The Virtue of the Distributist

[Guest Aluigi]

the big company has no right to exist so largely anyway and hoard ownership of means of production from the rest of mankind. the big company is broken up by all its locations and everything. Each place is now an individual business owned and operated by the guy that manages it. The big business structure stays in place under the form of a guild which sets prices and standards. The small businesses would voluntarily be members of this guild, it would be advantageous for them anyway. The guild sets prices and standards and probably leads the way in research in the department or there will be individual researching companies. whatever gets it done (there are obviously kinks to work out to introduce this to the modern world). But Joe's burger place is now owned by Joe, not by the corperation. The people work for Joe, not the McDonald's franchise. Joe is the high class and his employees are the low class, but there is a great relationship cultivated in that closeness of the classes and the means of production are now privately owned rather than corporately owned.

[MichaelFilo]

that doesn't explain what happens to the owner of McDonalds.

You said large companies don't have the right to exist. Thats kind of funny,because they do.

Unless you can find some legal and moral solution to stealing all this money from coperation owners, you are doing an unjust thing.

God bless,

Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

they have about as much right to exist as slave owners.

the owner of McDonald's now simply owns his own small business.

It is not theft. The means of production are no longer greedily hoarded by a few people who then in turn make use of others' labor.

big businesses like that only have a right to exist in an indifferent economic system, not one based on Christian economic morality. There is no problem with someone owning more than someone else because they worked harder. but when they own more means of production than someone else preventing others from being able to work as hard as they did to get that, that becomes unjust. That's what happens in coorperations. Small businesses are the key to economic morality that the means of production are more evenly distributed.

[Guest Aluigi]

okay, let me clarify how I completely oppose any form of stealing (though some distributists have fallen into the trap of thinking socialistic theft is the way to bring about distributism, by confiscating wealth from people. in fact, I just sent in a comment to distributism.com complaining about just that.)

I'm talking about disbanding large corporations the way monopolies tend to be disbanded. Though, not in the corrupt ineffective disbanding done by the government nowadays, a complete disbanding into small businesses that do not have many locations. What is my justification? In a corporation specific people take a monopoly on the means of production that prevents the smaller person from owning their own means of production.

Then once they're all disbanded, they shall no longer be allowed to form. There are thus small businesses, strong economy and developement through a strong guild system but more people who own their own means of production.

[MichaelFilo]

Which is all good and nice, and sounds good in theory, but you are still taking away big companies' money and their sources of income. In slavery, all slave owners lost their legally rightful property (slaves) without being compensated. In distributalism, you are taking away the slave owner's rightful property (their big business) and also not compensating them. However, you are splitting what they own amongst other people. This is re-distributing their wealth, and this is socialism.

God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

nope, but it is very common for people to try to paint it as socialism. it is not. in fact, it is far far RIGHT of the spectrum. socialism is pretty far left.

Anyway, corperations are dissolved. No property or wealth is taken from anybody, the corporation is split into many small businesses. If you honestly believe that this slavery is their just property, you should really think about that. You're applying one good factor-- private property, across the board forgetting that it can also be evil-- owning people who do not have control over their own means of production. You work hard to provide for your family and all that, and your business is not allowed to spread over and take over the mass of means of production. you can have a productive and successful business (if you're business is the hardest working) but you cannot span the entire nation and make other people do your bidding with your means of production. you have a problem with my example of how to make it happen, saying that that is a socialist principle. but I reject the mistaken socialist ideas that people think will establish distributism. The dissolving of coorperations is by no means socialist, private property is completely respected. What is reshpaed is the person's business structure, he is not allowed to own a vast empire of businesses (plantations) in which remote people are doing the work.

[Guest Aluigi]

also, in my plan I am not a politician, I am starting a large business designed to break apart. the business will support the developement of more small companies in all other areas through just non-usurious loans. revolution from the private sector, show how beneficial it can be, and then a limitation against coorporation could be instituted by a politician and more businesses would follow the model paved by my company. that's my idea.

[MichaelFilo]

The problem is, taking away the plantations from the slave owner is unjust as far as legal terms BECAUSE, you gave him the right to own those plantations and those workers. You'd have to at least compensate from this. Even the freeing of the slaves was legally unjust, the government took away a right it had given and didn't even begin to compensate for it.

Same with big business, you cannot let it expand to such extremes and then choose to take away the empire with no compensation.This is legally unsound. I don't support slavery or big business, but I don't support taking away either without compensation unless they want to do it on their own will. Like Socartes said in the socialism thread, it's not virtous if the government forces anyone into doing a virtous deed. Same with this, it's not right for the government to pull something like this, even if it is better, against the big business's will. At best, it can force and compensate, but thats highly unlikely considering the amount it would take to compensate for this. (Another example would be forcing slave owners to stop "owning" slaves. It's nice to give people freedom, but you must compensate for the thing you are taking away fromt he people, on a legal level anyways).

