Distributism: What is it?

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My understanding it is the taking of all usable property and redisputing it equally to everyone. Is it plausible? I don’t think so.
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i believe catholic giants like dorthy day, hilaire belloc and GK chesterton were big advocates of it.

basically, it’s applied catholic social teaching. in an ideal catholic world, it would work. but as GKC said, *“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” *
 
Gilliam, no. That’s communism.

In Distributism, there are free markets and private ownership of property and means of production. Where Distributism differs from US captitalism is that a Distributist government would be one in which tax, law and government economic policy favored the entrepenuer and small businessman instead of the mega-corporation. All subsidies, regulations, laws and taxes would designed to provide a counter - weight to the efficient, but dehumanizing effects of enourmous corporations.

Captitalism, by contrast, place a huge advantage in the hands of those who already HAVE large sums with which to invest. It not only doesn’t restrain, but systemically encourages the problems of ownership of production being absent from and ignorant of management of production.

The theory behind distributism is that if an economy is based on numerous small businesses locally owned AND managed, then the problems of justice so obvious in our system tend to self - correct by virtue of the human relationships between those who own the means of production and those who work in them.

Distributism is really the only model that fits Catholic teaching on economic justice as outlined in the encyclical Rerum Novarum.

Modern society came about because accidental distributism occured in the New World. Free or nearly so land and farms attracted uncounted immigrants away from fuedal Europe to a plave where they could own their own farm, or open a business to serve those who did. This new culture moved back across the Atlantic and transformed Europe as well (which otherwise would have emptied out of the ‘underclass’).

But now that there are no new lands to explore and settle, the same old human problem is coming back: The rich get richer, concentrate wealth to themselves faster than it is created and everybody else sees their share of the pie shrinking.
 
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Practical Distributism
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102 Just Actions that support economic justice, social peace, and world harmony.
Home … Front Page … Better Times
Distributism is an economic philosophy rooted in the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church, popularized earlier this century by writers such as G.K. Chesterton, H. Belloc, Dorothy Day and the early Catholic Workers. The purpose of this page is to suggest ideas for actions that encourage economic justice and social harmony and peace. The page is called “Practical Distributism” because its emphasis is on doing (“praxis”, as the theologians would say), rather than theory. For a more theoretical treatment of the issue, see Distributism: alternative to the brutal global market, by Mark and Louise Zwick of the Houston Catholic Worker, and the Justpeace Distributism Page.
This list contains suggestions, not mandates. It is provided to help people look at their own situation and discern practical ways that they can help build a more just future for themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation. Note that I am not saying that Distributism is identical with Roman Catholicism, although many of its leading exponents have been Catholic. A distributist community could be rooted in any religious or moral faith, but morality is certainly essential. Readers who are not Catholic can obviously adapt these suggestions to their own faith tradition. Building a just community is of necessity an ecumenical journey. Electronically published for the greater glory of God, on the memorial of Our Lady of the Snows, AD 2000.
 
I think its high time (practicing) Catholics stopped aligning themselves with the conservative right. We are not liberal, and we are not conservatives.

Please remember capitalism in thr 18th century developed AGAINST the traditional guild and feudal systems that were left over from the middle ages- protestants like Adam Smith worked to overturn traditional “restrictions” in favor of a dog-eat-dog market and this irrational belief in the “invisible hand”.

Oh yeah, I guess the invisible hand is just taking a while to manifest itself these days. It’s about time we stop worshipping man-made ideologies like Capitalism (and Communism and all the other “isms” that were developed as Modern alternatives to the Catholic Faith) and try to inject some traditional wisdom back into the equation. I think distributivism sounds wonderful.

True post-modernity is tradition.
 
mschrank said:
I think its high time (practicing) Catholics stopped aligning themselves with the conservative right. We are not liberal, and we are not conservatives. …
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this conservative GOP fundraiser and former campaign manager dislikes being told what I am or should be. as a matter of fact, the capitalist system has treated me pretty well, speaking as one up from under.
 
this conservative GOP fundraiser and former campaign manager dislikes being told what I am or should be. as a matter of fact, the capitalist system has treated me pretty well, speaking as one up from under.
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wow, you and nancy pelosi have a lot in common–political party 1st, faith 2nd. the capitalist system has also treated richard fuld and barny frank pretty well.

as long as you get yours. that’s all that matters to the republicrat party.
 
Wirraway said:
this conservative GOP fundraiser and former campaign manager dislikes being told what I am or should be. as a matter of fact, the capitalist system has treated me pretty well, speaking as one up from under.
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The capitalist system has treated me quite well as well, but that doesn’t mean that it is just. There are injustices that can occur in capitalism, just as in any other economic system. Injustices should make Catholics uncomfortable wherever they occur, no matter how much cash we are paid to defend such a system.
 
