I seem to be spending a lot of time defending distributism on this website. On this occasion, I feel moved to respond to an outrageously facile attack on distributism in general, and Belloc and Chesterton in particular, in a recent issue of the London Review of Books. The attack emanates from the acerbically perverse pen of Jonathan Raban in the course of his review of Phillip Blond’s Red Tory: How Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix It. Needless to say, Raban’s review is almost totally devoid of any engagement with the ideas that animate Blond’s book. It is, however, filled with the lowest kind of rhetoric, particularly the device of smearing one’s victim by association with the disreputable company that he is alleged to keep. Thus, for instance, there is no reference in Raban’s review to Belloc’s groundbreaking distirbutist works, such as The Servile State and the Essay on the Restoration of Property, which were hugely influential on the politics of George Orwell amongst others, or of Chesterton’s Outline of Sanity. Instead we are told that Belloc was an admirer of Mussolini and is therefore a “fascist”. We are also then led to assume by association that distributism is merely fascism wearing a mask. It can, therefore, be dismissed and derided without the necessity of engaging with what it actually is or says. Such reductionist bigotry is worthy of the fascists themselves and it is indeed ironic that Raban uses the propaganda techniques of the fascist in order to attack those he accuses of fascism. Does he realise this, one wonders, or is he blissfully ignorant of his own ignorance? Or, to put the matter another way, is he coldly cynical or simply stupid?

In any event, let’s put the record straight. Belloc and Chesterton flirted with Mussollini briefly in the belief that he had saved Italy from communism (which, in fact, he might have done) but they distanced themselves from him once his true colours became apparent. Second, Belloc and Chesterton were always vociferous in their condemnation of Nazism, despising socialism in either its national or international manifestations. How many of Raban’s literary or political heroes fraternised with Lenin or Stalin, and for much longer than Belloc and Chesterton fraternised with Mussolini? How many millions of innocent people died at the hands of Lenin and Stalin compared to the relatively few who died under Mussolini? Indeed, how many millions more were put to the sword by Lenin and Stalin than were put to the sword by Hitler? In terms of innocent blood spilled, even Hitler was less of a butcher than Stalin, indeed probably only about one-tenth of the butcher in terms of the number killed. Does Raban refuse to take seriously the political ideas of Shaw or Wells or the Fabian Society because they continued to support Stalin, the world’s worst ever serial killer, long after Belloc and Chesterton had seen through the mask of Mussolini?

Such gross hypocrisy cannot be allowed to go unrebuked.

The fact is that the Big Government of the socialists leads to the Big Brother of state-sponsored oppression. Distributists have learned that particular lesson and demand, in consequence, that small government must replace Big Government. As for the socialists, they refuse to learn the lessons of history and cling to the belief that Big Government will solve the world’s problems. It is socialism that leads to Big Brother, and it doesn’t really matter whether Big Brother is called Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin or Mao. Whatever colour shirt Big Brother wears it is still covered with the blood of the innocents. Chesterton understood this, as did Belloc. Does Raban?