God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

illegalizing slavery was morally just regardless of what man's law says. thus you illegalize slavery and then free the slaves.

illegalizing coorperations and franchises would be morally just regardless of what man's law says. thus you illegalize the coorperations and dissolve them.

just because we've let the Reformation turn us into a big business corporate capitalist society doesn't mean God's moral law doesn't still apply in which people ought to be able to own their own means of production privately.

[MichaelFilo]

Morally, all this acceptable, but these are TEMPORAL matters, and should be treated as such. You don't commit a Moral virtue at the expense of another, this isn't a virtue, this isn't goodness to anyone. If you steal from someone, whether unjust their position or not morally, what fault of theirs is it that theya re to be punished by law that they abided too? If you take a temporal action, you must consider temporal consequences. You cannot punish big business owners because they followed the law without compensation. This is morally wrong, even if your end is morally just. To punish a person who works within the law by taking away what they lawfully gained maybe morally good, but must be lawfully compensated for. As of yet, I see no way of compensating for taking away big business owner's businesses...

God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

The dispensation of corporations is not stealing from anyone. The coorporation is split up. Nothing is taken from anyone. When a monopoly is split up, do you consider that stealing from the owner of the monopoly? It is nowhere near that.

Nothing is stolen, a big business is dispersed into many small businesses owned by the people who used to simply manage each of these small businesses. This is considering the right of the human person to own their own private property and their own means of production.

[MichaelFilo]

But you are stealing. You keep avoind the very prevelant fact that you are taking what a person has lawfully built up and have divided and dispersed it to other people. The original owner has had their company TAKEN away to provide for this economic ideology. Sadly, you fail to acknowledge that a person owns these companies, and that by taking them away from that someone and splitting it among other peopkle, you are taking away (stealing) what they have lawfully built up without ANY compensation except a pat on the back that they were nice by force, and had no real other option. This is wrong morally and lawfully.


The right to own private property and even the means of production should be met, just not at the expense of big businesses owners. All you have propsed is you take awy the big business and leave the owners without something they built up by law. There needs to be some compensation, and it should be in full. There is no practical way to do this.


God bless,

Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

I am sorry that I fail to acknowledge the ownership of slaveowners over slaves, but I do not. I believe in a moral economy not an indifferent economy.

[MichaelFilo]

It is not morally just, but it is also not morally just to turn the laws of the land against the people who worked within those laws to unjustly treat them. It is not by any means wrong to compensate someone for an injustice against them, but if you are committing an injustice, you should at least do something to compensate. Whether you choose to recognize the slave owner as being within the law's framework and as such should rightly receive a compensation to free the slave from the law's propogators or not makes no difference, it is unjust to steal fromt he slave owner just like it's wrong to enslave the man. It is worse yet to be the body that allowed the enslavement and then to rectify this action they steal from those they gave power to enslave. God gives power to all nations, and when He takes all power away, he isn't going to judge all national leaders on the premise that they carried out His Will but now it changed, and as such they are in violation of His Will. Because His Will (the law) if it changes, must be compensated (God's kingdom to rule over all the world), and if not then an injustice occurs to punish the nations (take away their power) after that power was granted them by God.

God bless,

Mikey

[Oik]

Actually, justice requires order. Even if something unjust, by just means, was made a law or institution, it does not make that unjust thing worthy of justice.

Just means must be used to disperse it (which I believe Al is saying), but no compensation would be required, at least not in the modern sense of compensation.

HOWEVER, I think I understand what Mich is trying to get at. You can't just do a way with something, even justly, without offering an alternative. In the case of slavery, it is historical that no real compensation was offered and so a small amount of southerners were productively hurt. However, just recourse (unfortunately at the expense of blacks) was granted as southerners did win reconstruction, altough they lost the war. This is of course why I support stipends for blacks who can prove thier connections to once slave relatives.

My conclusion is that it would be unjust to disban corporations *IF* no alternative means were provide, however, Al has addressed and offered those means.

The corporate being would lose its identity and its money, but no worker or human being would. A corporate being would still, in some sense (or matters of law) exist, but in a lesser was that it does in modern times.

[MichaelFilo]

The alternative is where? They lose their money, their empire, their company, their status, and get nothing in return. Yes I do mean compensation in the modern terms, you must give something of equal value to them.

God bless,
Mikey

[Mary's Knight, La]

Here's the problem i have with converting to distributionist

1.) all corporations started out smaller quite often with only a few owners - as profit increased they bought more of the means of production. to disband corporations would be to take away legally acquired goods (buildings, machines, patents, etc...) there is no way to convert without this happening

2.) right now you claim workers are slaves to the corporation this is a problem with the workers mindset when workers realize they too are sellers (of their time and energy) then they can act to correct injustices in the economy. corporations became big by people buying their products the government need only prevent corporations from unfair competition and let the consumer decide which businesses grow and which don't

3.) the guild system works unfairly against the consumer, in the guild system all prices are set by the guild according to the skill of the workman however the problem is this skill is evaluated by the guild rather than the consumer thus consumers may be forced to overpay because the guild forces the prices too high.
capitalism allows cooperation between consumer and seller to set the price and effectively allows consumers to rate the work.

