Introduction

[John]

The Servile State is Hilaire Belloc's fascinating description of the economic history of England. This book gives a brief overview of the rise of capitalism and the viability of its alternatives, distributism and collectivism. Written over 100 years ago, this book is still highly relevant especially in light of the recent growth of the buy local/eat local movement. A must read for anyone looking to expand their view of economic theory beyond the basic right vs. left.

[Galicius]

John, you mentioned “buy local/eat local movement.” There is some of that but few and far between, only two in New York City that I heard about. The farmers markets are more common. The ones closer to the cities barely survive. Pricing is one problem. Organic labeling in the popular supermarkets is often sham. Fruit orchards and vegetable farmers are the best of the lot but located farther away from cities and many have city-weekend-excursion tourist oriented high pricing but not all of them. We use those for many years in the counties north of NYC.