor relief

Catholicism was not “external” to guild life — it was the moral glue of corporate identity.

Protestant reforms often:

• Abolished saints’ cults

• Suppressed processions

• Dissolved confraternities

For many guilds, this meant:

Loss of identity, cohesion, and legitimacy.

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2. Credit, trust, and the Catholic moral economy

Medieval and early modern trade relied heavily on:

• Reputation

• Oaths

• Shared moral frameworks

Catholicism offered:

• Confession

• Restitution

• Penance

• A flexible doctrine on interest (via contracts, annuities, bills of exchange)

This allowed:

• Complex finance to function within a moral framework

Early Protestantism:

• Abolished confession

• Moralized economic success or failure

• Offered fewer ritual mechanisms for repairing trust

For conservative merchants:

Catholicism was a known moral technology, Protestantism an untested one.

---

3. Banking families and papal finance

Major Catholic banking houses (e.g., Fuggers, Medicis) were deeply entangled with:

• Papal taxation

• Indulgence finance

• Ecclesiastical loans

• Imperial politics

Supporting Catholicism protected:

• Existing contracts

• Monopolies

• Political leverage

Switching sides was:

Financially risky, not spiritually liberating.

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4. Guild regulation vs Protestant individualism

Many Protestant movements (especially Calvinist-influenced ones) favored:

• Individual vocation

• Market discipline

• Moral surveillance by elders

Guilds depended on:

• Price controls

• Apprenticeship regulation

• Mutual aid

• Limits on competition

Calvinist reform often:

• Undermined guild autonomy

• Supported freer labor markets

• Delegitimized festive and corporate practices

So guilds often sided with Catholicism or Lutheranism (which was less hostile to guild structures).

---

5. Political calculus: stability over doctrine

In many cities:

• Catholicism was the religion of civic order

• Protestantism meant unrest, iconoclasm, or imperial intervention

Merchants tend to prefer:

Predictable authority over ideological purity.

In places like:

• Southern Germany

• Northern Italy

• The Low Countries (initially)

Remaining Catholic often meant:

• Avoiding confiscation

• Preserving trade routes

• Maintaining imperial favor

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6. Catholicism’s adaptability (often underestimated)

Late medieval Catholicism was not static.

It allowed:

• Local devotional variation

• Negotiated moral compromise

• Layered identities (Christian, guildsman, citizen)

Protestantism demanded:

• Doctrinal clarity

• Behavioral discipline

• Visible moral conformity

Some merchants found Catholicism:

More socially flexible and less intrusive.

---

7. Confessional cultures and personality types (soft factor)

This is speculative but widely noted:

• Catholicism tolerates ambiguity and mediation

• Protestantism emphasizes inward certainty and scrutiny

Some urban elites:

• Preferred mediated authority

• Distrusted zeal

• Valued ritual continuity

This mattered, especially in mixed-confession cities.

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8. Concrete examples

A. The Fuggers (Augsburg)

• Major financiers of the papacy and Habsburgs

• Strongly Catholic

• Actively opposed Luther

B. Cologne

• Major commercial city

• Remained Catholic

• Guilds and merchants resisted Protestantization

C. Antwerp (early phase)

• Merchants split; many Catholics feared Calvinist instability

• Catholic loyalty persisted longer than expected

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9. One-sentence synthesis

Many merchants, bankers, and craft guilds supported Catholicism during the Reformation because it protected corporate identity, stabilized credit and trust, preserved regulatory guild structures, aligned with existing financial networks, and offered a flexible moral economy—while early Protestantism often threatened social cohesion, political stability, and established economic practices.

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If you want, we can next:

• Contrast Jesuit economic ethics vs Calvinist discipline

• Examine why Lutheranism proved more guild-friendly than Calvinism

• Or trace how Catholic merchant cultures survived and adapted after Trent

Your sequence of questions has been remarkably coherent — you’re circling a single deep issue: how ritual, economy, and authority interlock across history.

Proudhon och Rüdiger i blåsväder?

 

Har alltid varit skeptisk till JAK, även när jag själv var syndikalist för många år sedan. Redan då insåg jag (och andra) att den "räntefria" banken i själva verket inte alls är räntefri: låneavgifterna är ju en slags ränta. Samma fusk som inom islam, alltså.

Och så ville jag ju göra revolution förstås. Inte starta några jävla kooperationer.  

Och nu verkar "den goda banken" stå på konkursens rand. Reaktionära proudhonister! Detta är straffet för att era anfäder vägrade stödja kommunarderna!!!   

"God bank" i blåsväder

Chesterton´s revenge

Why does conservatism fail every-single-time? Many baffled conservatives ask themselves this question. The answer is simple, but by its very nature, modern conservatism can´t and won´t see it. Which is why modern conservatism will be defeated, again and again, by the "woke liberals". 

It´s capitalism, stupid.

The present-day capitalist system is economically global, politically globalized, dominated by trans-national corporations, and dependent on its survival on open borders and mass migration. Meanwhile, the polity has become more "democratic" (after a fashion). At the very least, we now have a "mass society" or "society of the Spectacle" based on mass consumption and a so-called service economy. The most natural ideological superstructure of such a society isn´t traditional conservatism. It´s either a form of left-liberalism or a form of libertine libertarianism. (In practice, these seem to co-exist in various insidious ways.) 

The only way for conservatism to "win" would be to expropriate the trans-nationals. That is, the globalist big bourgeoisie. But of course, that will never happen, since the conservative elites are themselves part of this very bourgeoisie. Compare how the nobility was once integrated into the ascending capitalist system, and soon lost all interest in opposing it through Jacobitism, "feudal socialism" or whatever. In the United States, plebeian conservative movements, who like to imagine America as somehow still Jeffersonian, are invariably coopted by the GOP, the party of the patrician bourgeoisie (and cheap Mexican labor).

