Is Distributism utopian?

[JRRTFAN]

I don’t think very many people posting here have any idea of what Distibutism is. In fact I think a lot don’t know a hoot about it.

Anybody who thinks Belloc and Chesterton were socialists has lost whatever vestiges of a mind they may have once enjoyed. Yet they were staunch Distibutists.

 

[Cho]

What is immoral is that the state has a god-given responsibility to uphold the natural law. Reducing or eliminating that role leads to anarchy.

Where a state exists, the people comprising that political class are bound to behave in a moral manner toward those they rule, the same as kings and other rulers. This is not the same as the political class having a God given right to rule. That is the old discarded Divine Right of Kings doctrine. And of course, absence of the state class means an-archy. But anarchy is not synonymous with chaos any more than capitalism is synonymous with the current corporate-statism that tyrannizes us. Actually, if you believe that we should be living under the righteous authority of God, we are currently living lawlessly, chaotically, although not anarchically.

 

[Cho]

You know what I have primarily learned from these post? It is very easy to sucker people into the sin of socialism by giving it another name.

LOL!! Exactly. That’s why the “opinion-makers” love to muddy the thinking by redefining terms. Collectivism, communism, socialism, they all reek to high heaven. The legacy of those evil philosophies are millions dead and poverty. So they “re-make” themselves under a New! Improved! brand: Distributionists, environmentalists, Progressives. It’s the same immoral people pushing, theft, and eventually murder.

 

[Cho]

your response

1. I would be glad to; however,
2. No one on this blog can answer as clearly my view as Cho, so
3. I suggest you read his responses as his responses reflex exaclty my thouhgts; albeit,
4. If you want to get a perfect view of where I come from may I suggest:
   
   “The Law” written by a great Catholic Frederic Bastiat, or better yet all of his writings they can
   be found in a complete book form at the Von Mises web sight
   
   “Natural Law, the foundation of an Orderly Economic System” by Alberto m. Piedra another wonderful Caholic
   
   “Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition” by Anthony Percy - a Catholic priest philisoopher and economist.
   
   "Within The Market Strife, American Catholic Economic Thought from Rerum Novarum to Vatican II’ by Kevin Shcmiesing
   
   “The Church and the Market, A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy” by Thomas E. Woods. By the Way he has a great book on the middle ages that is a must read. The middle ages: The Golden Ages.

“The Boundaries of Technique, Ordering Positive and Normative Concerns in Economic Research” Andrew Yuengert

“Faith and Liberty, The Economic Thught of the Late Scholastics” by Alejandro A. Chafuen. Another Catholic authur. Here you will find the origins of the Free Market. It did not originate with Adams or Locke or Humes who where Utilitarians but with Catholics looking for a Just market.

“We Who Dared To Say No to War” another one by Thomas Woods (co-authered with Murray Polner… this is not per se an economic’s book. But nothing effects an economy more than wars.

These are just a few books. I can think of no better web sights than The Acton Institute and Von Mises to really understand economics, justice and philisophy. Eat your heart out Plato.

Again, I will try to go back. But, my concern is that you may be trying to win an arguement instead of really trying to help the poor, imprisoned and lonely. If you win, and as Thomas Sowel says, you will probably win; then our society will get closer than it ever has been to tryranny or anarchy. The poor will really be poor: no food, no clothing. But there is a silver lining. It appears that people come closer to God when they are poor.:hug3:

Excellent resources. A good beginners guide to economics is Hazlitts “Economics in One Lesson”. And there are TONS of great resources at Mises.org FREE to download in various formats. Rothbards “Anatomy of the State” is EXCELLENT. Lewrockwell.com and Mises.org are educating a lot of people on the reality as opposed to the created realities of the MSM and ruling elites.

 

[Cho]

I don’t think very many people posting here have any idea of what Distibutism is. In fact I think a lot don’t know a hoot about it.

Anybody who thinks Belloc and Chesterton were socialists has lost whatever vestiges of a mind they may have once enjoyed. Yet they were staunch Distibutists.

OK. If you are correct then all you have to do is explain HOW Distributionism proposes to achieve distribution. If it requires state redistribution that is socialism. How can it not be? Just explain this and I will gladly admit I am wrong. Calling me crazy does not refute the point that I and others are making. It simply reveals that you cannot answer a pretty basic question about a philosophy you espouse very strongly. I have found this to be an unfortunate pattern among Distributionists.

