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Title: "How the Consumer Society Came to Be"
Review: This is probably Belloc's most famous piece of social commentary.Published in 1912, it foretoldthe gradual merger of capitalism and socialism to form whatwe today call the "consumer society."Belloc traces Westerneconomic development from Roman times. He argues that the Westhad just shed the last vestiges of feudal slavery in favorof an independent yeomanry by the late Middle Ages when theProtestant Reformation of the 16th century turned all this around, and resulted in the polarizationof wealth that has continued to this day. His thesis is that capitalism,left to itself, is inherently unstable and must rely on stateintervention. Ultimately, however, the large corporations benefit from moderate socialism.Themass of working people are reduced to servile wage earningconditions -- achieving basic material comfort, but nomeaningful economic freedom -- being kept in line by the bureaucrats to the benefitof big business.
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