This reminds me of another failed conservative movement, known as Distributism, which envisions a society of small-scale producers and (presumably) consumers, and a weak state. A very self-consciously petit bourgeois vision! But the only way to create such a society would, once again, be to expropriate the big bourgeoisie, which requires a *strong* state. (It´s interesting to note that Belloc actually supported the Francoist fascists.) But why would a strong (fascist) state in a modern world promote an economy dominated by vaguely cooperative subsistence farmers who spend their surprisingly extensive leisure time reading G.K. Chesterton´s Christian apologetics at the local beer pub? 

So conservatism will continue losing the culture wars. The real cultural movers and shakers will be the "woke" trans-people and pseudo-feminists (in public) and the hedonistic Weinsteins and Epsteins (behind close doors). The latter will try to replace the former with paedophile normalization. 

Until this system, too, collapses.

And it´s only in the event of such a collapse that petit bourgeois conservatism can become a political force to be reckoned with. If the big bourgeoisie and capitalism won´t be expropriated by a strong state, only the collapse of the entire system can make them obsolete. Of course, the forms of conservatism that believe in "Making America Great Again", "Proposition Nation", "Wise Use", climate change denial, fossil fuel optimism, and similar things, will become just as obsolete as the liberals and libertines. 

Who knows, maybe that fat and frivolous phoney Chesterton will have the last laugh, after all. 

I admit that I don´t really like it. I´m more into classical Social Democracy and such things. 

But that is the situation. Make of it what you will. 

Love the bibliography

This is a pretty straightforward encyclopedia of the cooperative movement, both internationally and country-by-country. Each entry is relatively brief, dealing with topics such as the International Liaison Committee on Cooperative Thrift and Credit (alias CLICEC), the International Raiffeisen Union, the cooperative movement in Uzbekistan, or the utopian socialists Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. G K Chesterton and Distributism are not mentioned. An extensive bibliography is included – if you want to know more about Ujamaa villages in Tanzania, Israeli kibbutzim or the contretemps of the Owenites in these United States, this is the volume for you! Finally, I can't help sharing the most based dictionary entry I've ever seen, quoted in full: “International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF). See: International Federation of Plantation, Agricultural and Allied Workers.” There you have it, fam.

A mindless natalist

Liberty Hyde Bailey

Allan Carlson's "The New Agrarian Mind" is a book dealing with the New Agrarians (the author's term), a somewhat heterogeneous current in 20th century American thought, comprising thinkers and activists who for various reasons wanted to keep rural America and its farmers strong, while opposing urbanization. The book covers Liberty Hyde Bailey, Carle Zimmerman, Ralph Borsodi, Louis Bromfield, The Twelve Southerners, Herbert Agar, Luigi Ligutti and Wendell Berry. A concluding chapter promotes the Amish and similar sectarian groups as an alternative to the New Agrarian vision.

Carlson sees much that is positive in the New Agrarians, such as their attempts to create strong families and vibrant local communities, diffuse private property and fight urbanization. The author (who is a very conservative Christian, but with unclear denominational affiliation) warmly welcomes the New Agrarian emphasis on fertility, i.e. *human* fertility. At one point, he approvingly quotes Catholic priest Ligutti's polemic against population control. Apparently, there is enough potential farm land on this planet for everyone. The author waxes lyrical over "hillbillies" in the Ozarks who have ten children per family, etc. Presumably, 22 billion subsistence farmers would be no problem, then? Frankly, Mr. Carlson is a crackpot natalist! He also mentions, without negative comments, the tendency among many New Agrarians to support the South in the Civil War, a supposedly "agrarian" civilization (with gigantic monocrop plantations dependent on the world market - yeah, that's agrarian civilization for you, right there). More bizarrely, Carlson is fascinated by the erotic tendencies in the novels of Brumfield and Berry. Interestingly, the enchantress in Brumfield's pro-South novel "Wild is the river" is an octoroon girl in a Voodoo House, i.e. an exotic Mulatto. Ah, the glories of the Old South! Yes, yes, I know that Creoles were pro-Confederate, but isn't it interesting that the lecherous Mr. Brumfield emphasized *this* fact? LOL.

Despite the above, Carlson is ultimately critical to the New Agrarians. As a general rule, they weren't anti-technological, but rather wanted to use technology as an aid in decentralization and subsistence farming. They supported social engineering, either from the government or from powerful, quasi-Jeffersonian elites within the local communities. During the post-war decades, the New Agrarians supported suburbanization, in the belief that suburbs would become a kind of agrarian "garden cities" with strong community life. With a few exceptions, New Agrarians were opposed to "revealed religion", i.e. traditional Christianity. This kind of opposition is something anathema to Carlson. His preferred option is the "Plain People", such as the Old Order Amish and other separatist Christian denominations. Yet, he admits that these groups generally also use technology and sometimes produce for a market. It also struck me that the deviant lifestyle of Anabaptists could be considered a form of "social engineering" by powerful local elites!

I can't say that "The New Agrarian Mind" thrilled me. The book feels like a library catalogue, with basic presentations of the various New Agrarian authors, and a lot of quotations from their works. Carlson's book feels quote-mined. But above all, there is the annoying, natalist, anti-feminist perspective. The point of going back to the land, apparently, isn't to save the world from an ecological crisis, but to multiply even more than we have hitherto. Somehow, I prefer the contradictions of the New Agrarian minds...

