Their ideal of the bureaucratic state asnthe agent of human progress and enlightenmentnreceived its rationale innthe writings of the Webbs, BernardnShaw, and H.G. Wells, all of whomnpreached varieties of that secular religionnknown as scientism, whichnamounts to the naive belief that man’snbehavior can be modified and improvednby scientific design, just asnnature has been similarly modified andnmade answerable to our needs. Oncenthe belief in scientific reason is acceptednand absorbed by a ruling class, thenpossibilities for manipulating man — innthe interests of some presumed good,nbe it health, prosperity, efficiency, ornsocial adjustment—become limitless.nUnder “the new sort of Business Government,”npredicted Chesterton,n”there will be no eccentricity; no humour;nno noble disdain of the world.nThere will be nothing but a loathsomenthing called Social Service.” The troublenwith behavior manipulators is thatnthey are Manichees; they do not lovenhumanity as it is: Chesterton’s “oldnbeer-drinking, creed-making, fighting,nfailing, sensual, respectable man.” Indeed,nthey are drawn to social reformnprecisely by the opportunities it affordsnto alter man for the better. So the onentest they do not apply to any of theirnblueprints for social betterment is thenf simple test of human happiness, fornthey do not know what it is.nIf misanthropy rather than philanthropynwas the motive force behindnmuch social reform, nowhere has thisnbeen more evident than in the eugenicsnmovement, with its obvious distastenfor man as he is as opposed to man asnhe should be. The tyranny of highmindednbureaucrats, Chesterton andnBelloc believed, was bound to grow asnthe frontiers of organized welfare werenpushed ever forward to accommodate,nnot only humdrum matters of pensionsnand pay, but also the whole question ofna healthy nation. The progressive establishmentnincreasingly came to thinknof itself as empowered, by its superiornknowledge and insights, to interfere innother people’s domestic lives and arrangements.nThere thus developed thenruling ideology of what Wells admiringlyntermed “The Creat State” innwhich social evils would not merely beneradicated but would be preventednfrom occurring in the first place. Thisnwould necessitate the doctor, in Wells’snwords, becoming “the health adviser ofnthe community.” Out of this ideologyncame the Mental Deficiency Act ofn1913, authorizing the incarceration fornlife of any person deemed mad by twondoctors. A government that was at thendisposal of such enlightened experts asneugenicists and health faddists, wasnitself ungovernable. To Chesterton itnwas plain that it had lost all sense ofnproportion. It had lost all sight of thatnancient principle of “subsidiarity,” bynwhich power is delegated downwardsnnot arrogated upwards. Instead, “ThenCreat State” was claiming the right tontake full responsibility for society, andnthis on the basis that human beingsncannot take such responsibility themselves,nsince, poor things, they are thenhelpless victims of heredity or environment.nScience, not content with thenlaboratory as a field for its experiments,nwas now taking the whole of society fornits domain.nImplicit in all manner of social reforms,nof which eugenics was only thenmost extreme as well as the most evil,nwas the assumption that ordinary, individualnhuman beings could not safelynbe left to run their own lives; theynneeded constant supervision. The newnsocial state increasingly came to usurpnthe functions of the family — in health,nhousing, education, and numberlessnother matters. But it was not only bynpolicies of collective regimentation thatnpeople were made less and less consciousnof their responsibilities to familiesnand neighborhoods; it was also byn•policies of individual liberation. Moreover,nthe personal license “permitted”nand propagated by the new clerisy,nsince it had the effect of atomizingnfamilies and communities, made peopleneasier, not harder, to control.nWhich is why the one form of freedomntolerated by enlightened despots is sexualnfreedom. As Chesterton explained:nThey are trying to break thenvow of the knight as they brokenthe vow of the monk. Theynrecognise the vow as the vitalnantithesis to servile status; thenalternative and therefore thenantagonist. Marriage makes ansmall state within the state,nwhich resists all such regimentation.nThat bond breaks allnother bonds; that law is foundnstronger than all later andnnnlesser laws. They desire thendemocracy to be sexually fluid,nbecause the making of smallnnuclei is like the making ofnsmall nations. Like smallnnations, they are a nuisance tonthe mind of imperial scope. Innshort, what they fear, in thenmost literal sense, is home rule.nTestimony to this diagnosis is the factnthat a permissive moral climate servesnthe cause of collectivism by swelling thenranks of those in need through thenaddition of categories previously underrepresented,nnotably single mothers,nabandoned wives, and abused children.nCollectivism and moral individualismnhave between them spawned an underclassncharacterized by what Chestertonncalled a combination of “passive functionsnand permissive pleasures.”nOf course, the distributist critique ofnwelfare by Chesterton, Belloc, and othersnwent deeper than any one of thesenobjections to its exercise in practice. Itnrested, finally, on their belief in privatenproperty as a principle essential to thengood life and the good society. Socialistsnhave never pretended to this principle,nbut capitalists have never ceased toninvoke it as the very basis of a freemarketneconomy. So in what sense wasndistributism really distinguishable fromncapitalism? Part of the answer is to benfound by examining how far the rhetoricnof capitalism has matched the reality.nThe 19th century saw a great shiftntaking place in the capitalist concept ofnproperty, from the personal and responsiblenownership of tangible things —nland, shops, factories, machinery—tonthe impersonal and irresponsible ownershipnof stocks and shares. This shift wasnbound to accelerate the decline of thensmall business and the small familynfirm. With the advent of the limitednliability company, great corporationsncould be created, and great fortunesnamassed, by speculation. By the beginningnof this century, the company promoternhad become the cynosure ofnsociety, and property his plaything.nYet even if one grants all this —ngrants, in other words, that great agglomerationsnof capital have beennallowed to grow, to the detriment ofnsmall property — it still remains truenthat many small enterprises have managednto survive in the Darwinian marketplace.nWhy, then, could distributists,nFEBRUARY 1992/47n