Dee_Dee_King said:
wow, you and nancy pelosi have a lot in common–political party 1st, faith 2nd. the capitalist system has also treated richard fuld and barny frank pretty well.

as long as you get yours. that’s all that matters to the republicrat party.
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awwwww. where’s the emoticon with the tiny violin playing?
 
stinkcat_14 said:
The capitalist system has treated me quite well as well, but that doesn’t mean that it is just. There are injustices that can occur in capitalism, just as in any other economic system. Injustices should make Catholics uncomfortable wherever they occur, no matter how much cash we are paid to defend such a system.
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you’re right, it does and I strive to treat the people who I deal with on a contractual and employee basis fairly and alleviate economic injustices in appropriate ways. nevertheless, I am not going to effect fundamental changes to the capitalist economy nor do I intend to jeopardize investor and partner relations by adhering to shumacheresque small is beautiful pie-in-the-skyism.
 
Pure democracy won’t work; it ends up being anarchy. Pure capitalism and communism won’t work, either. Who is idealist enough to think that this system, in its pure form, wil work any better?

No matter what system is in place, we will always have the poor, regardless of how they got to be that way. It could be health, laziness, alcohol or drug addiction, mental capacity, or some combination of these and/or other problems. No system of production is going to rid society of them, period.

Let’s take a look at how our (insufficiently) regulated capitalistic society has evolved, much of it taking place since WWII. Credit unions, which are owned by its depositors, have taken a big chunk of commercial banks’ personal business. I think they are prohibited from venturing into commercial business.

Electric cooperatives, owned by its member/customers, were once rural but now serve large chunks of urban and suburban areas due to growth, sprawl, or whatever you want to call it.

Most workers in all but the lowest classes, and even some of them, own stock in their own companies or other companies by virtue of 401k’s, profit sharing in the form of stock, and other instruments. Some companies, although large, are owned in total by the employees.

A large proportion of the “middle class” owns stocks, and thus the means of production, outside their 401k’s.

Many auto mechanics and most construction tradesmen own their own tools, again, the means of production.

Then, there is the obvious: the small businessmen. How many of those do we have in the US? Some are doing very well, some just getting by, and some not making it, but that’s the way it’s always been and probably always will be. Small business, in the aggregate, is by far the largest employer in this country.

The next step in wealth distribution is going to be stopping the outlandish compensation being given to CEO’s and other corporate VIP’s. How it will be distributed is an unknown, but some possibilities, alone or in combination, are lower product prices, higher wages, or larger dividends for shareholders.

There is always room for improvement in any system because, whatever it is, it’s run by imperfect men. Rather than being so quick to decry the injustices in our hybrid system, why not look around for the good and build on that rather than trying to replace the entire system with an unproven one?
 
Wirraway said:
this conservative GOP fundraiser and former campaign manager dislikes being told what I am or should be. as a matter of fact, the capitalist system has treated me pretty well, speaking as one up from under.
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An Introductory Anti-Capitalist Manifesto

“Western civilization grew up emphasizing the existence of an objective order of nature, the importance of individual freedom within that order, and the need for individuals to be enlightened as to the character of nature and freedom through the guidance of authoritative societies like the family and the State. Western thinkers argued that individuals, left to their own devices, simply could not properly see all that needs to be seen to understand either the objective order of things or the essence of human liberty. Individual knowledge and personal freedom could only be perfected though life in community. Social beings alone could become wise and free. Unaided, anti-social individuals could possess but a fragmented, flawed science of nature and knowledge of their place within it. They would thus be condemned to use their liberty to destroy themselves as well as the people around them.”
 
CatsAndDogs said:
An Introductory Anti-Capitalist Manifesto

“Western civilization grew up emphasizing the existence of an objective order of nature, the importance of individual freedom within that order, and the need for individuals to be enlightened as to the character of nature and freedom through the guidance of authoritative societies like the family and the State. Western thinkers argued that individuals, left to their own devices, simply could not properly see all that needs to be seen to understand either the objective order of things or the essence of human liberty. Individual knowledge and personal freedom could only be perfected though life in community. Social beings alone could become wise and free. Unaided, anti-social individuals could possess but a fragmented, flawed science of nature and knowledge of their place within it. They would thus be condemned to use their liberty to destroy themselves as well as the people around them.”
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that’s a fascinating essay. I’m responding to the excerpted material only.

yeah. I don’t buy it. the underpinnings of western civilization were authoritarian: the roman empire, the fusion of late roman empire with germanic tribes that created the early european tribal warlords, various forms of feudalism throughout the middle ages, none of which seems to me in the least appealing.

