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What is Distributism? Understanding a Controversial Alternative to Socialism and Plutocracy
The Imaginative Conservative ^ | June 12, 2014 | Joseph Pearce

Posted on 06/12/2014 7:04:14 AM PDT by don-o

snip

Unlike the socialists, the distributists were not advocating the redistribution of ‘wealth’ per se, though they believed that this would be one of the results of distributism. Instead, and the difference is crucial, they were advocating the redistribution of the means of production to as many people as possible. Belloc and the distributists drew the vital connection between the freedom of labour and its relationship with the other factors of production—i.e., land, capital, and the entrepreneurial spirit. The more that labour is divorced from the other factors of production the more it is enslaved to the will of powers beyond its control. In an ideal world every man would own the land on which, and the tools with which, he worked. In an ideal world he would control his own destiny by having control over the means to his livelihood. For Belloc, this was the most important economic freedom, the freedom beside which all other economic freedoms are relatively trivial. If a man has this freedom he will not so easily succumb to encroachments upon his other freedoms.

Belloc was, however, a realist. Indeed, if he erred at all it was on the side of pessimism. He would have agreed with T.S. Eliot’s axiomatic maxim in “The Hollow Men” that “between the potency and the existence falls the shadow.” We do not live in an ideal world and the ideal, in the absolute sense, is unattainable. Yet, as a Christian, Belloc believed that we are called to strive for perfection. We are called to imitate Christ, even if we cannot be perfect as Christ is perfect.

(Excerpt) Read more at theimaginativeconservative.org ...


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To: don-o

Economists can always imagine dichotomies, that people are either “this or this”, and in doing so they will be correct, somewhat. If you think of the bell shaped curve, they try to generalize the big bump in the middle, while ignoring the 17% on either side.

That is, the best they can get is 66% right and 34% wrong.

To make things much worse, the bell shaped curve is just a “snapshot”. The truth is that it is a dynamic system. So many of those in the 66% and those in the 34% change sides. Which blurs the blurry generalization even further.


21 posted on 06/12/2014 7:31:14 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: wideawake; don-o
"In distributism it is effectively illegal to buy or sell land and it is effectively illegal to buy or sell unskilled labor."

Wideawake, I'm not prepared to discuss this very adequately, so I must just ask questions: has any distributist advocated making it illegal to buy or sell land or unskilled labor?

Chesterton often said he did not object to capitalists because of their capitalism, but because of their socialism. The trouble with (today's) capitalism is not that there are too many capitalists, but too few. And the few often manage to prosper via regulatory capture and ubiquitous State action, rather than by truly free market mechanisms.

So this seems to boil down to the Main Street vs Wall Street perspective, or the entrepreneur vs crony/bankster perspective.

Your thoughts?

22 posted on 06/12/2014 7:33:25 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Without justice, what is the State but a great band of robbers?" - St. Augustine)
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To: wideawake
"In distributism it is effectively illegal to buy or sell land and it is effectively illegal to buy or sell unskilled labor."

I don't see where this is necessarily the case, especially if distributism is not a set-in-stone ideology, but rather a set of principles around which different practical solutions could be designed.

It may be as simple as not allowing any corporation to become too big to fail, i.e. no one person or corporation can own so much land, so much capital, etc. that its failure would require government intervention to prevent economic collapse.

Free market supporters will just say let companies grow as big as they can, but if they fail then just let them fail without any government intervention. But we have seen that however much sense this makes in theory, it is never allowed to occur in practice.

How many justifications did we receive from supposed stalwarts of the free market that the government had to come in and save these businesses that were "too big to fail" in order to protect the little guy?

Free Market idealists think we should scrap all anti-monopoly laws and just let the chips fall where they may.

Putting in some checks at the beginning so that businesses can't get into positions where they are not only "too big to fail" but "too big to resist" with regard to lobbying governments for special favors as the bubbles expand seems like a reasonable first step toward a more evenly distributed economy.

23 posted on 06/12/2014 7:34:56 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: Jack Hammer
It’s been a code word

You throw out the baby with the bath water much? Let's at least consider ideals and ideas on the merits. If you read the whole article, the author deals with the troublesome concept of redistribution, so-called and the assumptions that go with it.

24 posted on 06/12/2014 7:34:59 AM PDT by don-o (He will not share His glory and He will NOT be mocked! Blessed be the name of the Lord forever!)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
A form of distributism could be one where there are no employees. Everyone is a contractor.

A contractor is an at-will employee.

Your proposed system is simply free enterprise.

Distributism is a system in which no one can hire anyone, people just exchange ready-made goods with one another.

You are also setting up a false dichotomy - the opposite of distributism (where no one can buy new land or hire employees) is not a system where everyone must be an employee or a renter. It is a system - free enterprise - where everyone can choose whether or not their goal is to be an employer or an employee or neither, and whether their goal is to rent to others, rent from others, or neither.

25 posted on 06/12/2014 7:35:55 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: Mrs. Don-o
I would suggest looking at the other side of this argument. Tom Woods has been especially good at debunking distributism from a Catholic perspective:

https://mises.org/daily/1062

But there are only two options here: either man can pursue his ends without regard for the needs and wishes of his fellow man, or he can act with regard to those needs. There is no third option. By seeking to "maximize profits"--a motivation that is routinely treated as a terrible scourge on civilization--man ensures that his talents and resources are directed toward areas in which his fellow man has indicated the most urgent need.

