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Third Ways: How Bulgarian Greens, Swedish Housewives, and Beer-Swilling Englishmen Created Family-Centered Economies - And Why They Disappeared
The American economy was once built on the bedrock of family farms and businesses. And though it seems as if history has moved on, there were men who said the family could--and should--be the center of production once again.
In Third Ways, Allan Carlson tells us little-known stories about the 19th-century economists, politicians, and activists (including G.K. Chesterton) who wanted the productive family back at the center of the modern economy. Carlson shows how the decline of the family-centric economy has contributed to the decline of marriage and healthy family life in America.
If you are dismayed by the rise of divorce, fatherlessness, consumerism, and statism, then this historical tour de force will encourage you with a vision of a different, better world.
The world has not always been this opposed to the family. Read this book to find out how it could be different.
In Third Ways, Allan Carlson tells us little-known stories about the 19th-century economists, politicians, and activists (including G.K. Chesterton) who wanted the productive family back at the center of the modern economy. Carlson shows how the decline of the family-centric economy has contributed to the decline of marriage and healthy family life in America.
If you are dismayed by the rise of divorce, fatherlessness, consumerism, and statism, then this historical tour de force will encourage you with a vision of a different, better world.
The world has not always been this opposed to the family. Read this book to find out how it could be different.
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2007
8 people are currently reading
284 people want to read
About the author
Allan C. Carlson
35 books30 followersAllan C. Carlson (born Des Moines, Iowa, 1949) is a scholar and professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. He is the president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, a director of the Family in America Studies Center, the International Secretary of the World Congress of Families and editor of the Family in America newsletter. He is also former president of the Rockford Institute.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 22, 2014
This was an educational book for me, as I was unfamiliar with most of the history it discussed. In the book, Carlson follows several European efforts at developing a "Third Way" (capitalism and communism being the first two). The Third Way sought to protect and promote the natural family unit and its private property and relational society as basic elements of society ignored by capitalism and communism. It sought to answer the question: "How might economics development be channeled so as to shelter vital social relations?" (p. 177) The proponents of this way varied in their solutions, some of the solutions including the decentralization of property, the encouragement of home industry and family welfare/education, the family-wage, cooperatives, state protection of the family, and opposition to feminism, the employment of women and children, and welfare (these three breaking apart the family). As you might guess from the title of the book, these Third Way movements came from rather diverse backgrounds (and I was happy to see Abraham Kuyper included).
These movements also varied in their successes, many of them fizzling out over time, yet the capitalism and communism of the 20th century has also seen a breakdown in recent years. Instead, the "Servile State" or "State Capitalism" has seemed to replace them both and has continued the destruction of the family, liberty, and enterprise. As Carlson writes "those who still seek an authentic liberty premised on personal autonomy, family integrity, and a culture of enterprise might still look to the Third Way tradition to find the shape of a fresh alternative" (p. 184).
These movements also varied in their successes, many of them fizzling out over time, yet the capitalism and communism of the 20th century has also seen a breakdown in recent years. Instead, the "Servile State" or "State Capitalism" has seemed to replace them both and has continued the destruction of the family, liberty, and enterprise. As Carlson writes "those who still seek an authentic liberty premised on personal autonomy, family integrity, and a culture of enterprise might still look to the Third Way tradition to find the shape of a fresh alternative" (p. 184).
December 13, 2018
[4 1/2 stars] Eye-opening (for me). Carlson provides examples (across time and geography) of attempts to find a alternatives ("third ways") to socialism and capitalism. He shows that a raw Adam Smith/free market approach often fails to account for key social value (e.g. what's a mother's time at home with her children, or a father's role in his community, or the ability to care for one's elderly parents really worth?).
Very well-written and well-researched. [My only complaint is that Carlson doesn't really keep his promise (in the preface and the subtitle) to explain why these various attempts failed.] I'd recommend it for anyone interested in economics, the importance of the family/household in broader society, or an uneasiness with the socialism/capitalism dichotomy.
Very well-written and well-researched. [My only complaint is that Carlson doesn't really keep his promise (in the preface and the subtitle) to explain why these various attempts failed.] I'd recommend it for anyone interested in economics, the importance of the family/household in broader society, or an uneasiness with the socialism/capitalism dichotomy.
February 28, 2018
A good introduction to family centred economics, that begins with Chesterton & Belloc (the Distributists), and surveys different movements from Russia, Sweden, Eastern Europe, concluding with Kuyper social democratic movement. The “third way”, defines here, emphasises local, family based, independence from the state, where strong community knits a people together.