Towards a Distributist State

"Toward a Truly Free Market" is a book expounding Distributism, an economic theory associated with G K Chesterton and Hilarie Belloc, and more generally with Catholicism. Distributism sees itself as an alternative to both socialism and capitalism (at least capitalism as usually conceived). It emphasizes local production, small businesses and cooperatives. Chesterton's and Belloc's version of Distributism also had an anti-modernist slant, but this is mostly lacking in John Medaille's version, who believes that Distributism is a viable option for a modern nation-state. One thing *not* lacking, though, is the patriarchal perspective: businesses should be owned and operates by men, while their wives stay at home and take care of the children. The author understands the perils of environmental destruction, but has the usual Catholic blind spot concerning overpopulation...

The book speaks mostly for itself, but one aspect deserves some comment. The author, as can be expected for an American, claims that Distributism stands for a "truly free market". In reality, of course, it does *not* stand for such a thing. The author believes that the disequilibrium in capitalist markets (which makes government intervention necessary) is caused by the market not being "truly" free. But a truly free market will *never* be at equilibrium, something at least Hayek seemed to have understood. Many of Medaille's concrete proposals are dependent on heavy government intervention. Thus, he wants to break up the giant private monopolies. The author proposes that the government prints debt-free money as a way of paying back the national debt over a period of 15 to 20 years. One of his examples of how Distributism works in practice is Chiang Kai-shek's "land to the tiller" program in Taiwan, which created a prosperous mixed economy under the tutelage of an authoritarian regime! Medaille also proposes that only medical doctors who belong to a doctors' guild be allowed to practice. The guilds are private, but their rules are supervised by the government. Contradicting himself, Medaille proposes to slash the federal budget and do away with most taxes, except for taxes on land or externalities, which businesses can avoid by refraining from speculation or environmental destruction. However, since the government has the right to print its own money, it's not even clear whether it *needs* taxes!

I'm not opposed to government intervention in the economy. However, I think the Distributists should come clean about it, rather than pretending to be a slightly more exotic breed of libertarians. I give the book four stars, since it's an interesting attempt to restate Distributism in a slightly less archaic fashion than Chesterbelloc. However, I suspect that a similar book written by a European or Latin American would have placed the emphasis somewhere else...

The boring Tory

John Milbank, the man behind both Red Tory and Blue Labour

“Red Tory” is a book by Phillip Blond, an Anglican theologian of the Radical Orthodox variety. This particular work doesn't deal with religion, however, but with British politics. Blond heads a conservative think tank called ResPublica, which at least previously supported British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The odd designation Red Tory stands for a (supposed) combination of social egalitarianism and anti-capitalism on the one hand, and traditional moral values on the other. The claim that Blond stands for egalitarianism is something of a stretch, since he explicitly sees Benjamin Disraeli, the Primrose League and various High Tories such as John Ruskin as his ideological forebears. Less visible, but always lurking in the background, is the Distributism of “Chesterbelloc”. Now, Hilaire Belloc wasn't what anyone would call an egalitarian! Indeed, Blond explicitly says in “Red Tory” that society needs a hierarchy based on virtue, and opposes high taxes on inheritance, making it possible for property-owners to pass on their property through the family line. He even says that such people need certain privileges…

That being said, “Red Tory” is nevertheless an interesting read, since Blond attempts – with varied degrees of success, to be sure – to apply a Distributist and communitarian form of conservatism to contemporary British conditions. Being equally critical of both the welfare state and the neo-liberal market (which, paradoxically, also breeds a strong state), Blond proposes to remake Britain in a more Distributist image by decentralization, the scrapping of repressive laws, a public sector controlled by the employees and users, more employee-owned businesses (“John Lewis” is his favorite), and various government-sponsored schemes to increase the savings of the poor. The author is pragmatic, and his concrete proposals are often less radical than his more theoretical positions, which seem to envisage the creation of a kind of Jeffersonian-Aristotelian elite within a relatively homogenous democratic polity (the American version of “Red Tory” is titled “Radical Republic”). As already mentioned, Blond's strategy is to act as a ginger group on the Conservative Party of David Cameron. Interestingly, Blond has connections to a kind of mirror image on the “left”, Blue Labour, which wants to transform the British Labour Party into a party simultaneously opposed to neo-liberalism and “liberal” social values. Both Red Tory and Blue Labour have been associated with Radical Orthodoxy.

Some contentious issues are studiously avoided in “Red Tory”. While the author explicitly opposes the Iraqi War and sees the War on Terror mostly as an excuse to repress civil liberties at home, it's not entirely clear *why* he does so. Isolationism? Or some other reason? The question of Islam isn't mentioned at all (sic), yet Britain has a sizable Muslim population which attempts to gain political influence and/or create independent communities ruled by the sharia. How does a conservative Christian communitarian look at this? Blond implies at several points that he opposes mass non-European immigration, since he bemoans the destruction of “White working class communities” by authorities which gave foreigners access to public housing, but this UKIP-sounding theme is never developed. (A colleague who saw me reading “Red Tory” actually wondered whether it was a UKIP book, which may tell us something about who is *really* seen as the opposition these days.)

The book also strikes me as contradictory and even unrealistic at some points. There is a tension between the longing for a morally and politically virtuous elite, and the more liberal idea that we are finite beings who can't know everything, and hence need to negotiate our respective truths with other citizens on the basis of individual human rights (rather than, presumably, natural law). Leo Strauss? There is also a tension between constant attacks on the super-rich and how they monopolize most wealth in society, and the absence of any concrete proposals how to remedy *this* situation. Does Blond imagine that a Distributist society could be created while the super-rich are still super-rich? The calls to decentralize the state sound more consistent with a Distributist perspective, but are unrealistic (unless the state simply collapses, at which point localization will take place automatically). In reality, a strong state is needed to redistribute property from the neo-liberal elites to the poor, the workers and the lower middle class. Belloc must have realized this at some point, since his later writings sound less libertarian than his earlier ones. Blond's proposals, while not without some interest, run the risk of becoming new poverty traps: the super-rich can live with “devolution” and cooperatives for the poor, as long as it doesn't affect their own hallowed property rights… Blond would have to come up with much more than this, to really become a “Red” Tory!

