England’s poor found a political voice for their frustrations in King Henry VIII (1491-1547) and his young son, Edward VI (1537-1553). These Highnesses and other aristocrats decided the suffering and oppression by the Church had continued for too many centuries and it was time to fleece it of its power and wealth.468
Europe’s monarchs liked the idea of raiding the churches. The kings had tremendous economic burdens to carry—armies to raise, ships to construct, fortifications to build, lavish lifestyles to maintain, plus bribes and rewards to buy loyalty from the faithful. The temptation to finance that by leveling the Church was popular.
So began the continent-wide plunder of the Church in the late 1400s. No longer were the Church’s vast landholdings safe. The sanctified opulence that reclined unmolested and sheltered behind the cross for so many centuries whetted an appetite for confiscation.
In the beginning the Roman Catholics cheered the monarchs onward to absorb the properties of the “apostate” French popes and their followers. They cheered more as the confiscated buildings were eventually put to good use as colleges and universities.
But then—the kings turned on the Roman Church itself.
Printing Press Fans the Flames
In the mid-1440s, Guttenberg’s new printing press invention had caught everyone’s attention and took Europe by storm. By the 1500s, the press was warmly welcomed by England’s religious reformers who used it as a missionary tool to more quickly spread their discontent through religious tracts.
The press also undermined the monasteries’ most valuable service: penmanship. The monarchs often turned to the monks and priests to reproduce important proclamations and manuscripts. Such work came faster and cheaper with the new press. The old fashioned hand work was, by comparison, too slow and expensive. People began to wonder, for what else are these monasteries useful?
Anti-begging Law Passed in 1495
As turmoil and economic trouble dragged on across Europe, England’s Parliament continued having trouble kick-starting the economy. They gave it one more try with an Act that made begging even more illegal. Anyone found loafing around, refusing to work, or otherwise suspected of loafing, could be put in stocks for three days and fed nothing but bread and water. After the humiliation, the convicted were escorted out of town.
Pope Tries to Salvage the Church’s Public Image
It didn’t take long for the pope to see the writing on the wall. A big rebellion was swelling and something needed to improve. He issued a few reformations in 1518, hoping to calm things down but these didn’t pacify the vast masses of peasants for very long.
In 1529, King Henry stepped in and forced the pope to backtrack a few steps more. Among other things, Henry had Parliament impose caps on the fees that the Church was charging for services such as burials, and put a limit on the “right of sanctuary” by criminals seeking refuge behind Church walls.
Dismantling of the Monasteries
Then came Martin Luther. In 1517, the legendary reformer penned his complaints against the Church, a document now known as the 95 Theses, and nailed it to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany.
But that wasn’t all. Four years later, in 1521, Luther produced another document, “On the Monastic Vows.” He outlined from the Bible how institutions such as the monasteries had no basis in scripture, and the tyranny they exercised over the people certainly didn’t support the true teachings of Christianity.
Luther’s ideas were appealing to the masses and Guttenberg’s press helped spread them like fire. Intentional or not, he supplied Europe’s monarchs with the biblical permission needed to justify dismantling the various monastery institutions—the larger abbeys, the medium-sized priories and nunneries, and the smallest, called the friary. England, France, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland joined in the nationalization of Church properties.
Confiscating property forced the clergy and nuns to move out, sell their lands, congregate in larger cities, get married, and otherwise blend into society.
When King Henry took England’s throne in 1509, he appointed Thomas Cromwell as chief minister in charge of the daily affairs of the Church. In 1535, Cromwell decided to tighten the Crown’s grip on the religious orders and announced an inspection of all 830 Church properties that dotted the landscape throughout England and Wales.
In times past, such inspections had been conducted by a higher member of the clergy. But not this time. Cromwell had other plans in mind—he thought it an ideal opportunity to also take a census so he could start taxing Church property.
With the surveys in hand, Cromwell was ready to make his move. In March 1536, Parliament passed a law declaring that any monastery making less than £200 a year had to be dissolved and all the property turned over to the king. Some 300 religious houses failed and had to shut their doors immediately. Those with the right government connections earned a reprieve, and for the cost of a year’s income, they could stay open. About 60 or 70 managed to survive.
Let the Legal Looting Begin:
When Parliament’s decree was passed, government agents were sent to the religious houses to confiscate all precious treasures—gold, silver, bronze, lead, paintings, books, anything that could be of value to the Crown. The metals were melted down for His Highness, and as for the remainder, the locals were given free rein—furnishings, fences, windows, bricks. In short order, the churches were reduced to the classic ruins that today lie strewn all across the English countryside.
By 1541, more than 800 monasteries had been closed. Ten years later, most of the associated religious guilds, hospitals and almshouses were also closed. That made the dissolution complete.
Nobody Remaining?