western civilization really beings to flourish when the bonds of these authoritarian and paternalistic governments are gradually checked and loosened by a growing number of political players pursuing self interest. the magna carta is the first obvious example of this and the entire process can be seen working itself out in britain as the absolute authority of the monarchy is eroded and replaced by a growing number of persons represented by parliament.

but what is really behind this evolution is the growth of capitalist economies. why? because nascent capitalists must become thinkers and planners to survive, and that kind of economic independence readily translates to a demand for a say in the governing of the state.

marx was right to the degree that he believed that the economic infrastructure determines the political beast. the rise of capitalism and the growing body of political and civil rights at the expense of absolute authority is more than a coincidence.

the huge revolutions in political thinking posit that the source of legitimate government originates in the people, not divine authority. true or not, that’s evidence of an evolving mindset of how westerners look at their leaders. that’s why absolutism that fails to evolve has had such a rough time of it: the holy roman empire is gone, the russian empire is gone, austro-hungarian empire, the hapsburg empire is gone, the papal states gone, and good riddance to all.

what flourishes are evolving and liberalizing governmental forms like england’s, which napolean dismissed as a nation of shopkeepers. of course the french empire is also history.

shopkeepers, independent thinkers, a distrust of nonrepresentative government, self reliance. that’s what’s made the best of western civilization.
 
gilliam said:
My understanding it is the taking of all usable property and redisputing it equally to everyone
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No. Not in terms of direct government action (i.e., confiscation of all private property). Distributists don’t trust centralized government. They want property to be more widely distributed, but generally through indirect and noncoercive means. And from what I’ve read (mostly Chesterton) distributists have never pushed for absolute equality in the way socialists do. What they want is for people to be freed from dependence either on government or on large corporations. They don’t have a problem with some degree of inequality–the problem is with an extreme degree of inequality whereby most people are wage-earning employees of a relatively few large property owners. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with one businessman or farmer having more property than another–what is wrong is if that one businessman or farmer manages to buy out all his competitors and make them work for him.

That’s how I understand it, anyway.

Edwin
 
mschrank said:
I think its high time (practicing) Catholics stopped aligning themselves with the conservative right.
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At least as defined by FOX News and similar organs of contemporary American “conservatism.”

As you note, capitalism is in many ways not a conservative system at all. What passes for “conservatism” in the U.S. is in most cases 19th-century liberalism with some conservative views on family and sexuality tacked on.

Edwin
 
Wirraway said:
the huge revolutions in political thinking posit that the source of legitimate government originates in the people, not divine authority. true or not, that’s evidence of an evolving mindset of how westerners look at their leaders. that’s why absolutism that fails to evolve has had such a rough time of it: the holy roman empire is gone, the russian empire is gone, austro-hungarian empire, the hapsburg empire is gone, the papal states gone, and good riddance to all.
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Absolutism is condemned by the Church, of course. Absolutist temporal authority is doomed to fail, of necessity, by it’s very nature.

But “individualistic absolutism” (laissez faire capitalism) is just another variety of absolutism, and likewise doomed to fail.

When an absolutist power fails, it is replaced by a power that “works”, to whatever extent, and it is nearly always replaced by another absolutist power, or more likely several other absolutist powers, so the “blame” for the failure of the previous power is attributed not to “absolutism” but rather to the personalities associated with the previous “regime”.

I’m publicly all for the “good parts” of capitalism, as that’s an acceptable statement in today’s “polite” society, and I’m utterly against ANY part of socialism, because that’s NOT acceptable in today’s society. 🙂

But, there is wisdom in allowing divine authority to have authority in realms where it should, because it’s TRULY DIVINE, have actual authority!

Government action is ALWAYS coercive action in support of a MORAL/ETHICAL decision. The SOLE authority of all things moral and ethical is THE CHURCH.

The premise that “popular authority” trumps “divine authority” in the realm of morals and ethics is simply anti-Catholic (and outright silly).
 
Contarini said:
No. Not in terms of direct government action (i.e., confiscation of all private property). Distributists don’t trust centralized government. They want property to be more widely distributed, but generally through indirect and noncoercive means. And from what I’ve read (mostly Chesterton) distributists have never pushed for absolute equality in the way socialists do. What they want is for people to be freed from dependence either on government or on large corporations. They don’t have a problem with some degree of inequality–the problem is with an extreme degree of inequality whereby most people are wage-earning employees of a relatively few large property owners. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with one businessman or farmer having more property than another–what is wrong is if that one businessman or farmer manages to buy out all his competitors and make them work for him.

That’s how I understand it, anyway.

Edwin
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If you add GOVERNMENT to you statement I would say you got it right. 😃

what is wrong is if that GOVERNMENT or one businessman or farmer manages to buy out all his competitors and make them work for him.
 
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