August 5, 2025
One of a kind. If you're interested in housekeeping, family, home being a very productive place, family being the ideal place to raise children, homesteading, Joel Salitin, Chesterson, Wendell Berry.... etc etc. this is the book you're looking for. Its not quick reading ( took me a year to get through it) but really engaging and helpful and very well done.
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April 28, 2022Full disclosure: I am an editor at Canon Press, so I helped prep this book for republication. That said, we did not revise this book. Credit for that goes to Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and kudos to them for doing such a good job.
Allan Carlson is both a historian and a political activist who goes to international councils and fights the liberals, often side by side with Africans who still know the way the world works.
This book is probably where Carlson most fully rejects the twin dangers of communism and, yes, capitalism. There's a lot that's controversial and Carlson doesn't really deal with pros and cons of the free market. The perspective he comes from is basically from the early American vision of the famliy, with the productive household that is fairly independent from both the state and large corporations.
This book is great simply because it tells a lot of stories. I am not as big a fan of ChesterBelloc as Carlson is (though he's right to notice the heat against them is disproportionate), but the stories of the Green Rising are fascinating: basically, in the 19th century a bunch of Eastern European countries tried to develop some peasant-centered agrarian economies that were neither overcome by industrialism nor communism. And they were tragically crushed.
There are lots of little stories like this, and they do provide a richer vision of how society has been traditionally structured and how thoroughly anti-Christian our modern perspective is--even among conservative Christians.
I don't know where that leaves economic policy since the arguments are obviously much more complicated, especially since nobody on the right or left cares about the family. But it is clear that other folks have been trying to grapple with how industrialism tends to draw most women into the workforce and to send kids to daycare, and this must be countered by some other forces. For that, and many other reasons, I am profoundly grateful for this fun book.
Allan Carlson is both a historian and a political activist who goes to international councils and fights the liberals, often side by side with Africans who still know the way the world works.
This book is probably where Carlson most fully rejects the twin dangers of communism and, yes, capitalism. There's a lot that's controversial and Carlson doesn't really deal with pros and cons of the free market. The perspective he comes from is basically from the early American vision of the famliy, with the productive household that is fairly independent from both the state and large corporations.
This book is great simply because it tells a lot of stories. I am not as big a fan of ChesterBelloc as Carlson is (though he's right to notice the heat against them is disproportionate), but the stories of the Green Rising are fascinating: basically, in the 19th century a bunch of Eastern European countries tried to develop some peasant-centered agrarian economies that were neither overcome by industrialism nor communism. And they were tragically crushed.
There are lots of little stories like this, and they do provide a richer vision of how society has been traditionally structured and how thoroughly anti-Christian our modern perspective is--even among conservative Christians.
I don't know where that leaves economic policy since the arguments are obviously much more complicated, especially since nobody on the right or left cares about the family. But it is clear that other folks have been trying to grapple with how industrialism tends to draw most women into the workforce and to send kids to daycare, and this must be countered by some other forces. For that, and many other reasons, I am profoundly grateful for this fun book.
October 7, 2019
The book serves as a useful survey of "third way" economies in Europe before, during, and after the wars and whether their ideas/policies have had any lasting influence.
It could have been a stronger book by taking a look at Southern Europe and some of their tendencies to implement what was only theorized about in the North, but as a whole, it's a worthwhile read.
