The Virtue of the Distributist

[Guest Aluigi]

Blessed are the meek: for they shall [b]posses [/b]the land

Private property and ownership of the land is a basic right of the human person, part of what separates us from the beasts.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.

Economics ought to consider justice more whereas it currently considers indifference.

In distributism, everyone gets the right to private property, and they ought to own their means of production. Under capitalism, the pizza maker works for a pizza hut, simply selling themself and their time into slavery for the corporation. Under distributism, the pizza maker would own his own pizza oven. See what happens, he turns from a mere wage-slave into an entrepreneur. The farmer owns his land, the teacher owns his classroom, et cetera. Doing away with privtate property is not the answer, you simply have to increase availablility of property.

<discuss...>

[crusader1234]

Who else saw this coming?

[Socrates]

I'm for the goals of distributism (widespread property ownership), but am not sure how practical the implimentation of this system would be.

I believe that we should get rid of much of the taxes and redtape that make it so difficult for the small business owner to get started and succeed. I think removing the obstacles to small business and making policies to encourage entrepreneusrship and make it more feasible is a more effective approach than punishing "big business."

I am against the ideas of some distibutists which are close to socialism in nature - those that involve government comfiscation and redistribution of wealth deemed by the government to be excessive. This is in reality a form of socialism, and makes private property and wealth in essense the property of the State.

Not all who call themselves distributists agree on what this means in practical terms. Some distributist ideas I am for, others I am not.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='crusader1234' date='Jan 21 2005, 06:02 PM'] Who else saw this coming? [/quote]
:wave:

[Guest Aluigi]

Hey, I had to fulfill all PhatMass righteousness

Bellocian distributism is best
Chestertonian distributism is best
LeoXIIIian distributism is best

introducing socialist policies into it, not good. there was no government confiscation/redistribution of wealth in the middle ages. Anyway, I think these people are simply talking about how to make it happen, that's not the policy we should use to make it happen. I have a much better idea: break up big businesses into many small businesses that hold a guild framework for prices and standards. split up franchises.

The government confiscation of wealth idea is the wrong way to bring it about. that's simply how they think they're going to take down Capitalism. won't work. Illegalize franchises and split up big businesses into small ones, and you're golden.

Belloc Enterprises, my new dream that' actually a practical idea, is going to have many branches all devoted to bringing this about. And it's going to be a business designed to split apart inot many many local small businesses connected by the Belloc Guild when it's job is in full motion. That way we'll have a practical model of how to really convert Capitalism.

Edited January 22, 2005 by Aluigi

[kjvail]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jan 21 2005, 08:05 PM'] I'm for the goals of distributism (widespread property ownership), but am not sure how practical the implimentation of this system would be.

I believe that we should get rid of much of the taxes and redtape that make it so difficult for the small business owner to get started and succeed. I think removing the obstacles to small business and making policies to encourage entrepreneusrship and make it more feasible is a more effective approach than punishing "big business."

I am against the ideas of some distibutists which are close to socialism in nature - those that involve government comfiscation and redistribution of wealth deemed by the government to be excessive. This is in reality a form of socialism, and makes private property and wealth in essense the property of the State.

Not all who call themselves distributists agree on what this means in practical terms. Some distributist ideas I am for, others I am not. [/quote]
I'm very interested in distributism but I share the same misgivings. If "distribution" involves the confiscation of property by a powerful state then all you have done is give communism another name.
For this reason I tend to lean towards Austrian economics. It's actually a practical system that could be implemented . Remove the dominance of the state and you allow room for the Church to re-Christianize society. A Christianized society with a Austo-Capitialist economy would be nearly distributist without relying on the forcible redistribution of property.
I know capitalism is not an ideal system but until someone can show me how you go from a socialist economy (what we have now) to a distributist model then I can't see it's feasibility.

[Guest Aluigi]

DISTRIBUTISM IS ALL ABOUT SMALL GOVERNMENT!!
There is no confiscation/redistribution at all. It's about the idea that means of production are evenly distributed among all who want and will work for them.

It's just a faulty way of implementing distributism that you're talking about.

Edited January 22, 2005 by Aluigi

[kjvail]

[quote name='Aluigi' date='Jan 21 2005, 09:18 PM'] DISTRIBUTISM IS ALL ABOUT SMALL GOVERNMENT!! [/quote]
I understand how it [i]used [/i] to work, but I'm not sure how you get there from here. The nation state as the dominant political entity has to be abolished and society re-Christianized for distributism to work. It is predicated on the Social Kingship of Christ and probably a monarchist governmental structure. None of which exists in the modern world.