 

[David_Castlen]

I don’t think very many people posting here have any idea of what Distibutism is. In fact I think a lot don’t know a hoot about it.

Anybody who thinks Belloc and Chesterton were socialists has lost whatever vestiges of a mind they may have once enjoyed. Yet they were staunch Distibutists.

Alright, then will you tell us 1. what it is and, 2. how it DOES NOT force people to give up their property?

God bless Chesterton and Fr. Brown. But if Chesterton told me to take money from my neighbor I am going to think twice. BTW, I don not think I would have become a Catholic if not for his book Orthodoxy; nor do I think I will be a socialist just because he was or even St. Francis was. Neither Chesterton, Theresa of Avila nor Theresa deLesuix were infallable; come to think of it, neither is the Pope unless it is a matter of faith and morals and under specific circumstances.

Please tell us how Distributism will not take from others?

 

[Cho]

It’s a mistake to judge people of other times by our standards when we have the benefit of hindsight. Back in Chestertons day socialism was not the discredited philosophy it is today. It was a time when science seemed capable of solving all of the problems of mankind. Scientific government by experts planning how everyone should live seemed like it could work. Eugenics was in favor, Darwinism seemed to be more scientific than the poetry of Genesis. Empiricism, materialism ushered in by awe at scientific advances blinded people to the reality of the spiritual. People still have the yearning for righteousness so they try to create it on their own, oddly oblivious to the fact that any demand for righteousness or justice depends upon an objective morality independent of men, as men are corrupt. You would think that a man as brilliant as Chesterton would have seen all of this, however. Others did. Ludwig Von Mises warned against socialism and communism, predicted the Great Depression would arise out of state economic intervention. But Mises, a Jew, was coming from an economic perspective, and he was largely ignored.
Economics has laws, causes and effects arising out of human action. Ignoring these and pretending that government can simply decree a “living wage” or decree that everyone be “middle class” or own their own home is akin to believing in fairy tales. It is pagan state worship. Wealth redistribution is a doctrine of state worship.

 

[St_Francis]

Originally Posted by JRRTFAN *
Did you come to the conclusion that Distributism (the ownership of property by individuals, widely distributed,

I came to the conclusion that Distriubtism forces (takes from) people in hopes that ii

Where do the Distributists say that they plan to take anything from anyone?

so that they can earn a living from their own work of that property)

I cam to the conclusion that Distributism takes from people in a (failed) effort to insure that “they” can earn a living from their own work. I came to the conlcusion that stealing is a sin.

Where do you see distributists advocating taking anything from anyone?

What makes you think that an effort has been made which failed?

is the same as socialism (the ownership of all property by all, but no single, person(s) and the use of said property by some people for the benefit of all people) the same thing?

When a force (for example a Distributist government) takes from those who have in an attempt to insure that those who have little so that those who have little can produce,

Where did you hear about this distributist government taking from people?*

it is on the side of socialism and in fact is socialism: giving some of the ownership of those who have to those who have little. Distributism is takig from people; Socialism is taking from people. They both lead to envy of the lessor haves and the taking of property.

THe fact that something has one similarity to something else does not mean that they are the same thing. For example, both cell phones and cash registers have buttons with numbers on them. That does not mean they are interchangeable.

If so, how?

Again, let me say forced Charity is not Charity. If we Catholics rid ourselves of government programs (we can do it we have the votes) and we were to be the providers to the poor then they would be much much better off, the uneducated would be further advanced and the hearts of all would be cleaner. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on the government. When you allow the government to have everyone’s property to whatever extent you are socialist; you in effect, have given owenership of property to all and the use of property to all.

You need to read about distributive justice, which is not charity.*

I agree with you that the current situation with government aid is not ideal, and that going to a system of more privately funded aid (charity) would be better, but I disagree as to the argument against government aid and (probably) the solution to the problem.

And here is the sad thing: Distributist does not work. The poor become poorer.

And you know this, how?

I can not understand how the program of taking from the producers and job creators can possibly work.

Where are you seeing this advocated in Distributism?

do you think that if one has 90% of all the money in a society that he takes from those who have 10%?

Actually, if a superstore comes into a town and drives amny small businesses out of business, then, yes, they do. And if several publoc companies start businesses in an area and drive half the local businesses out, then, yes, they do.

