The Distributist Definition of the Capitalist State

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"The two marks, then, defining the Capitalist State are: (i) that the citizens thereof are politically free: i.e. can use or withhold at will their possessions or their labor, but are also (ii) divided into capitalist and proletarian in such proportions that the state as a whole is not characterized by the institution of ownership among free citizens, but by the restriction of ownership to a section markedly less than the whole, or even to a small minority. Such a Capitalist State is essentially divided into two classes of free citizens, the one capitalist or owning, the other propertyless or proletarian." -- Hillaire Belloc, The Servile State, p. 16

Comments

  1. Samson Corwell2:31 PM

    You're on a Mac, right? Why don't you use an em dash instead of two hyphens?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah9:09 PM

      It used to be that some browsers would not display things like em-dashes and smart quotes properly, so I got in the habit of always using "vanilla" ASCII characters.

      Delete

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