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Holly3278
Guest
I am not entirely sure what distributism is but it sounds like some form of socialism which if I understand correctly, the Church condemns.
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St_Francis
Guest
What about it makes you think it sounds like socialism?
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frankpearson
Guest
frankpearson;8703345:
Distribution (in reflection of a situation) and Redistribution (an action) are just entirely different things. “Redistribution” is an action. “Distribution” reflects the state of the market. Why can’t we just get past this.
So if something has a wide distribution, it means it is not concentrated. Maybe you could sort of say that translates into parts of a whole being more loosely together.
If something is redistributed, the “loosely together” or state of being more concentrated is changed by the act of redistribution.
As an example, if you have all of the grass growing on your lawn, in its natural form, it is well distributed. When you cut the grass and rake it into piles and put that into bags, it is concentrated. The act of putting the grass in the bag or of sprinkling it all over the lawn again is redistribution.
Hope that helps.
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frankpearson
Guest
Like your signature! I am about to pray the Rosary now. I think in our culture, anything other than an unrestrained capitalism sounds like socialism. Distrubtism is really the opposite of socialism.
One other thing, distributism is firmly rooted in Catholic thought, having a good part of its foundation in attempts to respond to the guidance of the Holy Father, Leo XIII in the encyclical Rerum Novarum.
- In socialism the state owns productive property or land.
- And in distributism, private individuals own it.
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frankpearson
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
Cottage industries, basically.
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frankpearson
Guest
Of course, he mentioned Mondragon. You can organize large or small companies according to distributist principles.
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
I was surfing the net, looking up the biographies of television and entertainment personalities.
Interesting stuff. To see how different individuals who are public personalities, deal with personal hardships. [Everybody has something; troubles are no respecter of money, power, or position or personality or public persona.]
One of my friends had met a television actor at a science fiction convention … and he had lived briefly two doors away from us, so it was a kind of neighborhood reunion. Interesting, actually, how that actor had created his own “distributism” business … cottage industry … worked in chemical sales as his first job … did so well, they promoted him … the problem was the promotion included going for advanced degrees and he just didn’t want that … so he fled to The Big City and started all over as a taxi driver … a passenger hired him as an extra for a movie, which is good because they have great catering trucks. Anyway, he ended up starring in B movies. Got a huge number of commercials. Great voice for voice overs. Great personality; got asked to show up at sci-fi conventions and play golf with others. Nice money for just chatting and telling show biz stories. According to Wiki, he’s not working. According to his Web site, he’s constantly on airplanes doing a gig here or there and still doing voice overs.
But he’s not a producer; doesn’t bankroll his own productions, like some stars do. Oprah owns her own enterprises, for example. Sandra Bullock owns her own production company. Dave Ramsey employs more than one hundred people.
Anyway, one of the ways that strange “thread following” evolved yesterday … one of the names that came up was Charles A. Coulombe. And in his bio, the word “distributism” … and that led to Mondragon.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Coulombe
Very Catholic. Has written a lot of very interesting books. Has a nice way with words.
I once asked him, what his “real” day job was. And he said he was a “stand up comedian”.
There is a nice video on YouTube of Coulombe chatting with an interviewer.
youtube.com/watch?v=ELT0N0gnJJY
Worth reading the history of Mondragon.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Seems unique to the recent history of Spain … the terrible Spanish Civil War … the founding of distinctly Catholic movements. Keeping in mind that Spain was “occupied” by the Moors … for 800 years.
tumblarhouse.com/authors/coulombe.php
I just keep thinking: cottage industry … and when the “founder” … proprietor gets too old to work, how does he generate retirement income? Or if he dies, who provides for his widow and children. There just doesn’t seem to be the flexibility that exists with the American brand of capitalism and free market economics.
In the Wiki article, there is this sentence: "As a child, he lived with his parents in a house owned by the TV psychic known as The Amazing Criswell, … "
The point being that you take your earnings and save them up and buy some business that will support you when you are no longer able to work … in this case, a building with rental apartment units. But, if you’re not good with managing tenants, then the stock market … and that gets you away from Distributism. And into American capitalism.
