Why not distributism?

[Robert_Sock]

Why did you change them?

You seem to think there is a distinction between the needy class and the greedy class.

I said that our society is basically very greedy, and the basic needs of certain groups, such as the homeless and elderly, are being almost completely ignored.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Please.

Welfare is about throwing scraps of food at the hungry so that just for today, they feel a little less hungry so they vote for those that claimed to feed them. Government programs are about extending and enlarging the “needy” class to ensure they are always there to provide votes. Such programs are always mismanaged and ineffective and have done nothing to alleviate the level of poverty in the in US despite of having spent trillions of dollars. When federal welfare programs were greatly expanded under Johnson the US poverty rate stopped dropping after a steady decline for 30 years. Even worse after staying more or less steady for decades they have begun to greatly expand under Obama - thus locking in more voters…

federalsafetynet.com/poverty-and-spending-over-the-years.html

Er no. As I said, because something has been mismanaged does not imply that the underlying objective was wrong.

If you look beyond the United States and look at countries such as Denmark you will see that social welfare has indeed had a vastly positive effect. There is very low unemployment, high literacy and education rates and high workforce productivity. As soon as a man no longer has to worry about where to get his next meal, he is able to use his brain for more productive things and become an innovator or entrepreneur. And what better time to think about entrepreneursim than when you’re unemployed and don’t have a day job to sap your innovative energy and keep you down? I know of several people who went straight from unemployment into running their own business, and they wouldn’t have been able to do it if welfare hadn’t fed them through the difficult years.

The United States system bases on Capitalism, and Capitalism says anything goes as long as it makes money. Therefore the Capitalist who is on welfare thinks he is perfectly entitled to milk the system and do nothing in return. That’s what you get when you teach people capitalism and then stick them on welfare. Furthermore, the Capitalist employer wants to pay his people as little as possible, and the best way to do that is to have high unemployment as this makes it easier to fire and replace people. This form of Capitalism thus needs high unemployment and thus the government (who eat out of the hands of big corporations) are thus incentivized to create a failing and dysfunctional welfare system that prevents social mobility and preserves a large class of poorly educated unemployed people. Big corporations love that. In countries where Capitalist leanings are less strong, people have different motivations and it doesn’t work like that.

 

[ahollars]

When he sees the luxurious residence or the charming country house of a wealthy person, a poor workingman often asks himself: “Why is there such inequality in the world?”

How many volumes have been written about equality among men! How much blood has been spilled for this idea! And yet, in spite of it all, we still have the rich and the poor…

Let us imagine that one day all the inhabitants of the world would assemble to put into effect this sharing of all goods; and that in fact each person, granted that the world is very big, received an exactly equal portion of the wealth existing on earth.

Then what? That very evening one man might say, “Today I worked hard: now I am going to take rest.” Another might state, “I understand this sharing of goods well; so let’s drink and celebrate such an extraordinary happening.” On the other hand, another might say, “Now I am going to set to work with a will so as to reap the greatest benefit I can from what I have received.” And so, starting on the next day, the first man would have only the amount given him; the second would have less, and the third would have increased his.

Then what do we do? Start redistributing the wealth all over again?

Even if everybody began to work right away with all his might and at the same time, the results would not be identical for all. There are, in fact, different kinds of work which are unequally productive; nor do all workers enjoy the same identical capacities. This leads to a diversity of results achieved, and consequently to differences in people’s profits.

~Saint Maximilian Kolbe~

 

[SamH]

I said that our society is basically very greedy, and the basic needs of certain groups, such as the homeless and elderly, are being almost completely ignored.

Have you seen the amount of money spent on these two groups? Social security is the greatest transfer of wealth from the the poorest to the richest in the history of mankind.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

When he sees the luxurious residence or the charming country house of a wealthy person, a poor workingman often asks himself: “Why is there such inequality in the world?”

How many volumes have been written about equality among men! How much blood has been spilled for this idea! And yet, in spite of it all, we still have the rich and the poor…

Let us imagine that one day all the inhabitants of the world would assemble to put into effect this sharing of all goods; and that in fact each person, granted that the world is very big, received an exactly equal portion of the wealth existing on earth.

Then what? That very evening one man might say, “Today I worked hard: now I am going to take rest.” Another might state, “I understand this sharing of goods well; so let’s drink and celebrate such an extraordinary happening.” On the other hand, another might say, “Now I am going to set to work with a will so as to reap the greatest benefit I can from what I have received.” And so, starting on the next day, the first man would have only the amount given him; the second would have less, and the third would have increased his.

Then what do we do? Start redistributing the wealth all over again?

Even if everybody began to work right away with all his might and at the same time, the results would not be identical for all. There are, in fact, different kinds of work which are unequally productive; nor do all workers enjoy the same identical capacities. This leads to a diversity of results achieved, and consequently to differences in people’s profits.

~Saint Maximilian Kolbe~

This argument is extrapolating distributism to be something that it isn’t.

It’s not about total equality but about cushioning the extremes.

So if a poor man has nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep, it’s not about sharing the rich man’s goods with him equally, but it’s about providing a minimalist safety net and providing the poor man with an opportunity to once again become a productive part of society…

 

[Least]

I said that our society is basically very greedy, and the basic needs of certain groups, such as the homeless and elderly, are being almost completely ignored.

