Saturday, November 3, 2012

Chesterton on Capitalism vs. Socialism


From: What's Wrong with the World

My main contention is that, whether necessary or not, both Industrialism and Collectivism have been accepted as necessities - not as naked ideals or desires.  Nobody liked the Manchester school; it was endured as the only way of producing wealth.  Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is endured as the only way of preventing poverty.  I do not propose to prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that it is a medicine and not a wine.

The idea of private property universal but still private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind.  The world may accept something more official and less general, less human and intimate.  But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one.  Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.

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