Shaw and Chesterton debate: a commentary

The great literary critic George Bernard Shaw is a Socialist, and the journalist and philosopher G.K. Chesterton is a Distributist. This is a commentary on a debate they had on their views.

I do not think that a community arranged on the principles of Distributism and on nothing else would be a perfect community. All admit that the society that we propose is more a matter of proportion and arrangement than a perfectly clear system in which all production is pooled and the result given out in wages. But what I say is this: Let us, so far as is possible in the complicated affairs of humanity, put into the hands of the Commons the control of the means of production--and real control. - Chesterton in Do We Agree?

Shaw begins the debate by noting a problem in Capitalism. The issue here is called ‘the distribution of wealth’. Capitalism, according to Shaw, distributes wealth unfairly. For example, there are people - under the Capitalist system - who get filthy rich on the shoulders of workers who work for destitute wages. This, to Shaw, isn’t how wealth should be distributed. Shaw - in a fit of hyperbole - proclaims that the only punishable crime should be the crime of distributing wealth unfairly. If you give someone 50 bucks and they want more, kill him! And if I receive 50 bucks and I have 55, kill him! Of course, Shaw is exaggerating, but we get the point.

Chesterton sidesteps Shaw’s humor and gets right to the kernel. Shaw’s Socialism depends upon the alleged key premise: that the ‘means of production’ are owned by the community. But Shaw means something peculiar when he says that. The community doesn't really own the means of production at all; rather, the means of production are owned by the State, and the State equally distributes 'the product' among the community. What Shaw means by 'own' is that the community actually 'is' the means of production. In actuality, Shaw wants to place the 'ownership' of the means of production in the hands of the government, ensuring equal distribution of that product throughout the community.

In spite of that, Chesterton wants to put real ownership and control in the hands of the community, a real control over a means of production of a particular product. In Socialism, however, there is no control of the means of the production by the community. And here is where the whole point turns.

On the one hand, Shaw proposes to fix the unequal distribution of wealth by giving the government power over the means of production, and the government then redistributes its products equally among the community (leaving the community with no power over the means of production). On the other hand, Chesterton rebuts by saying this: we shouldn’t redistribute wealth by Shaw’s strategies - we ought to redistribute power! This is actually a penetrating point. If power is decentralized, if power is redistributed among the community by a just government, then the means of production are in the hands of the community, and the whole ideal of redistribution of wealth follows without any of the dire consequences involved in Socialism!

In Shaw’s response, he makes the peculiar point that wealth is all there is to distribute, and so we can’t redistribute power at all. Regarding wealth, Shaw begins to provide a loose definition of what Capital itself is: spare money leading to spare food, which is good for only a certain time before it goes rotten. When the food is rotten, the spare money leading to its consumption is useless. But as long as spare food is unnecessary, Capital remains a mere figure. With this in mind, Shaw notes an alleged contradiction between the preaching and practice of Chesterton’s Distributism.

Hasn’t Chesterton called for the ‘nationalization’ of the coal mines? Yes, he has. Isn’t that a contradiction? Isn’t that shifting over to the government the means of production? This doesn’t seem to be redistributing power into the community, does it? Also, Shaw asks Chesterton to define more closely what he means by the means of production. As for the coal mines, the community obeys a manager under Capitalism, and obeys the government under Socialism. In either case, a product - coal - is produced, and equally distributed throughout the community. Thus, the ends of Socialism and Distributism are one and the same. And if coal mines need to be owned by the government, the same logic should lead Chesterton to believe that everything else should be owned by the government.

Shaw then makes a point about ownership. Shaw wants to abolish it. The reason he wants to abolish it is because he wants to take away the possibility of the owners being able to use it to harm another person. For example, if someone owned a gun, they’d be more inclined to use it, and the possibility is there that he would use it to harm or kill. After all, the gun belongs to the owner. Shaw wants to take away that possibility, and make property owned by the government. The person who doesn’t produce more than he consumes, who doesn’t pull his weight in the community, who lives like a parasite, ought to be punished just as harshly as the murderer. The fear of punishment would be incentive enough to get the Socialism ball rolling.

In Chesterton’s response, he first makes a point on Shaw’s point about ownership. Shaw thinks we shouldn’t inflict harm on others because the products we own aren’t ours: they’re the government's. Chesterton thinks we shouldn’t inflict harm on others because the products we own would be inflicting harm on things we don’t own: other people.

Regarding the question of the coal mine, Chesterton wonders how Shaw missed that there are exceptions built into the Distributist structure. The coal mine just happens to be one of those exceptions. Distributism has no problem having the exceptions owned by the government. Coal is - in this case - on the same level as the distribution of postage stamps. Chesterton wants to hand over to the government all those means of production which either can’t or won’t be privately owned. And all which can and will are distributed.

Shaw’s last counter is long and passionate and goes over his allotted time. Shaw asks why the coal mine is an exception. Chesterton, no doubt, would respond that it is an exception because no one would want private ownership over a coal mine, just as no one would want private ownership over postage stamps. One wonders what Shaw would say to the point that the government could and might act just as savagely and unjustly as a private owner, a landlord. Strangely, Shaw says the government wouldn’t have that kind of power. Why not? And to Chesterton’s point about people having an instinct to be private owners, Shaw claims the instinct may be in the country but not in the town, a more urban part of society.