What the big companies do when they do this is to suck all the profits out of the town. They suck the excess income which could be used for local charities out of the area, they suck excess income which could be used in other ways, like building a bigger house and hiring for that, right our of the community so that some few people have 5+ million-dollar homes in Old Grenwich, Conneticut rather than a few people in lots of different areas of the country having $500k houses.

do you not understand that those who have 10% can increase their financial status expontentially even if the 90%er remains at 90%?

You should tell poor people and those at OWS how to do that so they can climb out of poverty.

In the meantime, what’s a rough description of how this can happen?*

Or do you think that there is a fixed amount of resources and finances; maybe that is your and other socialist difficulty with this wonderful thing we call free-enterpirse.

You are the one saying that wider ownership of income-producing property would cause massive widespread property, not the distributists.

Ask the people of Hong Kong if they like it? The richers nation in the world with virtually no poverty and the most free country in the world.

Let’s see now, Hong Kong is a city with an average income of $45k/year (which considering that there are some mighty rich people there means there are probably some very poor people there), and yes, if you take the richest people and put them all in one place with the highest-income producing financial field and exclude everything else that is needed to maintain that city, of course things will look good. If I cut off the part of my report card which has an F, that will raise my GPA, but it would not reflect reality, and neither does Hong Kong.

Distributism is the Road to Serfdom

Well, I think Austrian School economics will bring us to serfdom.

 

[St_Francis]

*Again, I will try to go back. *But, my concern is that you may be trying to win an arguement instead of really trying to help the poor, imprisoned and lonely. *If you win, and as Thomas Sowel says, you will probably win; then our society will get closer than it ever has been to tryranny or anarchy. *The poor will really be poor: no food, no clothing. *But there is a silver lining. *It appears that people come closer to God when they are poor.:hug3:

Thanks for all the reading suggestions, I have read some of them.

I am not trying to win an argument. My major point is that distributism is neither communistic nor socialistic.

As far as I can see, distributism offers an alternative to socialism/communism and the free market libertarianism/anarchy that these writers propose.

Why do I disagree with all the free market stuff? You complain because the government has gotten too involved and messed it up, tilted it to socialism.

But my problem is not that.

My problem is this: I see the free market scenario as leading inevitably to situations similar to what we have now: large corporations not under the control of anyone at all, either internally or externally.

The very corporate structure leads to such a lack of moral responsibility and such an emphasis on making money for the owners that you end up with an anti-moral, anti-human situation.

You seem to think that a pure free market with no restraint would be better than anything else. On what do you base this? Certainly not the natural goodness of people, who are so often driven by concupiscence if not actual original sin (in the case of the unbaptized).

So it must be greed. You think my greed will induce me to act ethically so I can continue *in business? Only as long as I am *long-term thinker. Or you think my greed will be modified by my neighbor’s greed? Maybe we will collude.

And so on and so forth.*

The reality is that free marketry looks at other men as objects, not as people. Some men are interchangeable producing units; others are consumers.*

Surely not! But in the unregulated practice of high-powered law firms, beginning law associated work 80+ hour workweeks, destroying families and health, to create the profits for the owners? And why? So they can grow up to be owners themselves.

Doctors? Hah, people, I mean, patients who have numbers for diagnosis as well as identification, who are known as the appendix in Room 5, are treated by interns who work 36-hous shifts, training for the off-hand events which will necessitate that type of overwork, by which time they will be totally out of practice.

So, the government “interferes” and restricts the number of hours a trucker can drive each day, bit doesn’t regulate the number of hours an intern can work. Maybe regulation is not such a bad thing after all?

The reality is that running a system on a vice and seeing fellow human beings as objects are both against Catholic teaching.*

Now, how does free marketry help the poor and downtrodden? Creates more minimum wage jobs for them? Oh, that’s good–there’s a reason they are drug dealers driving Hummers instead of minimum wage workers driving 15-year-old cars with no heaters. In a town where the only way they can escape working on the Route One row of superstores surrounded by fast food restaurants, where they haven’t a chance to become independent, drug dealing is a choice which makes a certain amount of sense.