Left in the vacuum of this levelling and consumption were the ever-present needs of the poor, the needy, and the homeless. Who was going to take care of them now? The dissolution did more than turn vast resources of wealth over to the king—it also destroyed the institutional fabric of Europe’s “good Samaritan” society. Along with the opulence of the Church’s wealth, the move also destroyed the network of human compassion, the helping hands, the epitome of Christian charity originally intended to help those in need.
Human Welfare Becomes Government’s Job
The vacuum left by the rejected Church was poorly filled in England. Parliament eventually launched numerous attempts to resolve the problems, and these became known as the Poor Laws that were piled up for three centuries, from the 1500s to the 1800s.469
No Idleness: In 1530, Henry VIII called idleness the “mother and root of all vices.”470 He ordered that any loitering or lazy vagabonds be put in stocks for leeching on society. Henry had them whipped, and then driven out. The elderly and sick were allowed to continue begging but only if they procured the proper license to beg. For the others, their only option was to starve or steal.
Donations: In 1536, the English instructed each parish across the land to collect voluntary weekly donations to help the poor. The parish was the Church organization that served as the basic unit of local government overseeing 50-500 or more people.
Death to the Beggars: In 1547, Edward VI also imposed harsh punishment on beggars. He threatened them with two years in prison and a “V” for vagrant branded on their flesh for the first offense—and death for the second offense. Local magistrates didn’t approve of executing beggars simply for their want of food, so the most severe punishments were rarely carried out.471
Tracking Vagabonds: In 1572, a legal distinction was made between professional beggars and those who fell victim to circumstance. The parishes were ordered to track local beggars. Those caught faking it could have their ear bored through, and if caught a second time, hanged. Four years later, counties were ordered to build “houses of correction”—a place to keep vagrants cared for and available for work.
Charity Taxes: In 1597, the Act for the Relief of the Poor was passed by Engla
nd’s Parliament. Instead of encouraging voluntary alms, a mandatory tax was installed. People were forced to contribute to welfare funds. To oversee the new taxes was a new position called the Overseer. He collected the taxes and administered distribution of the food, clothing, and money welfare to the poor. Charitable gifts for building hospitals were also authorized.472Where Have All the Caring People Gone?
England’s population was swelling during the 1500s, and so were its problems—jobs were scarce, the king’s coins were losing their value, and grain prices were skyrocketing. In fact, grain prices tripled from 1490 to 1569, and jumped another 73 percent by the time English colonists were sent to settle Jamestown in 1607.
On top of the rising prices, England suffered through four crop failures in a row (1595, 1596, 1597, and 1598), almost driving the country into widespread famine. These problems pushed the number of welfare recipients higher every year.
Centuries of Poor Laws
For more than 350 years, England’s evolving Poor Laws were the guiding rules for every assorted welfare problem that came along. The shift from compassionate human welfare toward state-run welfare did not significantly re-invent itself after those beginning years except in degree. Coverage was expanded and taxes were increased to pay for more handouts, but the underlying philosophy remained the same: we the rulers will take care of you. For example—
Orphans and widows were made eligible for welfare. Specific classes of people were made eligible—including able-bodied men who needed only temporary help with some stopgap income.
Work houses were built to shelter the unemployed work parties.
The parishes were allowed to unionize, to combine their resources, and to spread the burden of caring for the needy among more people and assets.
Communities were granted authority to kick people out of their parish if they were not planning to settle permanently—or, to bodily remove them if they had come solely for the “free” handouts. By the early 1800s, the Poor Laws were extensive. So many of life’s difficulties were covered that the public viewed Poor Relief as a personal God-given right. They were happy to indulge in the entitlements and avail themselves of the state storehouse handouts.
What Does This Have to Do With Socialism?
The first pillar of socialism is an all-powerful ruler. Welfare, health care, pensions, insurances—any government sponsored care—cannot be dispensed without the power to extract taxes whenever needed to support all of those costly and assorted expenses.
This can only work if the people are made dependent on the government for that level of help. Once they are “made weak,” as the ancient Chinese did, then the ruler is assured perpetual power. The welfare recipients will never vote it away, they are too dependent on it. The rich will never vote it away, it calms their conscience. The middle class will never vote it away, it relieves them of the bother and financial strain to help others. With everybody looking at their feet as the poor extend a hand for help, few are looking up to see that over the horizon lay untold solutions that an unhampered free economy might bring, such as more employment and higher wages that would result if taxes were lower and regulations were tamed.
A government promising a never-ending flow of welfare help will always be sustained by the recipients. It’s the same ages-old corruption at play: tax-tax, spend-spend, elect-elect. It is socialism.
* * *
465 Suzanne Austin Alchon, A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective. University of New Mexico Press. 2003, p. 21.
466 Barney Sloane, Black Death in London, The History Press Ltd., 2011.
467 See Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346-1353, The Complete History, 2004.
468 See Geoffrey Baskerville, English Monks and the Suppression of the Monasteries, 1937; and Alexander Savine, English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution, 1909.