(quoting Rerum Novarum) the law "should favor ownership and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners" (p. 7)
(quoting Engels) "...it is inevitable that if a married woman works in a factory family life is...destroyed." (p. 37)
"With its economic rationale sharply reduced, the family based on marriage was displaced by rampant divorce, a rising number of out-of-wedlock births, declining marriage rates, later marriages, and more permanent singlehood and cohabitation." (p. 52)
(quoting Daniel Thorner) "Chayanov's whole approach - his selection of the pure family farm as the typical Russian unit [and] his insistence on the survival power of such family farms...was diametrically opposed to [Marx and] Lenin." (p. 74)
(quoting Andrew Lytle) "As soon as a farmer begins to keep books, he'll go broke shore as hell." (p. 75)
(quoting H. Hessell Tiltman) "...the true peasant is he to whom the soil is sacred and the plough the symbol of life." (p. 84)
"There would be efficient local courts, from which lawyers would be banned." (p. 88)
"Moreover, while industrial agriculture impoverished the soil, the peasant conserved it..." (p. 93)
"Leaders recognized that Europe's best-educated peasants - found in Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland - were also the most prosperous, healthy, and dynamic ones." (p. 98)
(quoting Engels) "...capitalism dissolved all inherited and traditional relations and replaced time hallowed custom...by purchase and sale." (p. 113)
"The old family structure resting on the housewife and the mother-in-the-home was a fading artifact of history." (p. 118)
"The system would hold together only so long as the vast majority of Swedish women aspired to the housewife role and "equality" took a backseat to the job categories." (p. 126)
(quoting Nancy Erikkson) "...Not a door bangs the whole day. A small child, who wats true human contact, must wait for his parents to come home." (p. 128)
"The stupendous material gains of the self-regulating market would be bought at the price of the substance of society, through the annihilation of all organic human bonds and ecological desecration." (p. 139)
"The revolutionaries of 1789 unleashed passions and ideas that continue their work in our time. Many of them directly target religious and family relations, including the leveling idea of equality, the divorce revolution, secular liberalism, sexual freedom, state-centered education, and communism. The French Revolution also defined our modern political vocabulary: the labels 'liberal,' 'radical,' 'socialist,' and even 'conservative' all derive from that time of ferment..." (p. 152)
(quoting Abraham Kuyper) "No longer should each baby drink warm milk from the breast of its own mother; we should have some tepid mixture prepared for all babies collectively. No longer should each child have a place to play at home by its mother; all should go to a common nursery school." (p. 160)
(quoting Wilhelm Röpke) "...people do not live by cheaper vacuum cleaners alone but by other and higher things which may wither in the shadow of giant industries and monopolies." (p. 164)
It could have been a stronger book by taking a look at Southern Europe and some of their tendencies to implement what was only theorized about in the North, but as a whole, it's a worthwhile read.
(quoting Rerum Novarum) the law "should favor ownership and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners" (p. 7)
(quoting Engels) "...it is inevitable that if a married woman works in a factory family life is...destroyed." (p. 37)
"With its economic rationale sharply reduced, the family based on marriage was displaced by rampant divorce, a rising number of out-of-wedlock births, declining marriage rates, later marriages, and more permanent singlehood and cohabitation." (p. 52)
(quoting Daniel Thorner) "Chayanov's whole approach - his selection of the pure family farm as the typical Russian unit [and] his insistence on the survival power of such family farms...was diametrically opposed to [Marx and] Lenin." (p. 74)
(quoting Andrew Lytle) "As soon as a farmer begins to keep books, he'll go broke shore as hell." (p. 75)
(quoting H. Hessell Tiltman) "...the true peasant is he to whom the soil is sacred and the plough the symbol of life." (p. 84)
"There would be efficient local courts, from which lawyers would be banned." (p. 88)
"Moreover, while industrial agriculture impoverished the soil, the peasant conserved it..." (p. 93)
"Leaders recognized that Europe's best-educated peasants - found in Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland - were also the most prosperous, healthy, and dynamic ones." (p. 98)
(quoting Engels) "...capitalism dissolved all inherited and traditional relations and replaced time hallowed custom...by purchase and sale." (p. 113)
"The old family structure resting on the housewife and the mother-in-the-home was a fading artifact of history." (p. 118)
"The system would hold together only so long as the vast majority of Swedish women aspired to the housewife role and "equality" took a backseat to the job categories." (p. 126)
(quoting Nancy Erikkson) "...Not a door bangs the whole day. A small child, who wats true human contact, must wait for his parents to come home." (p. 128)
"The stupendous material gains of the self-regulating market would be bought at the price of the substance of society, through the annihilation of all organic human bonds and ecological desecration." (p. 139)
"The revolutionaries of 1789 unleashed passions and ideas that continue their work in our time. Many of them directly target religious and family relations, including the leveling idea of equality, the divorce revolution, secular liberalism, sexual freedom, state-centered education, and communism. The French Revolution also defined our modern political vocabulary: the labels 'liberal,' 'radical,' 'socialist,' and even 'conservative' all derive from that time of ferment..." (p. 152)
(quoting Abraham Kuyper) "No longer should each baby drink warm milk from the breast of its own mother; we should have some tepid mixture prepared for all babies collectively. No longer should each child have a place to play at home by its mother; all should go to a common nursery school." (p. 160)
(quoting Wilhelm Röpke) "...people do not live by cheaper vacuum cleaners alone but by other and higher things which may wither in the shadow of giant industries and monopolies." (p. 164)
December 31, 2022
This book was eye opening. It outlines the history of Distributism and pro-family economics. This theory of economics was a “third way” between both capitalism and socialism. It sought to protect the family from both big government and big business. Here are a few take aways from the book:
Writing over 100 years ago GK Chesterton wrote that socialism and capitalism were not opposites but were agendas that would merge at the same point - an alliance between big business and big government. Another Distributist, Hilaire Belloc, called this the Servile State. This insight was prophetic.