Hey, here you go: Read the Underground History of American Education, and find out what unregulated, even apparently charitable, businessmen have done to our nation, esp our schools.*

 

[St_Francis]

It’s a mistake to judge people of other times by our standards when we have the benefit of hindsight. Back in Chestertons day socialism was not the discredited philosophy it is today. It was a time when science seemed capable of solving all of the problems of mankind. Scientific government by experts planning how everyone should live seemed like it could work. Eugenics was in favor, Darwinism seemed to be more scientific than the poetry of Genesis. Empiricism, materialism ushered in by awe at scientific advances blinded people to the reality of the spiritual. People still have the yearning for righteousness so they try to create it on their own, oddly oblivious to the fact that any demand for righteousness or justice depends upon an objective morality independent of men, as men are corrupt. You would think that a man as brilliant as Chesterton would have seen all of this, however. Others did. Ludwig Von Mises warned against socialism and communism, predicted the Great Depression would arise out of state economic intervention. But Mises, a Jew, was coming from an economic perspective, and he was largely ignored.
Economics has laws, causes and effects arising out of human action. Ignoring these and pretending that government can simply decree a “living wage” or decree that everyone be “middle class” or own their own home is akin to believing in fairy tales. It is pagan state worship. Wealth redistribution is a doctrine of state worship.

Well,'currently the government decrees a minimum wage, not that there aren’t problems with that.

You say that we are being chronocentric, I say you are too. You are totally ignoring the very real abuses that were taking place: the incredibly low wages given by owners who were living high on the hog, the lack of care for the workers, etc.

Moreover, the whole industrialization could not have occurred without the government’s intervening to get the land for the railways (and later highways).

You say von Mises was Jewish and so looked at the whole thing economically; I don’t know what his being Jewish had to do with it, but if you look at things purely economicaly, then you look at people as objects, not as persons, as I described in a previous post. This is not Catholic.

And you seem to say that government interventions like worker’s comp is a bad thing, but without it, we would see what we saw in the 1890s: workers injured on the job and simply let go. That’s just one example. The abuses of workers in terms of company script, etc, were rampant, and show what free-market business people get up to without government intervention.

Did Von Mises foresee that? Or did he just accept that cruelty as a cost of doing business?

 

[centurionguard]

doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. we’re also told that we’ll always be sinners in this life. doesn’t mean we stop trying to remove sin from our lives.

we have the capacity to eradicate poverty. just as we have the capability to obey our conscience and avoid doing things we know to be sinful.

we should try.

shoot for the stars, land on the moon right?

also, maybe its possible we’re crossing 2 different definitions of poverty:

• humble neediness that is cared for
  vs
• desperate scarcity that is left unaddressed

doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

I didn’t imply that we shouldn’t try. It is within the power of mankind as a whole to defeat all poverty on earth. But Jesus knows well about the sinful weakness of man and that mankind as a whole (especially those who have it in their means, and I’m speaking about the excessively rich) who are not willing to share the excess abundance of their wealth fairly.

But money, proper shelter, food, medicine and clean water alone won’t help the poorest of the poor. The generosity, genuine love and expertise of people who are better educated with talents, who can give freely of themselves to show how these poor can support themselves. Giving is never enough. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said; You have to Give until it hurts.

 

[carn]

A moral state is an oxymoron. The state is by definition raw force wielded by one group of people against another. It is “living by the sword”. It is an attempt to avoid responsibility, God given rights and responsibilities for choices in life and an attempt by those who do not believe in a supernatural deity to fill that void in them by creating gods in the material world and justifying it by Marxist and Darwinist dogma.

You forget 2 things in arguing for anarcholiberty:

1. It is church teaching that a state cannot be avoided. That can be even traced back to scripture, Jesus die not indicate the state being bad itself, he just indicates that it should not take more than what is its due (e.g. his comments to a tax collector) and large part of OT are actual state laws. But the church also teaches that a state without laws is nothing but a band of thugs. So there has to be one, but it must be bound by laws.
2. The mongols.

 

[Cho]