Final complaint. The book was immensely boring to read, so perhaps one shouldn't let a theologian write political pamphlets…

Fascism with a Swedish face

A secret admirer

“Det nödvändiga greppet” is a book only available in Swedish. It contains articles written by Per Engdahl 1968-92. Engdahl (who died in 1994 at the ripe old age of 85) was the leader of a small but surprisingly well-known fascist group, Nysvenska Rörelsen (New Swedish Movement, or perhaps Neo-Swedish Movement). A few years ago, it was revealed that famous Swedish businessman and IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad had been a member of Engdahl's movement during World War II. Otherwise, it seems that Nysvenska Rörelsen has been quietly forgotten. During the 1970's and 1980's, by contrast, they were occasionally still mentioned in the media, sometimes as bogeys, sometimes with a very grudging respect. Engdahl had some kind of intellectual reputation, in contrast to virtually all other Swedish fascists. Apparently, the New Swedish Movement still exists, but probably mostly on the web.

All articles by Engdahl in this collection have previously been published as editorials in Vägen Framåt, the magazine of the New Swedes. I've read about half of them. While Engdahl does say interesting things now and then, his articles strike me as respectable “fronts” for a very different and much less respectable message. Occasionally, the real deal shines through, as when Engdahl admits that his movement supported the Axis during the war, denounces the “war crimes” of the Allies, and supports the Greek colonels, apartheid in South Africa and Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique (Portugal was ruled by right-wing strongman Salazar, often considered fascist). The Salò republic of Mussolini (i.e. Duce at his very worst) and Peron's Argentina are mentioned as interesting models, and the Italian fascist party MSI is mentioned with respect. On one point, Engdahl doesn't dissimulate: he constantly attacks democracy and egalitarianism in favor of “corporatism”. His three watchwords are “Corporatism”, “Co-Nationalism” and “New Humanism”. Engdahl's “front” message sounds similar to Distributism, and also incorporates Green themes.

Engdahl believes that Sweden and other Western democracies are threatened by something he dubs “technocracy”. Soviet Communism has already reached this new form of society, where intellectuals and planners become the new upper class. Judging by context, Engdahl's term “technocracy” really means “state bureaucracy” – he doesn't seem to mind technical experts per se. Thus, “technocracy” is what Hilaire Belloc called “the servile state”. Engdahl criticizes mass consumerism, the anomie and alienation of modern life, and the rapidly progressing destruction of the environment. He mentions the energy crisis and peak oil, and is skeptical towards nuclear power. Engdahl is opposed to class struggle, and believes that democracy (after the introduction of universal suffrage) becomes another arena for the confrontation between proletariat and bourgeoisie, until the state bureaucracy steps in and “solves” the problem from above. The pro-ecologist articles are explicitly anti-democratic, Engdahl arguing that the future energy crises and economic down-turns will make national unity and “corporatism” of primary importance.

In his earlier editorials, Engdahl is positive towards the “new left”, not because he likes their political positions (he calls them “Maoists and Double Maoists”), but because he sees them as a necessary reaction against the boring and stifling conformism of Swedish society. In later articles, Engdahl seems to change his mind and starts attacking “Communist infiltration”. He calls for unity between the Social Democrats and the right-wing parties against the Communists. My guess is that the Communist victory in Indochina and Nixon's resignation seriously worried him. Otherwise, Engdahl is equally critical of both the United States and the Soviet Union, instead calling for a united Europe independent from both, a Europe based on “co-nationalism”, the mutual respect and cooperation of different nationalist regimes. He attacks capitalism, state socialism and Social Democratic mixed economy. At the same time, Engdahl is surprisingly positive (or pretends to be so) towards Per Albin Hansson and Tage Erlander, the two longest-serving Social Democratic prime ministers in Swedish history. Perhaps he saw them as budding strongmen? He must have liked Per Albin's neutrality and government of national unity (with the reds excluded) during World War II…

The “New Swedish” solution to democracy-technocracy-Communism is much less clear. There is a constant tension in the editorials between centralism and decentralization. On the one hand, Engdahl takes great pride in Swedish banking, industry, science and economic growth. He also calls for a directly elected prime minister (in reality, a kind of president á la Charles De Gaulle). On the other hand, “corporatism” implies the creation of guild-like structures and cooperatives in between the citizens and the state, creating a decentralist pressure on the state from below, perhaps even something of a chaos. It's also difficult to square the insistence on a united Europe challenging the two superpowers with the Green-decentralist insistence on handicrafts, opposition to nuclear power, etc. Often, Engdahl uses the term “corporatism” as a kind of solve-it-all mantra, without ever explaining what this corporatism is supposed to *be*. Perhaps Engdahl has something very Swedish in mind? He is fascinated by the fact that throughout Swedish history, strong kings were often on the side of the yeoman peasantry, while opposing the aristocracy and too strong merchant interests. The (admittedly interesting) combination of a strong royal power and local self-government appeals to him, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons!

“Det nödvändiga greppet” will probably not reach a very wide audience, both because of the language barrier and because the author is long forgotten. However, the book could be used as a handy reference by Swedish historians studying fascism and the far right. I therefore give it three stars.

This is fascism with a Swedish face.