You can say many bad things about capitalism however, most people who badmouth it forget they are supposed to be active participants in the economy rather than passive victims. If capitalism has gone awry it's because both sellers and consumers neglected their responsibility.

I could say the same for our government, if it has gone awry and I think it has in some cases, both the government and the people neglected their responsibility.

We don't need a different system we need people to get off their butts.

[Guest Aluigi]

the problem of capitalism is laissaiz faire, it promotes moral indifference. morality and the economy are separated.

Christendom worked a lot better with a distributist system, and it was moral too.

There would still be competition, multiple guilds per trade and different prices and standards.

Those things started out small and then went and got big. Split them up into multiple small ones again. We're not making the owners poor, just setting proximity and labor laws that make it so the owner of a store also must manage that specific store. The means of production are thus given more of a chance to be evenly distributed, there is still perfect competition and the chance to work harder to make your life better, there's just more oppurtunity to own and businesses are kept in proximity and locality to the consumer. The bridge between the classes is bridged by friendship and loyalty and the consumer still has a choice, just now the choice is between the multiple local businesses, that are probably tied to different guilds or whatever, instead of the choice between the Walmart or the K-Mart. The guilds are simply structured to keep economic stability and the setting of standards is the most important thing they would do. The setting of prices would still be done with consideration to what the people will pay for it.

I define a slave as someone who does not own his own means of production and works using another person's means of production in exchange for their livelihood.

I am not whining about people being poor or declaring that all poor people should just be made not poor or anything of the sort. The oppurtunity for them to own needs to be established because right now all they can do is sell their time and their labor, their very selves, into a corporation in exchange for any money. They ought to offer something, something they own, skill and tools and land they own. This isn't merely about correcting injustices, this is about instituting a just system where ownership of means of production exists among everyone.

Capitalism promotes indifference and takes away the ability to own means of production from most people by offering monopoly on the means of production to the person who will grab as much of it as they can. That's not just-- people just gobbeling up as much means of production as they can.

Edited January 28, 2005 by Aluigi

[MichaelFilo]

Alugi, you fail to point out how the owner doesn't lose. They have to lose quite a bit to get this to the local level. It means that the owner loses all his companies possessions except for one store... one store and everything else is taken (robbed, swindled, or what have you).

For the sake of arugement, how does capitalism make for moral indifference?

The definition of Laissez faire is :

An economic doctrine that opposes governmental regulation of or interference in commerce beyond the minimum necessary for a free-enterprise system to operate according to its own economic laws.

Where is the moral indifference?

God bless,
Mikey

[dairygirl4u2c]

It seems to me that the system of capitalism can be said to be neutral if you want to call it that. If the people that are using it are nice, then it's a good system. If the economics get tight and people still are nice, then wow.

But then you have our reality. Capitalism isn't still inherently bad necessarily. You might wander what to call it though when we say we should allow this capitalism, given that people are not good. Many "conservatives" (noting that I don't like using labels like that that automatically spark bias etc) would say that Christians should take control then. But then what if the christians don't? And those same christians are saying that capitalism should be instilled, given that they or other christians don't do anything to help the unfortunate?

I personally say that we should face reality and realize that if the reality of the situation is that capitalism is hurting people and those hurting people aren't being helped, then we should subdue the capitalism. Let capitalism go, but subdue it with regulations.

YOu might wander how christians will ever sart helping if there's subdued? Well, I can coverall and say that the regulators can figure that out. It needs to be a local effort collaborating with a national greater level. If christians think the regulations are immoral, and would rather help people, then by God let them take people out of government help. Let them stop regulations that only seek to stop employers from taking advantage of their workers.

You have a guy named Bob. There's lots of peole that are at bob's level. Then you havea guy named Bill. (G) Is it right that Bill can pit Bob against all the other people at his level when the other people can't catch a break? I think natural law would let these peole fight Bill to get food (or what have you). Yet we regulate them from fighting Bill too!


We then say that christians should help these people who are being exploited............ (shouldn't the regulations not allow exploitation in the first place)



Edit:
But I do admit that I don't know the reality of the situation. Maybe people aren't having problems. But if that is the case then we shouldn't be arguing about this. Or, if we do argue about it theoretically, "conservatives" sholdn't get put into the corner as I had pretty much put most of them in this post, and then cop out and say that the reality of the situation is that they aren't being hurt. Remember, we're talking about the theory of the situation!

Edited January 28, 2005 by dairygirl4u2c