The Government of Distributism

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A night-watchman state with rigorous anti-trust laws is all you really need. The rest is up to the people to build and connect the kinds of cooperative companies and local economies that enable distributism to work on a broad scale.

In other words, shop local, vote for centrist politicians, don’t invest in or work for large corporations and put your money in credit unions, not the banks.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
Ok so now you’re arguing synonyms
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No, you said with fewer sources the supply goes down. But why does a monopoly imply fewer sources? It does not.
Aquinas11 said:
See where I replied to OP
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That’s what started this discussion. Your original reply to the OP make ZERO economic sense. And all you can say is “let’s start over”?

Again, distributionism is not the natural result of a free market economy. Indeed, with government controls, history shows the exact opposite.
 
Aquinas11 said:
That is an exception, and premised on situations outside free market (high start up costs due to government fees, licensing fees, taxes, etc)
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There are costs other than those imposed by the government, such as acquiring the land, buildings, and equipment to do whatever the company does.
 
Neithan said:
A night-watchman state with rigorous anti-trust laws is all you really need
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Safety nets, especially in a time with declining religious adherence and reduced social capital (less particiapation in service clubs for one)?

Vote Centrists?
 
Yeah, centrism is pretty hit-or-miss. But typically, right of centre supports big corporations, and left of centre supports big government, neither of which are helpful for distributism. Libertarianism doesn’t tend to support anti-trust laws though.
 
I wrote: “If the start-up costs are too high, Company B will have a hard time getting off the ground.”

You wrote: “That is an exception, and premised on situations outside free market (high start up costs due to government fees, licensing fees, taxes, etc)”

[ETA: I responded: "There are costs other than those imposed by the government, such as acquiring the land, buildings, and equipment to do whatever the company does.]

Now you are saying. . . .

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Aquinas11 said:
Yes it does , see above post. You’re arguing synonyms
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What above post? Arguing synonyms, I don’t even know what you are talking about. A monopoly does not imply fewer sources nor smaller supplies. . . .
 
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How about the American Solidarity Party? I was going to post a link, but that might seem like canvassing. Looks like it advocates for all the distributist criteria.
 
I have added my Post C. I am now going to delete my subsequent posts to you and hope you will do the same.
 
Have you heard of Respublica’s Philip Blond’s vision on Red Toryism, your thoughts on PM Camerons’s BIg Society (which didn’t play out too well)?
 
Thank you all for your replies. I think one important distinction to understand is that distributism is not socialism/communism. The goal of socialism/communism is the eradication of private property and its concentration in the hands of big government, while capitalism (which is not a synonym for free market) is the concentration of property and the means of production in the hands of big businesses. Distributism is pro-property, aiming for having as manner owners, both of property in general and especially the means of production, in as large a segment of the population as possible. Rather than three-fourths of the population working under the other fourth, the latter owning all the means of production, in distributism most people would own what they produce and the means by which they produce it. They would then receive salary directly based on their production, and the economy would focus on producing/consuming instead of buying/selling, as in capitalism. This is essentially the ultimate free market, ‘free’ in the Catholic, not anarchical sense.

Now, back to my original topic. I’m not very familiar with the Tory party (I’m an American), so I can’t say how it might fit with distributism. However, I don’t think Centrism is really the best route, especially because in modern republican states, parties are not only economic and political but also moralistic, and so voting often has as much to do with morality as with practicality. But, I definitely think cooperatives between small businesses, as well as in specific industries in a wider area, could help satisfy subsidiarity and avoid monopoly and the price gouging methods of big corporations.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
Free market itself prevents corporations gaining too wide control. Think about it. If company A starts to sell product at higher and higher price, then in a free market someone will start company B and compete by selling same product at lower price. Monopoly can’t form. Demand for lower price would inevitably mean someone will open up company and compete.
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In principle yes, but the timescale required for the market to react in this way is long and a lot of damage is caused during the latency.

I sometimes say engineers would be the better economists because engineers focus on feedback loops and system latency and stability crieria whereas economists make models in which they assume these things to be linear and ideal, or worse still, nonexistent.

Many economists also struggle with differential calculus, which is why they avoid it, which is why their models are oversimplified.
 
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Cirdan_XII said:
I sometimes say engineers would be the better economists because engineers focus on feedback loops and system latency and stability crieria whereas economists make models in which they assume these things to be linear and ideal, or worse still, nonexistent.

Many economists also struggle with differential calculus, which is why they avoid it, which is why their models are oversimplified.
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Basically, economists suck at what they do. Hence the advent of Keynesians.
 
alcuin18 said:
Rather than three-fourths of the population working under the other fourth, the latter owning all the means of production, in distributism most people would own what they produce and the means by which they produce it.
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I do see anything inherently wrong with this proportion. The Pareto Principle seems to occur in many places completely naturally and works quite well. (Technically that would be a 4-1 ratio, but no need to split hairs).
 
alcuin18 said:
Thank you all for your replies. I think one important distinction to understand is that distributism is not socialism/communism.
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Since there are no historical or current examples of this governance to study, what “it is” remains subjective. I don’t think it could be accomplished unless you had a socialist govt in place. Implementing it would be very intrusive and require constant adjustments to keep things equal between the local regions.
 
Theo520 said:
Since there are no historical or current examples of this governance to study, what “it is” remains subjective. I don’t think it could be accomplished unless you had a socialist govt in place. Implementing it would be very intrusive and require constant adjustments to keep things equal between the local regions.
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I think it can be difficult discussing ‘socialism’ because, like other societal forms, it isn’t always precisely defined. For most Americans, a government that has any forceful involvement in the economic world is inherently socialist, but that is simply not true. Socialism’s fundamental idea is the abolition of private property and its collective ownership by the state. However, the state collecting funds from the people (taxes), or making laws, is not abolishing property, and the Church teaches that the state has the right and responsibility to do both in order to accomplish its main purpose, namely, upholding and defending human rights.

So, for a distributist economy to work, I certainly think it could require more stringest government laws. But that does not mean it would suddenly become socialist. Indeed, as I said, the whole purpose of distributism is to give more ownership, rather than having most ownership of property and the means of production be concentrated in the hands of a few capitalists, corporations and the government, as it is in modern Western states. Its goal is for people to actually own what they make, the means they use to make it and the property where they work and live, rather than being enslaved to corporations who own everything they make and do, or to a government as in socialism. Without government laws, all economic systems become unjust; and without higher principles and economic freedoms, governments become unjust. It is a delicate balance.
 
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