Which gets you into the advantages of the secondary market for stocks and bonds and apartment houses.
More later.
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
It’s just not that practical.
OK for today.
Not ok for when you get older or for supporting yourself in lean times or between gigs.
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frankpearson
Guest
Of course this isn’t how we support ourselves in our old age in the current brand of capitalism. We support ourselves partially by Social Security, and moreover, through mild socialism.
It is true that living off of the labor of others is one way that the elderly can continue to take in income, but this is not practical on a large scale, except under some form of distributist arrangement to society that helps to ensure most people own productive property. Only by the elderly as a general rule owning productive property or land could the elderly support themselves on rents and profits.
What we have done with our safety nets is provided a government funded alternative to distributism, one that ensures the poor and the elderly don’t starve (at least in the US and at this time). If that wealth were distributed in the form of ownership of productive property or land, only then would it be possible to consider the possibility of your ideal elderly sustainment network above.
And even in the absence of wealth redistrubution, what we currently have, only in a more competitive market with ease of entrance for many smaller businesses and laws that promoted land ownership for the less wealthy (again distributism, not cottage industries) could the elderly live off of profits and rents.
But of course you and I both know that in reality, before government intervention families took care of the elderly of their own families or they were destitute and any aid they received was from charity.
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Abu
Guest
Donald Devine concludes by further elucidating Pope Benedict’s consideration and development of redistribution.
tinyurl.com/3zdzbwm
“To Benedict, the solidarity power Paul relied upon so heavily should not be assigned to government alone, especially not national government. ‘Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State.’ Second, ‘attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law.’ Third ‘large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale’ should be accomplished principally by globalization – the world market –‘suitably understood and directed’ - that is freely, when not held back by ‘projects that are self-centered, protectionist or at the service of private interests,’ as is so often the case with governmental activity.
“The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa , since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need. This general rule must also be taken broadly into consideration when addressing issues concerning international development aid. Such aid, whatever the donors’ intentions, can sometimes lock people into a state of dependence and even foster situations of localized oppression and exploitation in the receiving country.
“ ‘Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the requirements of the common good,’ Benedict insists. But the common good of society is not some collective reified in an abstract state: ‘It is the good of “all of us” made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society.’ It is individualistic, based on the individual and the free groups he creates. Even politics is individualistic through one’s personal influence on government as a responsible citizen or official.
“Benedict even includes a proposal made there [in *Does Freedom Work?, 1985, Donald Devine] ‘allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State’ as a form of fiscal subsidiarity even within the national government itself.
“*Caritas in Veritate *favorably resolves every concern raised in *Does Freedom Work?] *concerning Populorum Progressio and integrates those revisions into a single coherent doctrine incorporating Centesimus Annus that establishes freedom unambiguously as the central element in human social life, subject only to the equally free gifts of love and truth.”
tinyurl.com/3zdzbwm
“To Benedict, the solidarity power Paul relied upon so heavily should not be assigned to government alone, especially not national government. ‘Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State.’ Second, ‘attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law.’ Third ‘large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale’ should be accomplished principally by globalization – the world market –‘suitably understood and directed’ - that is freely, when not held back by ‘projects that are self-centered, protectionist or at the service of private interests,’ as is so often the case with governmental activity.
“The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa , since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need. This general rule must also be taken broadly into consideration when addressing issues concerning international development aid. Such aid, whatever the donors’ intentions, can sometimes lock people into a state of dependence and even foster situations of localized oppression and exploitation in the receiving country.
“ ‘Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the requirements of the common good,’ Benedict insists. But the common good of society is not some collective reified in an abstract state: ‘It is the good of “all of us” made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society.’ It is individualistic, based on the individual and the free groups he creates. Even politics is individualistic through one’s personal influence on government as a responsible citizen or official.
“Benedict even includes a proposal made there [in *Does Freedom Work?, 1985, Donald Devine] ‘allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State’ as a form of fiscal subsidiarity even within the national government itself.