This reality played out in history. For example, in America big business pushed for the feminist movement. Why? If the workforce doubles you can pay workers a lot less. This made it very difficult to have a”family wage” - a wage a man could earn and comfortably provide for his family. Big government also pushed for this change. Why? Because work within a household, typically done by a wife and mother, is not taxable. This change created a culture throughout the USA where the key roles typically done by mothers and grandmothers became controlled by taxable large businesses and the ever growing government- day cares, sick care, end of life care, and so on.
This same story played out many times over (in different ways) throughout Europe and Russia.
Carlson ends the book with practical marching orders that I summarized in my own words:
1. Treasure private property
2. Protect the family from big government and big business
3. Defend the family economy by defending the natural order and history
4. Change must start in the family before the state
5. Religion must influence all areas of life
6. Connect every small act to God’s big purpose
Writing over 100 years ago GK Chesterton wrote that socialism and capitalism were not opposites but were agendas that would merge at the same point - an alliance between big business and big government. Another Distributist, Hilaire Belloc, called this the Servile State. This insight was prophetic.
This reality played out in history. For example, in America big business pushed for the feminist movement. Why? If the workforce doubles you can pay workers a lot less. This made it very difficult to have a”family wage” - a wage a man could earn and comfortably provide for his family. Big government also pushed for this change. Why? Because work within a household, typically done by a wife and mother, is not taxable. This change created a culture throughout the USA where the key roles typically done by mothers and grandmothers became controlled by taxable large businesses and the ever growing government- day cares, sick care, end of life care, and so on.
This same story played out many times over (in different ways) throughout Europe and Russia.
Carlson ends the book with practical marching orders that I summarized in my own words:
1. Treasure private property
2. Protect the family from big government and big business
3. Defend the family economy by defending the natural order and history
4. Change must start in the family before the state
5. Religion must influence all areas of life
6. Connect every small act to God’s big purpose
August 25, 2021
Keeping in mind that Carlson's vision of the family is less inclusive than mind (my main critique), "Third Ways" was a solid examination of European attempts to find a third way between socialism and capitalism. Carlson discusses agrarians like English Distributists and Russian economists and Central Europe's peasant parties, family-first types like Swedish housewives and family-wage advocates, discerning economists like Karl Polanyi, and Christian Democratic parties. He covers a ton of ground in a relatively short read and addresses criticisms of each movement as well as their positive elements. Carlson concludes that many of these movements failed because they were committed to 'playing fair', especially in times where authoritarianism was on the rise, and that others were coopted into materialistic frameworks, especially capitalism. Carlson concludes with an observation that perhaps the Servile State has won out, and a call for a new Third Way, one we would be wise to think more about. The recent discussion around how to support families with cash payments or tax breaks seems to me like a positive development. That this discourse has been bipartisan fills me with hope for an economics more focused on sustaining families than an amorphous notion of "growth".
December 22, 2022
A succinct survey of attempts, both theoretical and practical, to forge some alternative to the capitalist and communist options. I was of course quite interested in Chesterton's and Belloc's proposals, and I was encouraged to see that attempts to implement them have had some degree of success!
Carlson doesn't just review these examples: he does some analysis and synthesis at the end. He rightly points out that labour and assets cannot be valued in a household setting in the same way they are in the market, and that the value of the family is not found in its efficiency or profitability, but in that it preserves important and intangible human goods.
This book is also a great example of a Christian engaging in a non-dismissive way with the thought and work of non-Christians.
The book offers a good challenge to the "pure free market" assumptions that I have toyed with from time to time. The state isn't and shouldn't be value-neutral: it does protect goods that the society deems valuable, whether it does so actively or passively.
Carlson doesn't just review these examples: he does some analysis and synthesis at the end. He rightly points out that labour and assets cannot be valued in a household setting in the same way they are in the market, and that the value of the family is not found in its efficiency or profitability, but in that it preserves important and intangible human goods.
This book is also a great example of a Christian engaging in a non-dismissive way with the thought and work of non-Christians.
The book offers a good challenge to the "pure free market" assumptions that I have toyed with from time to time. The state isn't and shouldn't be value-neutral: it does protect goods that the society deems valuable, whether it does so actively or passively.
July 13, 2022
This is an excellent book. The writing was clear and straightforward, but much more than the execution, the content was very good.
May 19, 2023
Amazing first chapter on Distributism. Amazing subtitle.