[Guest Aluigi]

read Hillaire Belloc. it does not require a monarchy. anyway, I have a plan. Everyone beware, because I am planning on establishing Belloc Enterprises and paving the way for the conversion of Capitalism. I'll provide the example of how it can be done, then a political party can come up and follow what I did in the private secotr.

[crusader1234]

Oh, carp. This has been an Athanasian ruse all along!

Athanasia Files
#29384723c
Aloysius (aka Aluigi aka Aloysius Ghost etc) has tricked the world into voicing support for Athanasia.

January 20, 2005

[Guest Aluigi]

lol. ACTUALLY, I'm going to use my Economics project to form a complete business plan and everything I need to start Belloc Enterprises. Perhaps if Belloc Enterprises is successful I'll make enough to buy an island. There is going to be a loaning department of Belloc Enterprises functioning on a strictly non-usurious type of loan. We'll break even on all non-productive loans and it'll actually be quite profitable in a productive loan. And it'll all be moral too!

[Guest Aluigi]

BUMP for Laudate_Dominum

[Guest Aluigi]

BUMP

[God Conquers]

Bellocian distributism rules. As does the man behind it.

[MichaelFilo]

Illegaliz4e franchise. Rob the company owners. Big companies are where it is at today. You'd have to break down these companies to achieve distributalism. These in effect robs thoe who own those companies and have founded them on legal terms.

Also, key problems
-Funding for research, and technological progress would greatly cease, since it is these companies that fuel the research. Ex) Take out microsoft, take out all that funding on computer technology.

-Building layout, out very cities are built for big business. You'd have to remap skyscrapers and rent out rooms (by the way who gets the rent?) or destroy them in favor of smaller buildings, this requires $. Lots of $.

-Equipment, many jobs require alot of equipment to operate. Hospitals require many doctors and lots of technologically advanced equipment, unless you suggest robbing the owners of these hospitals from their equpment, how do you get these to private practices?

More to come,

God bless,
Mikey

[God Conquers]

The practicality of instituting distributism is at the moment its greatest difficulty.

But having public health care solves the hospital problem.

[Guest Aluigi]

you need a strong guild system to keep the economic stability of big business. the local McDonald's will become Joe's Burger Place but also a member of the McDonald's Guild that fixes prices and standards. It's not about robbing anybody, but rather taking the slavery property out of the slave owner's hands.

With many small businesses working together and connected with good strong guild systems (not a mere union, a real guild) research would still be extremely workable. Small businesses work together without creating a distant higher class (the higher class is close to the lower class). The benefits of big business capitalism would be kept in tact by guilds who would be the main funders of the research.

In the short term it looks nice to make socialized healthcare, but it makes people dependent on the government. That is not the government's place.

[MichaelFilo]

How would public health care do it? It would require people to work for the government, wouldn't it (I am not aware of how it works, per se)? If so, then you have people working for a business again, except for it's the government.

God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

I am against government healthcare. It is not the government's place.

Take something good and put it into an unattainable unownable place (like public government) and people become DEPENDANT on that place, on that government.

Hey, wouldn't it be nice if we were provided food directly for our labor?
The African slaves didn't think so.

Same thing for everything else. Once you are dependent on the government for your healthcare, it holds more power over you. Ronald Reagan noticed it, but way before him Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton noticed it.

[quote]  In the absence, the gradual decline (where it is declining) of
the Catholic ethic, slavery is coming back.  Anyone with eyes to see
can watch it coming back slowly but certainly--like a tide.  Slowly
but certainly the proletarian, by every political reform which
secures his well-being under new rules of insurance, of State control
in education, of State medicine and the rest, is developing into the
slave, leaving the rich man apart and free.  All industrial
civilization is clearly moving towards the reestablishment of the
Servile State, a matter I have discussed at greater length under the
title of "the New Paganism."[/quote]

-Hillaire Belloc, "The Faith and Industrial Capitalism"

<but we've digressed from the pro-distributist thread into an anti-socialist anti-capitlist combo. but if that is what is needed to clarify what distributism is, sobeit. don't let this sidetrack overwhelm the discussion>

Edited January 27, 2005 by Aluigi

[MichaelFilo]

If I understand this correctly, big companies don't lose anything, except ownership of their property. In exchange they get people who run their stores, make all the money, and get to name some guild after the former owner of their "stores"? Go on to explain a little here, what do you do? I've never read the book, so make it clear to me how exactly you turn big companies into small businesses without robbing the big companies?

God bless,

Mikey