Where do the Distributists say that they plan to take anything from anyone?
Where do you see distributists advocating taking anything from anyone?
What makes you think that an effort has been made which failed?
Where did you hear about this distributist government taking from people?*
You need to read about distributive justice, which is not charity.*
Where are you seeing this advocated in Distributism?
Well, I think Austrian School economics will bring us to serfdom.[/QUOTEThat is what we are asking you. Why so coy and secretive?? How do Distributionists propose to equally distribute these small holdings and keep them small? We see no other way to establish such radical egalitarianism except via state force. Please enlighten us. I have read articles on Distributionism, but have yet to see this addressed in any of them. How can you promote a Noble End without considering the means to achieve it? Why are you in favor of an economic system without knowing EXACTLY how it would work?? How can you recommend this to others? Intellectual integrity, logic dictates that anyone with any ability to think for himself would NEED and WANT to know Truth. If you can’t explain this then it is obvious that Distributionism is wealth redistribution on the part of the state and you simply are trying to obscure this fact. And we KNOW that this does not work and leads to poverty.
Neither cell phones nor cash registers have any moral aspect to them. Economic planning has HUGE implications. Why promote a failed philosophy of wealth redistribution and economic barriers and regulations because they come from Chesterton instead of Marx? If it quacks like a duck….
The problem with “Distributive justice” is that it is not just. Where is the justice for the hard worker, the superior intellect, the saver, the achiever?? Where is the reward for being thrifty, individual planning, being future oriented instead of demanding instant gratification? Ends do not justify means. A state assuming ownership of all and parceling it out and denying anyone the right to “bigness” is tyranny and theft “for the poor”. Being poor does not entitle anyone to the fruits of anothers hard work. The poor ARE entitled to equal treatment under the law and to be free of harnessing economic barriers. If they have this much economic disparity would improve. Charity is not a dirty word. The Church calls us to be charitable and charity benefits to giver and the receiver of it. Wealth redistribution destroys the concept of charity and replaces it with entitlement.
Spare me the clueless OWS lefties complaining about “Wall Street” and giving the Fed and the state a pass, calling for MORE regulations to ensnare us. They have all the earmarks of an engineered “crisis”, “protestors” and agents provacateur to frame dissent within acceptable limits (statism) rather than libertarian alternatives.
Your fixation with there being very rich and very poor in Hong Kong makes no sense. Some people are just luckier, smarter, harder working. There will always be rich and poor, and SHOULD be. What should NOT be are regulations and fiat currency economically enslaving people or hamstringing people. There can be no liberty or prosperity where there is no right to ownership of private property.
You are quite free to think what you want about Austrian economics. It doesn’t matter, Truth is Truth. The Austrians have predicted all of these economic issues, explained how they have happened, and have REAL answers as to how to fix the problems, answers that do NOT require theft or tyranny. That bothers you, even though you are unable to justify your morally bankrupt economic plans and schemes.
Actually, I have no issue with YOUR wanting to live under a voluntary wealth redistribution scheme. I wish you well. I simply deny your right to force it on anyone else.

]

 

[Cho]

You forget 2 things in arguing for anarcholiberty:

1. It is church teaching that a state cannot be avoided. That can be even traced back to scripture, Jesus die not indicate the state being bad itself, he just indicates that it should not take more than what is its due (e.g. his comments to a tax collector) and large part of OT are actual state laws. But the church also teaches that a state without laws is nothing but a band of thugs. So there has to be one, but it must be bound by laws.
2. The mongols.

I do not believe that this church teaching (and there is a LOT of garbage being issued forth from all kinds of Catholics being called “Church Teaching”) has the level of infallible dogma. From what I have read the Lord requires state classes to be just where they exist. And the Lord will allow us to be enslaved by states as we fall away from Him and embrace statism instead of following His law and relying on His protection. Where are you reading that we must live under a state? We must live under laws, but that is a different matter.

As far as scripture, I Samuel 8 warns about the people demanding a king and what will be the result…exactly what has happened today. If you are referring to Jesus’ comments about giving Caesar what is Caesars, He was not saying that Caesar got to claim that he owned everything in the material world. Caesar is entitled only to that which belongs to him, period. Jesus was begging the question.

 

[Cho]

And what about “the Mongols”??

I am not seeing a lot of difference these days between the Mongols and agents of the central state terrorizing third world nations on human rights pretexts, assassinatingtheir puppet dictators who get out of line, molesting people trying to board airplanes, tazing and kicking in the doors of innocent people. You worry about Mongols attacking you but forget that any Mongol with half a brain is simply going to get a government job and terrorize “legally”.

This is a huge logical fallacy abounding on this forum and other places. People are so trained to view themselves as property of the political class and to fear “greedy capitalists” having liberty. People understand original sin, the tendency of men to be greedy and sinful. And because of this they fear their neighbors having liberty! Why, if there was no state prohibiting murder, their neighbor would simply shoot everyone in sight. If there was no state class prohibiting rape, our neighbors would be kicking in our doors raping us. Our fellow man is to be feared and watched, ratted out and kept from getting ahead of us…and yet…
these same people have not the slightest qualm about giving OTHER men, just as sinful, just as greedy, just as flawed…very probably actually WORSE than our neighbors because they are power seekers…and giving them a monopoly on force, a license to kill, steal, lie, cheat and then believing that this political class will PROTECT (and are protecting) them. It is a slave mentality. It is not your fault, it was brainwashed into you using animal training as a child, but it is not logical.