August 30, 2021
I've been wanting to read this book for a while and finally finished it. It is a summary of economists, politicians, writers, and government officials who sought an economic system besides communism and capitalism upon which to build their country. To say they were against capitalism is somewhat wrong, because what they were really against was big businesses (which usually are the result of government help to those particular businesses).
Allan Carlson is an enjoyable writer. His research is excellent, although the various case studies appear contradictory in their estimation of how to build this economic third way. The central focus of his thought is that the family should be appreciated and protected by the economic system, and each person or group attempted this with varying (albeit temporary) rates of success.
It concludes with a brief chapter on how those living today can try to build a third way, but this was much too short. One is left wishing that Carlson went into more detail on how to build these things, rather than offering abstract principles with little concrete detail. Nevertheless it is a good book, even if you just want a history of unorthodox economists of the twentieth century.
Allan Carlson is an enjoyable writer. His research is excellent, although the various case studies appear contradictory in their estimation of how to build this economic third way. The central focus of his thought is that the family should be appreciated and protected by the economic system, and each person or group attempted this with varying (albeit temporary) rates of success.
It concludes with a brief chapter on how those living today can try to build a third way, but this was much too short. One is left wishing that Carlson went into more detail on how to build these things, rather than offering abstract principles with little concrete detail. Nevertheless it is a good book, even if you just want a history of unorthodox economists of the twentieth century.
December 4, 2018
I've been wanting to read this for a while now. The title alone makes it a winner. :)
Finally done. I really enjoyed this book. Allan Carlson does a masterful job of presenting these various movements sympathetically, but not uncritically. It was illuminating to see how much influence some of these small, or short lived groups had in the larger economic discussion of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Even though I just said small or short lived, some of these movements were quite large and some lasted decades.
I would recommend this book to people of all political stripes because it is educational to see how a variety of people rose to the challenge of modernity and changing socio-economic conditions brought about by the capitalism of the industrial revolution and the central planning of industrial communism.
Finally done. I really enjoyed this book. Allan Carlson does a masterful job of presenting these various movements sympathetically, but not uncritically. It was illuminating to see how much influence some of these small, or short lived groups had in the larger economic discussion of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Even though I just said small or short lived, some of these movements were quite large and some lasted decades.
I would recommend this book to people of all political stripes because it is educational to see how a variety of people rose to the challenge of modernity and changing socio-economic conditions brought about by the capitalism of the industrial revolution and the central planning of industrial communism.
August 2, 2013
If you are disillusioned with the monster of capitalism and the cruelty of communism/socialism, then this book is for you. Building off of Hilaire Belloc's/G.K. Chesterton's Distributist philosophy and the agrarian philosophy espoused by Alexander Chayanov, Karl Polanyi, and Wendell Berry, Allan Carlson writes a concise, easy-to-understand history of a "Third Way" approach to economics. While praising this "Third Way" as arguably the best method of doing economics in a free society, Carlson does a great job of identifying the weaknesses of Distributism and agrarianism, and how they can - or cannot - be avoided.
This is well worth the time and effort to read, and it's good reading for anyone, not just politics/economics students. Highly recommended.
This is well worth the time and effort to read, and it's good reading for anyone, not just politics/economics students. Highly recommended.
March 13, 2009
A conservative thinker discusses various movements to create an economic alternative to capitalism and socialism. Some very intriguing ideas, though one wonders what practical usefulness they have today.
February 28, 2013
thoroughly researched and documented. a must read for anyone interested in family centered economies, or economics in general for that matter. interesting to learn how pacifism played such a large role in the downfall of alternative economies in the 20th century.
July 25, 2013
A well written and interesting look into alternatives to socialism & capitalism. What was successful, what wasn't, and why. Also goes into where we are today and possibilities for the future. Really enjoyed, and really learned a lot from this book.
April 24, 2014
Fascinating stuff. Blows a big old hole in the contemporary left-right economic divide. Carlson writes well, and his project of family-centered economics and politics a breath of fresh air.
August 22, 2008
interesting, but ulitmaley okay
March 22, 2017
This interesting book explains different economic theories throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and describes their effects on families: ChesterBelloc and Distributism, Peasant Utopias, Socialism, Agrarianism, and Family Wage. Lots of examples from history in different countries show the benefits of Capitalism on world prosperity and illustrate the strange new servitude of women (and men) under the “Servile State”. The author makes a fairly good case for his conclusion that “history teaches that every healthy and sustainable culture builds on the biological triad of mother/father/offspring and jealously protects its integrity.” page 185.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews