The Outline of Sanity [Format Kindle]

The Outline Of Sanity is a philosophical treatise on the social vision of renowned British author and Christian philosopher G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), known as "distributism". Chesterton presents his antithesis to the impersonal bustle of increasingly fast-paced modern life, and offers a logical means for human beings swept by the tide to regain control over life and future. With a Catholic foundation yet meant to encompass people of all religious persuasions, Chesterton's vision of Distributism is a powerful one that justly demands consideration, particularly in this modern day and age where his concerns of a society of alienation multiply a thousandfold!

Were Chesterton a camel, the thing that broke his back was a half- baked philosophy called Distribustism, a clunkily- named alternative to both Capitalism and Socialism. For a long time I believed that, because you can even read it in biographies of Chesterton and, naive reader that I am, I thought biographers knew what they were talking about.

Having dipped into this book, which reprints articles on that subject, however, I realize Distributism wasn't his hobby horse; it was his passion and his soul. It also strikes me as the best idea to come down the pike in about a hundred years, and if you want to call Chesterton a prophet (small 'p'), here's good reason for doing so. In other words, long before Marshall McLuhan, (an avid student of Chesterton) he said the medium is the message. In still other words, he said something I'm always saying, vote with your wallet. He even advocated the radical idea of making your own media choices.

In "The Bluff of the Big Shops" he points out that no matter how enticing a megoplis super mega store may be, you still always have the option to shop at small mart. In this book, first published in 1926, he meditated on the future of the then relatively recent, newly mass-produced Ford car. What Chesterton stands up for is private property and private enterprise. Although this sounds almost the same as free trade and free enterprise, to Chesterton there is an important distinction. One means the right of the wealthy to do what they like, and the other the right of the poor to do anything at all. His meaning is closer to the original draft of the American document, recognizing the right to life, liberty, and ownership of property.

I got this book through the American Chesterton Society, although I'm happy to see it's also on Amazon. The ACS's magazine, Gilbert, has continually run bits from these essays, which were so tantalizing as to make me want to read the book. This edition is from IHS Press, which bills itself as "the only publisher dedicated exclusively to the social teachings of the Catholic Church". Not that this is an overtly religious book. But it feeds from the same stream as the Catholic Worker Movement of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, and the still radical words of Pope Leo XIII in the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum: "On the Condition of the Working Classes". What goes around comes around, and some eighty years later, Chesterton's words seem more true and relevant than ever. If this book seems a bit pricey, think of it not only as an enthralling read, but as a textbook for revolution.

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1937)wrote THE OUTLINE OF SANITY as a possible alternative to Big Capitalism and Big Communism. Chesterton offered an economic solution that was both "idealistic" and practicle. Bascially, Chesterton argued that, "Smaller is better." Chesteron knew that the economic arrangements in Great Britian and these United States had serious flaws that undermined small farmers, small shop owners, and industrial workers. He suggested that men should gradually attempt to reverse the trends that were taking place by restoring men as owners of small shops and small land holdings in place of large farms and monopolisitc owned factories which ruined so many people. Chesteron was clear that Big Communism an evil system which offered so actual solution.

Chesterton described Big Capitalism as a system whereby monopolists used a corrupt parliament and a corrupt legal system to condemn land and property to control economic activities and concentrate vast wealth in the hands of a few plutocrats. He described Big Capitalism as a system where the very wealth concentrated wealth in the pockets of a few while economic despoiling most people. He described Big Communism as a system where no one could have pockets because a politically powerful oligarchy of party hacks would run the economy and use and abuse the mass of people.

Chesterton also critisized the Machine Age, but he did not critisize machines or technology. Chestertoned that unfair and corrupt legislation resulted in Big Capitialism having access to factories and machines. He also noticed that the economic situation in Great Britain resulted in idle machines since so many men were unemployed. In other words, what good were machines without men to work them. Chesterton appreciated machines, but he was against worshipping machines.

Chesterton also critisized monopolists who wanted to make money (profits),but they wanted to lower wages and salaries. Chesterton wryly asked how could men buy what the monopolists produced with lower incomes. Part of Chesteron's solution was for people to boycott the Big Shops (Box Stores?)and patronize the Small Shops. Chesterton noticed that the Big Shops had poor service and inferior quality. However, the Small Shops had a "personal touch" and better made goods.

Another problem that Chesterton noticed was that Big Capitalists and Big Communists bitterly resented clear thinking, independent men. Both Capitialists and Communists wanted a standardized society whereby conformity and hypocrisy were substituted for honesty and independence. Big Capitalism ruined men by corrupting politicans and jurists. Big Communism ruined men by concentration camps and mass murder.

Chesterton showed concern that Big Capitalism and Big Communism dehumanized men. The monopolists wanted an utopia of stock brokers, and the communists wanted an utopia of utopian comrades, and neither of these existed or could exist. Chesterton want a practicle society of men who had a personal stake in their farms or shops and who had time to reflect on cultural attainments whether they be religion (for Chesterton the Catholic Faith) literature, song, dance, etc. Chesterton cited an example whereby Henry Ford, a Big Capitialist, did not know who Benedict Arnold was. For someone who touted "The American Way" and not know U.S. History was considered a sad state of affairs as far as Chesterton was concerned.

Chestertoned suggested a modified guild system where the rules were known by all men and where the plutocrats could not corrupt political representatives and jurists could restore a better economy and social order. Chesterton was clear that he respected free enterprise but not private enterprise. The latter abused the political legal systems to the disadvantage of everyone else.

While some writers argued that men should become gods or icons, Chesterton wanted me to be normal and free. Chesterton observed that while men had the vote, they had little else. Big Capitalists and Big Communists did not want men to have their own wives, children, or land. Both imposed legal restrictions on parents' raising chidlren and providing them with values and learning which functions were increasingly dominated by bureaucrats in the name of progressivism or socialsim.

One of the weaknesses of Chesterton' book is that he was not specific enough. Chesterton could have cited laws that literally robbed men of their land and wealth by having private property condemned in favor or Big Capitalists. Chesterton could have specified Acts of Parliament or the U.S. Congress that were designed to ruin small property owners such as recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed a corporation to take private property which is beyond belief here in the U.S.

Yet, Chesterton's book THE OUTLINE OF SANITY is a hopeful antidote to Big Capitalsim and its corrupting influences or Big Communistm with its unworkable system and use of concentration camp brutality to gain compliance. While Chesterton died in 1937, this book is prophetic and useful. If men destroy their civilization in favor of unworkable systems, Chesterton's book is there for the record.