 

[Cho]

St Francis:
"Now, how does free marketry help the poor and downtrodden? Creates more minimum wage jobs for them? Oh, that’s good–there’s a reason they are drug dealers driving Hummers instead of minimum wage workers driving 15-year-old cars with no heaters. In a town where the only way they can escape working on the Route One row of superstores surrounded by fast food restaurants, where they haven’t a chance to become independent, drug dealing is a choice which makes a certain amount of sense.

Hey, here you go: Read the Underground History of American Education, and find out what unregulated, even apparently charitable, businessmen have done to our nation, esp our schools.* "

---

Glad to see you recommend UHAE. That book, more than any other, revealed to me how we have been enslaved, how the political class has been able to make the masses participate in their own enslavement using their own minds to chain them using animal training, operant conditioning, the Delphi process. On CHILDREN! Diabolical.

You do not understand economics or the states role. Low wage jobs exist for those who do not have skills to offer. They are not meant to raise a family on. You get a low paying job as a teen or as an unskilled worker and then work to get a skill or save to invest and improve your lot. Creating minimum wage jobs simply eliminates jobs as employers who can’t afford to pay skilled wages for unskilled work don’t hire. These laws hurt the poor. The drug war hurts the poor as they are unfairly treated by the justice system when they are arrested for use. They have little other economic opportunity because of the state controlling the economy, regulating jobs and manufacturing out of the country. Big corporations receive help and protections from the state, even local gov’ts limit new businesses so they don’t have to compete for labor. Bigness itself isn’t a problem, it is when bigness results from government intervention granting privilege. Regulation is done TO us on behalf of Big Business, it does not PROTECT us. These businesses are WRITING these laws.
My first car had no heater, it had holes in the floor and was 13 years old. It cost $75 and I drove it for almost 5 years. So what. No one OWED me a car.

 

[Cho]

Well,'currently the government decrees a minimum wage, not that there aren’t problems with that.

You say that we are being chronocentric, I say you are too. You are totally ignoring the very real abuses that were taking place: the incredibly low wages given by owners who were living high on the hog, the lack of care for the workers, etc.

Moreover, the whole industrialization could not have occurred without the government’s intervening to get the land for the railways (and later highways).

You say von Mises was Jewish and so looked at the whole thing economically; I don’t know what his being Jewish had to do with it, but if you look at things purely economicaly, then you look at people as objects, not as persons, as I described in a previous post. This is not Catholic.

And you seem to say that government interventions like worker’s comp is a bad thing, but without it, we would see what we saw in the 1890s: workers injured on the job and simply let go. That’s just one example. The abuses of workers in terms of company script, etc, were rampant, and show what free-market business people get up to without government intervention.

Did Von Mises foresee that? Or did he just accept that cruelty as a cost of doing business?

HOW are business owners able to exploit workers? Because the LAW denies them other economic opportunity and workers are forced to work in certain places. One example, the sanitation laws denying farmers the right to sell raw milk, uninspected beef, etc. And the farmers haven’t been the ones causing health problems with meat, it is the protected meat packers and other big businesses.
My Chronocentricity, as you refer to it, was DEFENDING YOUR Distributionist G.K.C. I have no idea why you are complaining about it. Please explain how I am being Chronocentric??
Gov’t intervening for raiways?? No argument there. But that is the TIP of the problem.

And I am sorry, but I am SICK to DEATH of Distributionists claiming that I am not Catholic because I disagree that their wealth redistribution scheme is Catholic Dogma. You show me it is and I will leave the Church to the commies…and Communism is what it is. And communism dressed up as self righteous “Catholic Caring For The Poor” is just as immoral as any of these Big Business abuses you are complaining about. As far as looking at people as objects, YOU are viewing them as greedy moneybags to exploit, property to grab. I am the one willing to allow them freedom and the dignity to choose how to live. And THAT is loving my brother as myself.
What is the Federal Reserve doing but forcing ALL of us to use “Company” scrip??? But you are oblivious to that in your zeal to simplistically paint all the problems of the world on “greedy capitalists”. Wouldn’t want to mess with the NWO Fed. That is a commie sacred cow.