469 See Paul Slack, The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, Macmillan, 1990.
470 The Pictorial History of England, Vol. 2, 1839.
471 R. O. Bucholz, Newton Key, Early Modern England, 1485-1714, p. 176.
472 Paul Slack, The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, 1990.
Chapter 71: Modern Welfare Born in Prussia
Bismarck knew all about tax-spend-elect—he made it work in Germany and everyone wanted to copy him.
It was 1794, and the Prussian states were finally ready to unite their fiefdoms into a single nation. They wanted to stamp out the last remnants of feudalism and protect the average citizen from the ancient order of arbitrary law-making by local princes.
Their new constitution in 1794 was supposed to do just that—create a single new nation. But what a document! The king expanded it to preempt every possible legal contrivance whereby his many judges might attempt to gain personal advantages. In the end, the king’s constitution was an unwieldy tome of 17,000 paragraphs.
The people were excited about the new country. Impoverished immigrants started pouring across the borders to begin their new lives. As the people jammed into the cities, a new problem erupted: masses of unclean and diseased people all pushed together in slums. And just that fast, a plague of new outbreaks of disease appeared—smallpox, malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, dysentery, influenza, the “sweating sickness,” and others.473
What does a country do to stem the explosion of rampant disease? While Prussia hunted for a solution, a similar problem was developing in neighboring Bavaria. In 1811, Bavaria decided the best answer, next to driving the poor away, was to force them into preventative health care.
The Bavarian government picked two dozen towns as an experiment, and made it mandatory for the poor to pay a modest but regular insurance premium. In exchange, they received “free” medical care in local hospitals. This way, the spread of disease could be arrested with preventative care, a degree of hygiene and cleanliness could be introduced into the slums, and the rest of the population could find protection from the spread of sicknesses.
The idea seemed to work. Other Europeans soon copied it.
The Prussians liked this idea, too. Some 25 years later they did the same thing and started preventative medical care for the same reasons. Their system wasn’t strictly government-supported. Volunteers pitched in to contribute to basic health and sanitary needs—clearing the streets and alleyways of garbage, making sure the dead were buried, inspecting the food, ensuring the water supply was clean, and to see that waste-water was safely carried away.474
By 1845, the diseases and problems of the poor in Prussia were brought under control. The Prussians decided to expand mandatory health insurance to the entire nation, and created a national health insurance.
Meanwhile, the German monarchy watched these developments with great interest, wondering aloud if compulsory insurance could work for them too.
Bismarck vs. Social Democrats
Germany’s Chancellor Otto Van Bismarck (1815-1898) had a problem growing among his people. One the one side, the socialists in Prussia was happily turning national treasure loose to support national health care. And, across the border the other way, the socialists in France staged a nine-week revolt in 1870-71 for the same health care benefits. The French called it their Second Commune, and tried to overthrow the government. French troops put down the revolt, killing about 50,000 in the process. The slaughter sent a shock wave across Europe as monarchs wondered, could that happen here?
Over in Germany, the German Social Democrats were winning huge followings to their cause. Their platform was popular. They called for common public ownership of capitalism and private factories. They demanded improved working and living conditions, safety inspections of mines and factories, and other changes. But more than that, they called for a revolution against the status quo—an overthrow of leadership, the disposal of Emperor Wilhelm I.
The conflicts led to two assassination attempts on Wilhelm I. He s
urvived both, and blame was quickly directed toward members of the Social Democrat party. The government vowed to retaliate against the socialists’ violent tactics.
Anti-Socialist Laws
Bismarck struck back in 1878 by passing the Anti-Socialist Laws. Any group, he said, that promoted socialist principles was henceforth banned. Trade unions were outlawed. Some 45 newspapers were closed. Many socialists were arrested or expelled, and their agitations were silenced—for a while.
With the socialists put underfoot, Bismarck could then turn his attention to other problems. One of those was a shrinking population of thinkers and leaders. The people were clamoring for the ideas the socialists had advanced, and out of frustration, many were leaving for a land where they could have more freedom and prosperity. They were going to America.
The Brain Drain
One of Europe’s frustrations in the latter part of the 1800s was the lure of American prosperity. Many of Europe’s best and brightest emigrated away for the chance at freedom and wealth, and Germany was losing tens of thousands. In one year alone (1882), more than a quarter million emigrants—250,630—pulled up roots and left their homeland to settle in the U.S.
Bismarck needed to kill several birds with one stone. That’s when he came up with a plan to out-promise the socialists, out-promise the alluring temptation of life in America, and sweeten the pot for living in Germany. The idea he launched was national insurance—state welfare of the highest order. “Stay home in Germany,” was the plea, “and look at how we’ll take care of you.”
The Naked Socialist Page 40