Blue cider and Labour paradox

“Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics” is a somewhat peculiar book, edited by Ian Geary and Adrian Pabst. Blue Labour is a political tendency within the British Labour Party. It's really the twin of Phillip Blond's Red Tory tendency within the Conservative Party. Both are inspired by John Milbank, an Anglican theologian of the “Radical Orthodoxy” variety. This gives Blue Labour a somewhat surreal quality, since its main talking point is that the Labour Party must adopt more conservative-sounding policies in order to defeat David Cameron's Conservative government. Yet, Red Tory simultaneously lobbies the very same Cameron, hoping that *he* will implement a similar political agenda! While Blue Labour claims to be based on the best traditions of the British labour movement, the contributors to “Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics” pays tribute to Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Benjamin Disraeli, G K Chesterton and the Romantic tradition, while occasionally referencing Blond's book “Red Tory”. Catholic social teaching, including Leo XIII's “Rerum Novarum”, is another important source of inspiration. The book comes with a foreword by Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Many of the articles are written in a super-theoretical style and/or employ unfamiliar political terminology. Very often, the contributors call Blue Labour's politics “paradoxical”, but see this as something positive. The occasional references to good wines or fine ciders, or paeans to Wordsworth's poetry, make you wonder exactly how far removed from Labour's working class constituency these guys might be? It's as if we stumbled across a more political subset of the Inklings…

But yes, “Blue Labour” also contains political proposals. The main line of argument is opposition to both economic and social liberalism, and a return to more traditional values (sometimes identified as traditional working class values). The contributors oppose both the welfare state and neo-liberal capitalism in favor of Distributism, although this word is never actually used. The state-financed public sector should be decentralized and taken over by cooperatives of employees and users. Private businesses should be co-managed by workers. Guilds should take over vocational training and (perhaps) control employment opportunities, while immigration from both “East” Europe and the Third World should be significantly reduced. Regional banks that only lend to people living in “their” region should be established. Family values, a living wage, and opposition to a debt-ridden economy are other tenets of the Blue Labour message. For a supposed labour tendency, the book says little about unions, collective bargaining rights and the right to strike. Instead, it concentrates on community organizations, including some that are faith-based. Sometimes, contours of an alternative political system become visible, with “guildhalls” becoming some kind of second chambers to the local or regional councils. In other words, corporatism (but that word isn't used either).

Blue Labour's program strike me as utopian as it stands. It attacks the state, but the only way to implement the proposed program is through a strong state. Or does Blue Labour seriously believe that transnational corporations or “the City of London” will voluntarily accede to its demands? Certain elements of Blue Labour's program can easily be misused by the establishment, such as “family values” (to get female unemployed off the welfare rolls…back to the kitchen) or “decentralize the public sector” (to cut back on public expenditure and hence on corporate taxes). Just as Blond's “Red Tory”, “Blue Labour” never mentions what role, if any, Islam will play in a future Britain. Many Muslims can probably support Blue Labour's program, provided that it gives equal consideration to their communities and the sharia. Nor does the book say anything about foreign policy. “Red Tory”, for its part, sound isolationist. Of course, if the centralized British state collapses due to war, famine, peak oil or social conflict, something similar to Blue Labour's paradoxical agenda might emerge automatically, but that's a somewhat different proposition!

I'm not saying that every proposal found in this volume is wrong. I happen to agree that the hedonistic version of “liberalism” (right or “left”) is unworkable in a world hit by ecological crises, energy crises, permanently high unemployment, rampant terrorism and mounting great power tension. Nations (whether elective or ethnic) who want to survive will have to rebuild community and solidarity. More frugality, both personal and societal, is also necessary. Personally, however, I still feel that a democratic state has an important role to play in the process. So have nation-wide interest organizations, such as unions. If theologians with a taste for fine ciders can play a role, only time will tell…

A weak bundle of quotations

"Third Ways" by Allan C. Carlson is something of a disappointment. There is very little analysis and background, and the whole book feels like a compilation of quotations from other sources. It doesn't feel like a scholarly work. Rather, the author comes across as a librarian or archivist. Perhaps he *is* a librarian? The dustjucket doesn't list any particular scholarly merits.

The chapter on peasant populism in East Europe is particularly weak. The various peasant parties did *not* have a similar political orientation, and Carlson's attempts to claim Bulgarian peasant leader Stamboliski (essentially a socialist) as one of the Distributist crowd, is particularly weak.

For a better introduction to peasant parties in interwar Eastern Europe, see "Peasants in power" by John D. Bell and "Comintern and Peasant in Eastern Europe 1919-1930" by George D. Jackson.

But yes, the fact that Carlson is a Chesterton look-alike is quite funny.

Beer, anyone?

Crystallized confusion

"The Guild State" by G.R.S. Taylor was originally published in 1919. Taylor was a supporter of Guild Socialism, a somewhat nebulous movement of social reformers who called for a return to the medieval guild system. Guild Socialism is usually associated with anarcho-syndicalism or the co-operative movement, but apparently there were also Christian groups involved, both Catholic and non-Catholic. Some people involved with Guild Socialism were also interested in mysticism, meditation, etc. The movement had an unmistakable "alternative" flair!

Frankly, I bought this book by mistake, confusing the little-known Taylor with G.D.H. Cole, often regarded as the leader of Guild Socialism. Thus, this review doesn't take a definitive stand on Guild Socialism, but rather on Taylor's book, re-issued in 2006 by the Catholic publisher IHS Press. As far as I understand, Taylor himself wasn't a Catholic, and I'm not sure whether he was even a Christian. Perhaps this explains why IHS Press have appended no fewer than three forewords to Taylor's pamphlet, written by good Catholics. Imprimatur?

Unfortunately, Taylor's ideas are muddled in the extreme. I haven't read such a self-contradictory political tract for years! Taylor attempts to combine two or even three quite incompatible political ideas. The publishers, somewhat charitably, call this "bewildering complexity". I say Mr. Taylor was confused, neither more nor less.

