For Chesterton fans this collection of articles written over eighty years ago are vintage G. K. The author arranged the articles in book format by sections and chapters giving to the whole the salient title: The Outline of Sanity. Accused by thickheaded social "progressives" of wanting to push society back into an antiquated agrarian provincialism, these insightful socio-economic indictions ought rather to have heralded the Catholic thinker as today’s prophet for social sanity. The perennial truths of the principles making up these critical commentaries will surely be even more evident in today’s restless age of stroboscopic consumerism. Master of paradox that he is, Chesterton, the philosopher, exposes the enslaving and dehumanizing aspects of an economy dependent upon monopolistic plutocrats and their so-called "labor saving" machines of mass production. With his penchant for balancing satire with humor, this literary giant provides a common sense solution to this age’s fast pace trek to nowhere. Modern man must be weaned gradually, he argues, back away from the imperialistic megalith corporation as a statistical wage earner and be productive on his own terms, on his own land. In order for man to achieve happiness, his true end, he must not build his life around some ephemeral retirement plan, but live each day for his real end: eternal retirement with God. Taking the original sense of the word economy as domestic harmony the ideal which the author champions is simply called Distributism. It is the very antithesis of Monopoly.
The major works of compadres G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc have been widely circulated in the past few decades among an expanding circle of Catholics seeking a more universal knowledge of our Christian perspective, history and faith. At this time Loreto Publications cannot carry these treasures of wisdom, which are voluminous (Belloc wrote about 150 books), however a good supply can be obtained from other Catholic publishers. What we have chosen to do is periodically promote certain of their productions which we feel are particularly timely and potentially formative. Outline of Sanity and The Free Press preeminently qualify as fare for any soldier whose enlistment in the Church militant is more than perfunctory. The Free Press is a new release from IHS Press. It was written in 1917, the same year Our Lady came to Fatima. The media’s manipulation of thought among the masses, which Belloc warned about back then, by the financial power elite (motivated by capitalist interest rather than truth) has grown exponentially over these last four score industrial and technological decades. Yet this eighty page essay is not a wailing sheet of moral nor intellectual despair. The mighty author was too much of a Catholic, too much a man of hope, to see nothing but gloom and darkness on the literary horizon.
Twelve Types is a collection of short biographical essays, by one of 20th-century England's greatest essayists. In keeping with the spirit of IHS Press, that there is a Catholic way to look at everything, this book evaluates the place of such figures as Tolstoy, St. Francis, Savonarola, William Morris, and others, in the history of the West and from an unabashedly Catholic perspective. With typical wit and flair, Chesterton accomplishes what modern biography most often fails to do: discuss the important and central elements of the characters it presumes to examine, while omitting tedious discussion on matters of little import. Chesterton looks at the souls, the characters, and the lives of some of the West's most important figures, providing modern readers with a sane and Catholic orientation to their approach to these great individuals. Originally published: London, 1905.
IHS Press is pleased to present a new Preface to this edition by Dr. Malcolm Brennan. Malcolm Brennan is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the Citadel, South Carolina, and is the author of numerous works, including a collection of essays on the history of the English martyrs. The social doctrine isn't just about economics. Make this slim volume part of your Catholic cultural library today!
Jean OussetAction is a definitive manual on Catholic Action by one of the 20th Century's great lay Catholic scholars of Catholic Action. This book discusses not only the theory of Catholic Social Action but examines it from practical standpoints: why should Catholic laymen feel called to action for the spread of Catholic social principles in society, how can they make that action effective, and how can they manage the resources available for action. Anyone who has ever felt that something must be done to save society from chaos and collapse should consider this book a must read.
Dollfuss: An Austrian Patriot was written by neo-Thomist professor Fr. Johannes Messner based upon his close association and collaboration with Engelbert Dollfuss, Chancellor of Austria. Messner's account of Dollfuss's life provides a brief sketch of biographical details, but, more importantly, illustrates Dollfuss's social vision and provides an account of his attempt to structure Austrian social and economic life along the lines determined by Quadragesimo Anno. As a leading exponent of Catholic Social Doctrine as it was expressed in the Austrian tradition established by Karl von Vogelsang, Messner is uniquely qualified to highlight the reforms initiated by Dollfuss as they relate to the traditional social vision of the Church.
Dr. Zmirak is a student of traditional and Catholic political economy, and the author of Wilhelm Roepke: Swiss Localist; Global Economist. Dr. von Hildebrand is a frequent writer and lecturer on Catholic culture and related subjects. Her husband, the late Dr. Deitrich von Hildebrand, collaborated with Dollfuss and his associates on the paper of the Austrian state, The Christian Corporative State.
Fr. Vincent McNabb
Modern "wisdom" urges people to crowd into cities or their suburbs, to have few children, to live on credit. It teaches them to regard Industrialism as inevitable, and to view a life of speed and noise as both normal and desirable. The Catholic Church teaches the contrary. She proclaims rather that life on the land, the raising of large families, the possession of real wealth over artificial tokens, concern for the needs of men and not those of machines, and a focus on the life to come, constitute the only way to true happiness and contentment. The Church and the Land is a collection of essays and articles by England's famous Dominican Distributist. De facto "chaplain" to the Distributists and the Distributist movement, Fr. McNabb was in many ways the most passionate and fervent of those seeking reform of economic life in the name of truly human values. In over 40 short essays, Fr. McNabb tackles subjects as diverse and yet unified as industrialism, morality and economics, working conditions, and the role of the state in shaping and defending the proper economic conditions. Fr. McNabb's is a common and yet unique voice within the Distributist tradition, for he represents the voice of the Church, with its characteristic concern for morality and the salvation of souls, in economic as well as all other aspects of man's daily life. Originally published: London, 1926.
George O'Brien In the Department of Human Affairs concerned with the economic activities of man, the old universally accepted code of justice fell into disregard, if not into ridicule; and its place was taken, on the one hand, by the theory that the only safe guide for man to follow in these affairs is his own personal interest, and, on the other hand, and partly as a reaction against this repulsive theory, that the individual has no right of initiative at all, but that his whole being must be subordinated to the welfare of the community. Both these theories would have been equally disapproved by the old, despised ethical authority of the Middle Ages, under whose régime they could not have flourished or developed; but, at the time when they arose, that old authority was no longer universally accepted, and there was no power in Europe strong enough to withstand the march of these two dangerous doctrines. The path to both Capitalism and Socialism had been opened by the Reformation.
Ethics and the National Economy is a sorely-needed treatise on an essential aspect of economics: the role of morality, and ethical considerations, in economic science. A must read for anyone concerned with the effects of economic thinking upon day-to-day economic life, as well as the accountability and motivation of those who make policies based upon their conception of economic reality.