26 posted on 06/12/2014 7:36:09 AM PDT by B Knotts (Just another Tenther)
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To: don-o

Yawn.

Read post 11.


27 posted on 06/12/2014 7:37:45 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: Jack Hammer; don-o
JH:

To suggest that Chesterton and Belloc were communists or Marxists or socialists because they used the word "distributist" is to belie your complete ignorance of the work of two of the greatest Christian and conservative polemicists of the 20th Century.

28 posted on 06/12/2014 7:37:45 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Blah blah blah

Read post 11.

As I WROTE it, not as you’d like it to be.


29 posted on 06/12/2014 7:39:10 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: B Knotts
"By seeking to "maximize profits"--a motivation that is routinely treated as a terrible scourge on civilization--man ensures that his talents and resources are directed toward areas in which his fellow man has indicated the most urgent need."

This is just repeating the pollyanna version of capitalism espoused by George Gilder. It's Adam Smiths' Wealth of Nations without his Theory of Moral Sentiments, i.e. capitalism as a form of soul refinery.

30 posted on 06/12/2014 7:41:20 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: Jack Hammer
I'm sorry but I don't have the special decryption ring to unlock the mysteries of the code word.
31 posted on 06/12/2014 7:43:12 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
It may be as simple as not allowing any corporation to become too big to fail, i.e. no one person or corporation can own so much land, so much capital, etc.

So the government decides how much property you can own, and can decide at some point that maybe you own too much property and that it needs to take it away from you?

But we have seen that however much sense this makes in theory, it is never allowed to occur in practice.

It routinely occurred in practice until very recently. And the economy grew more quickly than it does now.

None that I've heard of.

Certainly not from me.

Free Market idealists think we should scrap all anti-monopoly laws and just let the chips fall where they may.

Absolutely. Monopolies cannot survive unless a government legislates their existence.

utting in some checks at the beginning so that businesses can't get into positions where they are not only "too big to fail" but "too big to resist"

Even if this terrible idea was put in place, on what possible basis could such checks be legislated?

On the basis of the legislator having an almost unerring ability to predict the future and to forecast the world economy.

32 posted on 06/12/2014 7:43:37 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Good reply.


33 posted on 06/12/2014 7:44:25 AM PDT by cornelis
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To: wideawake
"None that I've heard of. Certainly not from me."

When you become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a member of the White House staff then tell me that you're OK with letting GM or Bank of America go bankrupt.

34 posted on 06/12/2014 7:47:32 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: wideawake

Precisely. Every time I see people attacking free market economics, the problems cited are problems arising from government intervention.

Rent seeking behavior cannot occur without significant regulatory power.


35 posted on 06/12/2014 7:49:02 AM PDT by B Knotts (Just another Tenther)
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To: wideawake

Not necessarily, if the ‘tool’ you posses is certain talent or ability, you would market that talent or ability to others.

Not all talents or abilities require you to have land or capital yourself.

Distributism, like all isms, is utopian. However, it has many merits and is not necessarily in opposition to capitalism or free markets.

For that matter, neither is communism. The issue is scale. If a small group of people VOLUNTARILY wish to live/work/own property communally and sell their production into an overall capitalistic framework that can work very well too.


36 posted on 06/12/2014 7:53:09 AM PDT by Lorianne (fedgov, taxporkmoney)
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To: wideawake
"So the government decides how much property you can own"

I would not support, nor would I think any one calling himself a distributist would support, a system whereby the government decided on a case-by-case basis when a particular person or corporation had too much land, capital, etc.

It would seem, however, that one possibility might be to institute a relatively simple rule such that businesses would have to purchase a sufficient amount of insurance in order to provide for a soft landing if/when they fail. And I wouldn't count going through a formal bankruptcy procedure where everyone is fired and investors get cents on the dollars when the land and capital is sold off to the highest bidder as a soft landing.

The purchase of this insurance would of course mean lower profits, but it may be a reasonable price to pay in order to give governments and large businesses no reason to intervene when other large businesses fail.

37 posted on 06/12/2014 7:57:12 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: don-o

Thanks for the post Don-o. I’ve come to be a proponent of Distributism of a sort. The results of Distributism would necessarily close the gap between rich and poor. One should read Belloc’s “The Servile State” before passing criticism about the good qualities of Distributism.

Right now, we live in an economic culture of Corporatism not Capitalism. Therefore the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially.


38 posted on 06/12/2014 7:59:46 AM PDT by ThomasMore (Islam is the Whore of Babylon!)
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To: B Knotts
"Rent seeking behavior cannot occur without significant regulatory power."

In what universe will governments cede a significant portion of the regulatory power they have already achieved? Certainly not this one.

39 posted on 06/12/2014 7:59:53 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: don-o; Jack Hammer
I missed the part about taking anything from anybody. Maybe you can point it out.

"advocating the redistribution of the means of production to as many people as possible"

Seems pretty clear to me. I have my own means of production and there isn't one bit of it that I want someone else "redistributing".

40 posted on 06/12/2014 8:03:35 AM PDT by Fightin Whitey
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