It is BECAUSE of such cruelty that Mises promotes free markets, but you apparently can’t see how the state can be bought off by big business to exploit the poor. I don’t mind ignorance, but PLEASE, know what you are talking about before you start getting snarky.

 

[David_Castlen]

It’s a mistake to judge people of other times by our standards when we have the benefit of hindsight. Back in Chestertons day socialism was not the discredited philosophy it is today. It was a time when science seemed capable of solving all of the problems of mankind. Scientific government by experts planning how everyone should live seemed like it could work. Eugenics was in favor, Darwinism seemed to be more scientific than the poetry of Genesis. Empiricism, materialism ushered in by awe at scientific advances blinded people to the reality of the spiritual. People still have the yearning for righteousness so they try to create it on their own, oddly oblivious to the fact that any demand for righteousness or justice depends upon an objective morality independent of men, as men are corrupt. You would think that a man as brilliant as Chesterton would have seen all of this, however. Others did. Ludwig Von Mises warned against socialism and communism, predicted the Great Depression would arise out of state economic intervention. But Mises, a Jew, was coming from an economic perspective, and he was largely ignored.
Economics has laws, causes and effects arising out of human action. Ignoring these and pretending that government can simply decree a “living wage” or decree that everyone be “middle class” or own their own home is akin to believing in fairy tales. It is pagan state worship. Wealth redistribution is a doctrine of state worship.

And Von Mises saw this coming as a result of the German government at the turn of the century that was beginning to espouse socialism! Von Mises was a prophet.

 

[David_Castlen]

Thanks for all the reading suggestions, I have read some of them.

I am not trying to win an argument. My major point is that distributism is neither communistic nor socialistic.
*

**Ok, you say that distriubtism is neither communistic (having the qualities of communism) or socialistic (having the qualites/nature of socialism). Perhaps I am wrong.

Does Distributist philosphy propose that when an organization / company gets “too” big that that organization / company must be downsized or elliminated? Please tell me?**

**From this answer perhaps we can investiage furthur my fault or your mistake. I look forward to your response; again, does distributism propose that an organization can get too big and at that point of “too big” it should be reduced in size or eliminated?
**

**Pleae, if you will, lets go slow with short answers as I am a slow person and learn even slower - as you can tell. I met with my Catechism group this AM as we always do on Sunday mornings. I learned something that was quite an enlightment. St. Augustine did not believe that Mary was born without original sin. If St. Augustine was wrong, my quess is maybe I can be wrong.

I owe you an apology, St. Francis. I may have been contenious with you. And I ask forgiveness. You must understand my extensive experience in business and and study of economics, along with my humility, leads me to believe there is nothing that will make the poor pooer than programs like Distributism. But to add insult to injury it creates envy. I seldom get in these discussion when, after awhile, the proponant of these programs will begin to demonize successful businesses.

Again, I ask for your forgiveness and hope we can continue with this discussion. Does Distrubutism “recognize” a point of an orgaznization being too big and, therefore the organization must be down-sixzed or elliminated (if it is too big)?.**

 

[St_Francis]

David and Cho,
I have not said you weren’t good Carholics because you do not espouse distributism. Nor do I believe that at all.

However, I do think that neither of you understands distributive justice, a concept explored by St Thomas Aquinas so not really a modernist heresy, nor the Catholic understanding of the role of the government.

You two are upset because you think we are saying bad and unwarranted things about you, but you are saying bad and unwarranted things about us. I am not a person who blogs about the evil capitalists on a Mac, or anyone remottely like that.

I also did not say that businessmen were necessarily greedy. I said something completely different, but you gloss right over that.

I don’t have the time or the money to read through Von Mises’s books. I am extremely limited. But I don’t see the big deal about his having predicted the Depression, I, using just my common sense, knew that the dot.com explosion of the 90s was a bubble, and I saw back in the 90s that the housing market would collapse.

I see that there is a huge chasm between your way of thinking and mine. I read Ayn Rand over 30 years ago; I know that there is a thrill there but I also saw flaws in her work (and she turned out to be a horrible person). I know the appeal rugged individualism can hold, but I also know that it is just a fantasy like socialism and communism, because it doesn’t accord with reality.

I have asked a distributist about your question (accusation?) that distributism or the implementaion of distributism would require massive amounts of government redistribution, which, btw, I am not sure what you mean by, and if I get an answer, I will share eith you, but I really don’t think that we are getting anywhere otherwise, because I don’t have the resources, time, or background to respond adequately to your points or to untangle what I see as your errors in logic.