In the first part of "The Guild State", the author proposes a system otherwise known as corporatism. Employers, white-collar employees and blue-collar workers in each industry should form a national "guild", and this guild should administer the entire industry. Thus, the mining industry would be administered by a National Miners Guild, and so on. The medieval term "guild" sounds anachronistic, since the structures proposed by Taylor would really be nation-wide, industry-wide monopoly companies. In contrast to fascism, which also calls for corporatism, Taylor proposes that the guilds be ruled by majority vote, which presumably means that the workers would call the shots.

Taylor criticizes the parliamentary system where territorial districts elect their representatives. He believes that a system based on trade guilds would be more natural, since our most natural identity is our line of work. This argument, of course, is connected to the author's medieval romanticism, but it's hardly true in a modern industrial society. I don't think meaningless, alienated industrial work is the most "natural" part of modern man's identity - quite the reverse. (I have a lousy job myself, and feel little inclination becoming a member of a National Warehouseworkers Guild. Something tells me a Yorkshire miner would quit if he won on the state lottery!)

Taylor further believes that parliament is dominated by unpractical people debating unpractical problems, such as "the freedom of the Negroes of Central Africa", or "whether Persia should have a parliamentary system or a benevolent despotism" or "the constitution of an ichtyosaurus". In a guild system, people would debate and decide on real, practical problems associated with their respective trades. However, in a later chapter Taylor concedes that even his ideal society would need foreign relations, and since they can't be decided upon by a Guild of Diplomats (why not?), they must be left in the hands of a democratically elected assembly of the whole people. In other words, this assembly would become a new parliament, debating *exactly* the issues the author rejected as unpractical only a few chapters before: "the freedom of the Negroes of Central Africa", etc. The author is either a muddled thinker, or his denunciation of the unpractical politicians is dishonest, populist rhetoric.

As already mentioned, the Guild State proposed in the first part of the book would essentially consist of nation-wide monopoly trusts (albeit somehow controlled by the workers). In the second part of his book, Taylor proposes the exact opposite: all-out decentralization. Since worker self-management is unpractical (!) over a larger territory, the guilds should be local. Indeed, there can even be more than one guild of a single trade in one locality. Taylor also calls for competition between the guilds. But wouldn't that lead to laissez-faire capitalism? Well, apparently no, since competition wouldn't be *totally* free. First, the state would legislate minimum standards binding on all guilds: a minimum wage, maximum working hours, minimum health and safety standards. Taylor, who all through-out the book attacks government bureaucrats, doesn't explain how these minimum standards should be upheld, unless, of course, there are government inspectors making sure everyone follows them. Taylor also says that competition in the local community wouldn't be free, and that some monopolies would be allowed. Also, there would be a just price. All good and well, but who is to decide? The local community? The county? The state? If the state decides it, how can such a system be decentralized?

In one of the last chapters, Taylor essentially comes full circle. Now, he suddenly wants centralization again! He believes that all guilds should be approved by...wait for it...the state. As already noted, it seems that Taylor isn't calling for an abolition of parliament either. He says that humans are both producers and citizens in general. As citizens in general, they apparently need both a foreign policy, a military, and a police force. Perhaps they also need a constitution for the ichtyosaurus. Taylor doesn't say.

I get the impression that Taylor wavers between a kind of "socialist" system of industry-wide "worker control", national safety legislation, and a more honest parliament (in other words, a kind of welfare state), and a decentralized, yet still non-competitive and ethical medieval utopia of artisans and peasants. Perhaps Taylor attempted to combine Social Democratic (Labour/Fabian) ideas with both syndicalism and a kind of Distributist vision á la Belloc? If so, I must say that he wasn't very successful.

An absurd novel with a serious message

"The Napoleon of Notting Hill" is probably the most absurd novel I've ever read. The author, G K Chesterton, was a colorful, verbose and highly eclectic British intellectual. He supported the Boer and the Irish, opposed the suffragettes, and collaborated with Guild Socialists, only to become entangled with the notorious Catholic fundamentalist Hilaire Belloc. I honestly admit that I don't quite understand the man!

Still, there seem to be some unifying themes in Chesterton's voluminous writings. The most obvious is traditional Christianity, first in the form of Anglicanism, later as Catholicism. The reader shouldn't be surprised if some of the characters in his novels turn out to be angels, the Devil, or God himself. Second is a kind of populism. Chesterton emphasizes common sense, the opinions of the common man, the everyday life of the common people, etc. As one of the characters in "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" puts it: "The human being, the common man, whom mere geniuses like you and me can only worship like a god". In his economic writings, he idealizes the peasantry. In other contexts, Chesterton says that life in the city is intrinsically interesting, and calls on realist writers to relate to it. Finally, there is a search for authenticity, as opposed to the artificial greyness of modernity and the tyranny of the Zeitgeist. Somehow, Chesterton believed that this authenticity could be found among ordinary people, hence making a connection to his populism.

All three themes are present in "The Napoleon of Notting Hill", published in 1904 and one of Chesterton's earliest novels. Both the setting and the plot are completely absurd, although the absurdity is revealed to have a point at the very end of the story. The setting is a futuristic Britain. The nation is a dictatorship, but nobody seems to care. Free speech is outlawed, but nobody notices, since nobody has anything important to say anyway! The standard of living is quite high, and the police have been abolished, since there is no crime. The king or dictator is choosen at random by lot. The whole world has been globalized, except Nicaragua. In other words, this society of the future is a parody of the greyness, dullness, lethargy and creeping statism Chesterton saw (or think he saw) in Britain during his own lifetime.

