Replies

Official Catholic teaching on economics - distributism?!?. You are wrong. You are completely wrong. I think your post is ignorant.

It appears that you have never heard of subsidiarity.

Repeat After Me: Subsidiarity & Solidarity
Subsidiarity and Human Dignity
Does the USCCB Understand Subsidiarity?
[CATHOLIC CAUCUS] The Principle of Subsidiarity
[CATHOLIC/ORTHODOX CAUCUS] Subsidiarity Over Social Justice
What is the USCCB’s problem with subsidiarity?
Subsidiarity: Where Justice and Freedom Coexist
Health reform still full of thorny problems for Catholics (Vasa comes out for subsidiarity)
What You [Catholics] Need to Know: Subsidiarity, [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
Catholic Word of the Day: SUBSIDIARITY, 06-11-09

Distributism. It's based upon the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum.

I find the word "distributism" too often troublesome, since nobody seems to be able to produce an uncontested definition.

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong!!) is that according to Papal teaching since Rerum Novarum (and even before) it is a natural good to own property ("things" that are proper to a man) and that this "good" is best when proprietorship is widely common: in other words, when all or most people have some stake in the way they make a living, some "skin in the game," some degree of ownership.

The way Chesterton explained it (but in words better than mine): we believe in the natural right to own property and the natural right to marry. But this rightful ownership isn't best seen as one man owning all the land in the county, any more than that one man marries all the women in the county.

In other words, there should be widespread proprietorship. Not by the govt. confiscating land or capital from one group and giving it to another group, but by a decided preference of all elements of society towards wide ownership or wide participation in ownership.

So what I would call it, is not a "distributist society" but "a proprietorship society."

I wouldn't want it done by confiscation. It must be done by purchase or donation. Not unreasonable. There was a movement in India in the 1950's led by Vinoba Bhave called "Bhoodan" (land-gift) where I think they got 5 million acres donated from private landowners. Not a WHOLE lot in a huge country like India. but it was a start. Now fire away!