“*Caritas in Veritate *favorably resolves every concern raised in *Does Freedom Work?] *concerning Populorum Progressio and integrates those revisions into a single coherent doctrine incorporating Centesimus Annus that establishes freedom unambiguously as the central element in human social life, subject only to the equally free gifts of love and truth.”
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
So, it sounds like you don’t believe in “saving up for a rainy day”.
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St_Francis
Guest
Oh, and of course under laissez-faire, nothing bad ever happens to anyone, people don’t grow old, people are never laid off and have trouble finding a job, people never have emergencies which eat up all their savings, no! because in laissez-faire, everyone is so prudent and virtuous that nothing bad ever happens to them…
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
I hate to break it to you, but people have been saving up for a rainy day for hundreds of years.
All the things you mentioned: bad things, growing old, being laid off, emergencies, etc … stuff happens. Some of it is predictable [growing old] and some is not medical emergencies]. Those are what are called “rainy days”. And since you know that rainy days happen to everyone, in one way or another, what you do is to save up and put aside for them.
Being prudent and virtuous has absolutely nothing to do with when “stuff happens”.
Everyone, regardless of education, intelligence, family status, has bad things happen to them.
But, there ARE prudent things you can do to help you to get past those bad times.
For hundreds of years, prudent people have lived within their means, saved up and invested.
Traditionally, you would have a large family and stay on good terms with your children so that when you got old, they would like you and take care of you.
In some cultures, during the course of your life, you would buy three pieces of property, making sure you chose wisely, doing your homework. When you retired, you could live on one and sell the others and live off the proceeds.
Frequently, widows would open their homes to take in boarders and/or sell meals … both as bed & breakfast lodgings and as family restaurants. They also take in laundry; there are places, like in rural Pennsylvania, where women have started taking in laundry using their home machine and expanded by buying additional machines.
If you are talented, you could buy a small rental property and live off the rents.
We are blessed at this time in history because we can buy shares of companies that we did not found and establish and run ourselves.
None of these things require a college degree.
You just avoid buying bling. You don’t NEED a brand new car. You can do nicely with a cheap used car. Or an old cheap bicycle.
In addition, if you don’t have the talent, skills or time to research the best companies to invest your savings in, then we have a wide variety of investment vehicles, such as mutual funds. There may be 10,000 companies that you can invest in, but there are easily 10,000 mutual funds of various designs that you can invest in … of course, they do average out the gains and you pay their managers to do the homework that you are not able or are not willing to do.
You can do your own homework … for example, start with Value Line Stock Survey for $75 … and/or a subscription to Money Magazine and / or Forbes to get the inside info.
Or you can invest in such mutual funds as Ave Maria Funds specifically set up for prudent small investors. Or the Hennessy family of funds, if you want something a little more adventurous. Or Vanguard funds, for maximum averaging.
If the risks of daily life [what Shakespeare who lived long long ago referred to as the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”] are too much for you, you can buy all kinds of insurances. Medical insurance, disability insurance, life insurance [death insurance, really].
And when everything collapses, there are charities. We swallow our pride and let our fellow persons take care of us. There are everything from the Salvation Army stores, to soup kitchens, to food pantries, to more upscale foundations that will contribute to our hospital bills.
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Abu
Guest
Where is the reference to and quote for “laissez-faire” by the Popes? St Francis in #428 states that it has not existed since the 18th century.
This has never existed in any society or country, only in the minds of a few economists. The fixation on “laissez faire” shows an inability to distinguish economic schools; Dr Chafuen acknowledges the “considerable distance between the laissez faire of the French economists and Austrian theory” and points out that “it was the Physiocrats who coined the phrase laissez faire.” Why keep being mired in a fallacy, instead of recognizing the fact that free enterprise has been developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics and emphatically affirmed by Bl John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict XVI’s affirmation: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas et Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).
PEOPLE have to be regulated by their consciences and by just laws.
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