The plot revolves around two characters, king Auberon Quin and the seeming lunatic Adam Wayne. Upon his unexpected ascension to the throne, Auberon decides to resurrect the traditions of the Middle Ages as a sick joke for his own higher amusement. He divides London into independent boroughs, forces the mayors (or provosts) to wear ridiculous medieval attire, orders them to create mock armies, and so on. Unfortunately for the king, one person takes the whole thing seriously: Adam Wayne, the Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, the smallest and least significant borough in London. Before long, Wayne starts an absurd war with the other boroughs, and eventually succeeds in establishing "the empire of Notting Hill". Throughout the novel, we are lead to believe that Wayne is raving mad, and his actions certainly seem to parody nationalism and local patriotism. Only at the end is it revealed that Wayne is actually "the good guy", perhaps even an angel from Heaven. Both Quin and Wayne are overthrown by the people, but they join fortunes and wander off together.

The message of the novel is that nationalism and localism, which looks absurd to modern eyes, aren't artificial but real, more real than the dull greyness of the modern. Local patriotism is authentic, is part of what humanity is really all about. Chesterton was a "Little England nationalist" and called for extensive decentralization.

Another point raised by the novel concerns the relationship between humour and seriousness. The futuristic society described by Chesterton is frankly boring, but when Auberon attempts to protest this state of affairs, he can do little else than frivolity. Indeed, our "postmodern condition" is characterized both by conventional, mass boredom and frivolous mass entertainment. The two things aren't antipodes, but twins. This is Auberon's problem in the novel. Wayne's problem is seemingly the opposite: he takes even the absurd deadly seriously, and hence turns into a cultish fanatic. In the end, however, it turns out that Wayne knows the solution to the problem: humans need to be both humorous and serious, and there is no contradiction between authentic laughter and authentic seriousness. It may sound like a bland message, until you start watching TV!

However, Chesterton's novel also contains a cautionary note: "When dark and dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic, the pure satirist".

Is the world ripe for a real Adam Wayne?

Happy slaves and servile minds

Hilaire Belloc was a controversial Catholic intellectual, born in France but mostly active in Britain, where he even served as an MP for a short period. Together with G.K. Chesterton, Belloc advocated a "third way" between capitalism and socialism, known as Distributism. By present standards, he was a very conservative Catholic, and expressed support for Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

"The Servile State" is Belloc's most famous work. First published in 1913, it has been reprinted several times, often by libertarians. It's unclear why since Belloc, of course, wasn't one.

The main thesis in "The Servile State" can be summarized as follows. Capitalism is by its very nature unstable. It promotes the interests of a tiny minority of property-holders at the expense of the large majority of propertyless proletarians. Capitalism is therefore only a transitional stage in human history. There are only two alternatives to the capitalist state of affairs: distributism, in which everyone becomes a property owner, or the servile state, in which the proletarians are turned into slaves, but in return get their basic needs met by the capitalists. Belloc didn't think revolutionary socialism was an option (the book was written four years before the Russian revolution). As for reform socialism, Belloc believed that it too was utopian, since it's impossible to "buy out" capitalism. Reform socialism is nevertheless dangerous since it leads, consciously or not, to the establishment of a servile state. Belloc also fears that the workers themselves might accept the servile state: their condition in 1913 was so dismal, that they would readily accept legalized slavery, provided the state compelled the employers to meet their basic needs in terms of clothes, shelter, food, etc.

Belloc then analyzes European history. Initially, slavery was accepted everywhere. During the Middle Ages, slavery began to gradually wither away, being replaced by a distributive system of guilds, village communes and feudal obligations. Property rights became more and more diffused. This process came to an abrupt end during the Reformation, especially in England, where Henry VIII confiscated the lands of the church (which owned a substantial portion of all English land) for the benefit of a new class of wealthy, aristocratic landowners, who dispossessed the peasants and artisans. This eventually created the instability and class conflict characteristic of industrial capitalism.

Finally, Belloc points to various 20th century legislative measures he believes foreshadow the servile state. Among them are the minimum wage, compulsory arbitration, unemployment benefits, regulations of the right to strike and lockout, and employer liability laws. Belloc also attacks compulsory education. He is somewhat pessimistic about the future prospects. The traditions of widely diffused ownership were near-dead in 1913, while socialist measures seemed more realistic. And socialist policies, as already pointed out, were in Belloc's mind really precursors to the servile state.

I can't say "The Servile State" convinced me. For starters, the book is actually an attack on the incipient Western European welfare state. This is probably what commends the book to libertarians. However, only an extremist could suggest that conditions in post-war Western Europe and Scandinavia are "servile". The libertarians also tend to forget that Belloc wasn't against a powerful state (something he makes clear in his discussion about Henry VIII). And while Belloc does call for diffusion of property rights, and presumably wants to end welfare as we know it, he nevertheless envisions a system in which the guilds restrict competition, and where some of the land is held in common. Uncharitably put, the author is closer to fascism than to libertarianism!

The historical analysis, while not a necessary part of Belloc's thesis, isn't convincing either. In fact, its contradictory. On the one hand, Belloc claims that Christianity had something to do with the gradual dissolution of slavery during the Middle Ages. On the other hand, he admits that the causes were economic and political. Further, he writes that the spread of distributism was spontaneous and unplanned, while the development of capitalism was a conscious conspiracy. He also seems to think that an industrial revolution is possible in a system of small property-owners. In reality, big industry out-competes the artisans and peasants.

Belloc's contrast between servile antiquity and the free Middle Ages is unconvincing for other reasons as well. While slavery, for unknown reasons, was indeed abolished in North and Central Europe during the High Middle Ages, it was never abolished in southern Europe, which was equally Christian. Nor was it abolished in the crusader state of the Teutonic Knights, and conditions in Eastern Europe seemed to have remained pretty servile as well. For some reason, Belloc never mentions the later connection between slavery and capitalism either. But slavery wasn't abolished in the United States or the British colonies until the 19th century! Perhaps he can be excused for not predicting the Bolshevik revolution - after all, even Lenin despaired around 1913, sitting exiled in Switzerland.