If you feel guilty (it’s probably just Communism) but maybe you should do more.

 

[Least]

This argument is extrapolating distributism to be something that it isn’t.

It’s not about total equality but about cushioning the extremes.

So if a poor man has nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep, it’s not about sharing the rich man’s goods with him equally, but it’s about providing a minimalist safety net and providing the poor man with an opportunity to once again become a productive part of society…

Lack of providence for such an individual may be a failing on the part of many people around such person, and the “poor man.”

Compelling someone to offer help is your failing. Not even JESUS did that. HE told (various individuals) to come down from the tree, arise from the grave, admit that they had touched the hem of his garment, confirm the alleviation of their ailments to various authorities. He didn’t even attempt to guilt-them to do good, he just told people how they should view their fellow man, their connection to them, and their combined connection to THE FATHER.

 

[Jozefo]

Lack of providence for such an individual may be a failing on the part of many people around such person, and the “poor man.”

Compelling someone to offer help is your failing. Not even JESUS did that. HE told (various individuals) to come down from the tree, arise from the grave, admit that they had touched the hem of his garment, confirm the alleviation of their ailments to various authorities. He didn’t even attempt to guilt-them to do good, he just told people how they should view their fellow man, their connection to them, and their combined connection to THE FATHER.

Force and coercion used to implement “enlightened” public policy reveals the true source for these kinds of schemes, in my opinion. Distributism requires that private ownership of property be respected, and so far it is allowed in only limited ways in the world.

I wish people were more free to choose to implement distributist models in the macro-economy, but until it is allowed, we have Jesus’ example to follow, as you so appropriately have shown.

 

[J_Peterson]

Distributism has started to interest me quite a bit lately. What are some good books to read on the subject? Maybe something historical and something with a more modern outlook.

 

[Crispy2000]

I’m confused about how distributism is supposed to function. If I understood correctly, in a distributist system,

1. People have a right to property,
   *]They are allowed to do what they want with this property. Right?
   *]If Adam wants to sell all or part of his land to Bob, he’s allowed to do so. E.g. he may decide he no longer wants to or is able to farm the land.
   *]If Bob can get a synergistic productivity boost from having the enlarged property, it’s in his interest to buy it.
   *]Bob and Adam work out a fair exchange for the land. Both get what they want in the exchange.
   *]Adam invests the money unwisely, or runs into some bad luck.
   *]Without having been cheated or exploited, Adam is now poor.
   
   Under this scenario, which probably happens almost every day, Adam is no better off under distributism than he would have been under laissez-faire capitalism. Under either system, voluntary charity could be used to lift Adam out of poverty without requiring government interference.
   
   Is there some provision in the distributist system which solves Adam’s problem while still allowing him the free agency to use his property as he sees fit?

 

[St_Francis]

Distributism has started to interest me quite a bit lately. What are some good books to read on the subject? Maybe something historical and something with a more modern outlook.

The Distributist Review has lots of “modern” information.

The ChesterBelloc Mandate was the precursor to the DR above. I don’t know if they moved everything over, bit there was a fair amount of older works here.

 

[tafan]

I’m confused about how distributism is supposed to function. If I understood correctly, in a distributist system,

1. People have a right to property,
   *]They are allowed to do what they want with this property. Right?
   *]If Adam wants to sell all or part of his land to Bob, he’s allowed to do so. E.g. he may decide he no longer wants to or is able to farm the land.
   *]If Bob can get a synergistic productivity boost from having the enlarged property, it’s in his interest to buy it.
   *]Bob and Adam work out a fair exchange for the land. Both get what they want in the exchange.
   *]Adam invests the money unwisely, or runs into some bad luck.
   *]Without having been cheated or exploited, Adam is now poor.
   
   Under this scenario, which probably happens almost every day, Adam is no better off under distributism than he would have been under laissez-faire capitalism. Under either system, voluntary charity could be used to lift Adam out of poverty without requiring government interference.
   
   Is there some provision in the distributist system which solves Adam’s problem while still allowing him the free agency to use his property as he sees fit?

1. 
   I believe most people who support distributism would take exception to number 2, to varying degrees. An example would be the old home-steading laws in many states. Homesteads were exempt from bankruptcy laws, and as such one could not mortgage the homestead to finance anything else besides the land itself. I would add, that in general, the idea one can do whatever one wants with their private property does not coincide with Catholic Church teaching.
   
   As to your example, distributionism (as defined by Belloc or Chesterton) never envisioned that there would not be rich people and poor people. And Leo XIII acknowledged this as well in his great encyclical Rerum Novarum. What they said was that the economy and laws would be structured as such as to encourage great distribution of property ownership, so as to minimize/discourage the Adams and the Bobs of the world.
   
   An example would be the increase of tax rates, not based on one’s income, but based on one’s property ownership. Gigantism would be discouraged.
   
   If society were structured correctly, people such as Adam would understand that you just don’t sell your homestead (unless you were immediately buying a new homestead to replace it).
   
   This country has a unique window on distributism. At the same time Chesterton and Belloc were complaining about the ravages of capitalism in the big cities and industrialized areas (which certainly existed), in the rural, Midwestern United States distributionism existed and functioned quite well. You had lots of small farmers, lots of true cooperatives, homestead laws, etc. Perhaps the only place and time it did exist.

 

[Matilda_Bennett]

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