And now we come to Chesterton’s final statement. People in the town do have the instincts of private ownership, it’s just that in the town they have no choice but to work for the State. The instinct becomes suppressed. It would be like outlawing beer because the few drink it excessively. Without the wind (the State) the redistributed windmills (the community) wouldn’t be much worth; that is why the State needs to make the windmills (redistribute the power the wind can have). Shaw’s position is the same as saying that because there is wind, there is no need for windmills! In Socialism, men and women are the means of production, owned by the State: in other words, they are slaves. In Distributism, men and women are landlords, private owners, themselves their own means of production, for not wealth, but power has been redistributed.

An alternative to Socialism and Capitalism?

When Mr. Shaw refrains from hitting me over the head with his umbrella, the real reason--apart from his real kindness of heart, which makes him tolerant of the humblest of the creatures of God--is not because he does not own his umbrella, but because he does not own my head. As I am still in possession of that imperfect organ, I will proceed to use it to the confutation of some of his other fallacies. - Chesterton in Do We Agree? : A Debate between George Bernard Shaw and G.K. Chesterton.

This is a delightful debate because Chesterton and Shaw were both geniuses, comedic, stylistically unorthodox, paradoxical, and best friends. Their philosophies were worlds apart, but their friendship continued strong until Chesterton’s death on June 14th, 1936. One day, the transcripts of a debate (the debate happened in 1928) were rescued and we have a record of one of the many debates they participated in together. Not only is it a joy to read because I’m in love with their personalities and style, but the substance of the debate was as relevant then as it is today.

Partnered with Hilaire Belloc (British historian, poet, writer), Chesterton lead a political crusade in favor of a view called Distributism, an economic theory that keeps all the virtues of Capitalism without the vices, and shunned Shaw’s particular brand of Socialism (there are so many types). The achilles heal of Capitalism, according to Chesterton, is the corporation, an evil Chomsky regularly denounces. The corporation is a kind of socialism, and so this sort of unbounded Capitalism leads to a certain kind of socialism: the corporate kind. Without getting into the minutia, what ends up happening is that the corporations get in bed with the government: they’ll scratch the government’s back if they scratch theirs. A corporation can fund campaigns, pay for ads, and other things. Representatives from corporations can meet with, say, Senators and agree to finance their campaign if they back the corporation's politics and so on and so forth.

Chesterton - a Christian - thought that government and the economy should be fashioned in a way that promoted Christian values. It just so happened that the economic system Chesterton thought did this the best was Distributism. The crucial concept in this debate is ‘the means of production’, which is the lynchpin of an economic system. In Capitalism, the means of production are controlled (predominately) by the rich, the corporations. In Socialism, the major means of production (banks, schools, hospitals, factories, plants, manufacturers, and so on) are directly controlled by the government (with shades of gray thrown on whatever is owned and how much control there is on what is owned). In Communism, (and I am open to correction here) all means of production are owned by the government.

Distributism is distinct from these philosophies. Chesterton laid much emphasis on how capital should be distributed. Private property should be distributed as widely as possible. Thus, the government that makes that happen is good, and the economic system that could arise would be the best. Farms, businesses, plants, factories, hospitals, schools all need to be privately owned, independently owned. In this case, we’d have not bureaucrats, not government officials, not corporations, but individuals, individual families owning the means of production.

Distributism, therefore, draws a fine line between good and bad government intervention. The bad kind tries to own all the means of production. The good kind tries to arrange things in such a way where the government doesn’t own any means of production: that is because it is arranged in such a way that it is all privately owned. Chesterton thought this route was the most realistic option to tackle issues like poverty. The society that produces poverty is the one that doesn’t care, because it can’t care. We look at the homeless man with disdain and wonder why he can’t just find a job! Then we come to see that - in most cases - he is lazy, doesn’t want to work, is uncivilized, and isn’t fit for society anyway. But Chesterton wants us to imagine a different society, a society where poverty can be almost done away with; and if it’s still there, it’s not anymore the fault of society: the fault is put squarely on the individual.

In that society, we have towns and villages all evenly distributed, all fairly apportioned. Anywhere we have a cluster of people we’d be sure to find families who were responsible for the means of production for a certain good or service upon which the village or town as a whole depended. The poor would be a class that would soon deteriorate, because it would be a society in which the distribution of capital would be about the same. No one would be extremely rich (only useful in a purely capitalistic society) or destitute (the practical outworking of socialism and communism and corporate socialism - a.k.a. Capitalism).

Greed would have less incentive, and the value of thanksgiving and sharing could be an option. If we think of free trade, the incentive to put, say, factories overseas to import the goods for a cheaper price would almost disappear. We wouldn’t cut off trade, but the amount of goods and services domestically made would increase, and we would have many prospective exports, like China. The jobs of the middle class (a class which would gradually replace the rich and most of the poor) would be more secure and there would be a greater allegiance to nationalism rather than the corporate bottom line. Patriotism would increase (perhaps?). What use and need or want would we gain from the flood of illegal immigrants pouring over the border? They’d run not into blind, greedy entities encased in skyscrapers, but village outposts, families, knit together by family loyalties and allegiances.

I haven’t read too much on this philosophy, but it appeals to me. I plan on reading Chesterton's book, An Outline of Sanity, in which this framework is explained in detail. The first thing I’ll do though is this: in the next blog, I’ll see how Chesterton stands against Shaw’s socialism, examine the points where they clash, and see what I like the most. I’ll then work out in more detail exactly what the ins and outs of Distributism involve and entail.