Economics for Helen

"Economics is the name which people have come to give to the study of Wealth. It is the study by which we learn how Wealth is produced, how it is consumed, how it is distributed among people, and so on. It is a very important kind of study, because it often depends upon our being right or wrong in Economics whether we make the whole State poorer or richer, and whether we make the people living in the State happier or not. Now as Economics is the study of Wealth, the first thing we have to make certain of is, What Wealth is."

So writes Hilaire Belloc in this insightful study of wealth, property, and money. A strong proponent of the idea that everyone has a right to the true source of wealth-the means of production-Belloc was one of the pioneers of the distributist movement. In Economics for Helen (dedicated to a friend's adolescent daughter), Belloc simplifies these complicated concepts to a level any attentive child can understand without sacrificing nuance. More than a century after its initial publication, Os Justi Press is pleased to present this newly typeset edition with a new Foreword by an expert in Catholic social doctrine, Thomas Storck.

"Distributism is as feasible now as it was when Belloc wrote. It requires, of course, that we first persuade our intellects and then command our wills to institute such a social order. May this book, along with the rest of the corpus of distributist writing, aid us in accomplishing that end." -Thomas Storck, from the Foreword

"Hilaire Belloc was emphasizing something that many others at the time [the 1920s], such as the Solidarist Heinrich Pesch, were also emphasizing. Economics is a human science about the very basic functioning of human society. It was a discipline that was not something abstract and unintelligible to the average man; rather that economics, as the study of the production, use, and distribution of wealth, was, in its basic concepts, accessible to all. With this conviction in mind, Belloc sets about defining and indicating the relationships between the basic concepts employed in the science of economics, such as wealth, land, the means of production, and capital.... With the social and civic dimension, we also enter into the moral dimension of human existence on account of the concern for justice that is part of man's inherent conception of his life lived among other men.... [This book] opens up new vistas for those seeking an alternative to the materialistic determinism of both the Marxists and the Economic Liberals." -Dr. Peter Chojnowski, The Distributist Review