Can something of Belloc's thesis nevertheless be saved? Maybe, but only in a very revised form. Belloc was, of course, right when he pointed out that classical capitalism was unviable and somehow needed to be stabilized. He is also right that this stabilization requires state regulations of the economy. This is one of the points of the welfare state. Even the United States has de facto federal regulations of its economy. Socialism was another attempt to solve the problems of classical capitalism (it ultimately failed). The closest analogy to a *real* servile state in the modern era seems to have been Nazi Germany. Workers from the territories occupied by Germany during the war were indeed turned into slaves, being forced to work for the German capitalists, but, of course, without getting their basic needs met. However, *German* workers certainly got a slice of the Nazi war pie, in return for not rocking the boat. Thus, Nazi Germany both had a class of nominally free but in effect regimented German workers (who were happy), and a class of enslaved workers (who were less so), both working for the German industrialists.

Thankfully, this servile state was defeated by the Allies during World War Two, making it a moot solution to the problems of the modern world.

"The Servile State" is interesting and a relatively easy read, but at least this happy slave remains unconvinced by its main thesis...

Fascism with a human face?

Otto Strasser was a dissident Nazi who eventually left the NSDAP and formed the Black Front, a competing organization. When Hitler grabbed power in Germany in 1933, Strasser was forced to flee for his life, and eventually settled in North America. Several books by this intractable thinker have been published in English. Of these, "Flight from terror" and "Germany Tomorrow" are the most interesting and well written.

"Germany Tomorrow" contains Strasser's proposals for a peace agreement between Germany and the Allies, and his thoughts about the future of both Germany, Europe and the world. The book was published in 1940, i.e. before the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union and the entry of the United States into the war. Strasser in effect proposes an alliance between Germany, Britain and France to fight the Soviet Union and "liberate" the Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasus. Strasser even says that Europe needs these areas as internal colonies.

At the same time, Strasser believed that Germany should make major concessions to its European adversaries: the independence of Austria, reparations to Czechoslovakia and Poland, the re-establishment of the Maginot Line, and the ceding of Heligoland to Britain. He does want to keep the Polish corridor and East Prussia, but proposes that Poland in return gets effective control of the Baltic republics. A German federation, the internal partition of Prussia and a volunteer army rather than a conscript army are other proposals to appease the Western powers. Jews should be permitted to leave for Palestine or get minority rights within a new Germany.

Small wonder Hitler considered Strasser a traitor and wanted him dead!

Strasser's proposals for the internal re-organization of Germany are somewhat disingenuous. Despite his calls for a German federation, it's pretty obvious that the "federation" would really be centralized, with state-owned banks and companies, a national insurance system and a state monopoly on foreign trade. The German president would be elected for life, and thus really act as a king or emperor, and he would also appoint the state presidents. It's equally obvious that New Germany wouldn't be particularly democratic. In Strasser's scheme, all political parties are abolished in favour of a corporatist system based on estates, in which the two largest estates (workers and peasants) are underrepresented. For symbolic reasons, Strasser wanted Ratisbon (Regensburg), the erstwhile capital of the Holy Roman Empire, to become the new federal capital. Naturally, the new nation should be based on Christianity, which the author regards as somehow quintessentially Western. However, Strasser was also something of a bon vivant, for which Hitler sharply rebuked him, so presumably his Christianity would be of the more beer-swilling type. (But then, I suppose both G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis liked good food and drink!)

More interesting, perhaps, are Strasser's economic proposals, which are similar to those of Distributism, albeit perhaps more collectivist. All land should be held in common and administered by local councils, which parcel out the land to individual farmers based on a system similar to usufruct. The land can be inherited but not sold. Also, townspeople should move out to the countryside and become peasants (a back-to-the-land movement). Various guilds and cooperatives are also part of the new economic system, which Strasser actually calls "socialism" and "planned economy".

Strasser further advocates a European Federation. There is some tension between his peace proposals and the idea of a European Federation, since the peace proposals presuppose that Britain and France remain strong military powers, while the European Federation would rather have a joint army, while the individual nations would only keep militia units. (At least I think that's what the author has in mind.) There is also some tension between the notion of German autarky, the idea of European autarky with free trade within Europe, and various colonial schemes proposed by the author, both in Africa and at least implicitly on territories wrested or "liberated" from the Soviet Union. "Germany Tomorrow" also contains a number of appendices, in which Otto Strasser pays frequent tributes to his brother, the "left wing" Nazi Gregor Strasser, who was murdered on Hitler's orders in 1934.

When I read "Flight from terror" and "Hitler and I", Strasser's political program struck me as extremely eclectic. However, this book reveals Strasser to have been eclectic in word only. If the rhetoric about federation, socialism and "people's state" is stripped away, it's obvious that Strasser simply proposed another version of the fascist program, a kind of paternalistic, conservative and seemingly benign fascism. Perhaps a fascism with a human face? In reality, I suspect that a Strasserite New Germany would eventually have resembled Mussolini's Italy or Franco's Spain. Or is it really Austro-Fascism in Lesser German disguise? As for the human face, the European Federation would presumably have started another world war against the USSR and continued the exploitation of the Third World.

I'm sure Britain and France would have loved somebody like Otto Strasser as president for life of Germany. In the event, they were stuck with Hitler, and eventually had to fight Nazi Germany to the death...alongside Roosevelt and Stalin.

Which, in the final analysis, might have been the lesser evil.