Charles Race Thorson Mathews (born 27 March 1935
) is an Australian
The position of distributists, when compared to other political philosophies, is somewhat paradoxical and complicated (see triangulation
In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points.
Applications
In surveying
Specifically in surveying, triangulation involves only angle me ...
). Firmly entrenched in an organic
Organic may refer to:
* Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity
* Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ
Chemistry
* Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...
but very English Catholicism, advocating culturally traditionalist and agrarian values, directly challenging the precepts of Whig history
Whig history (or Whig historiography) is an approach to historiography that presents history as a journey from an oppressive and benighted past to a "glorious present". The present described is generally one with modern forms of liberal democracy ...
—Belloc was nonetheless an MP for the Liberal Party, and Chesterton once stated, "As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals". This liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
is different from most modern forms, taking influence from William Cobbett
William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign ...
and John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
, who combined elements of radicalism, challenging the establishment position, but from a perspective of renovation, not revolution; seeing themselves as trying to restore the traditional liberties of England and her people which had been taken away from them, amongst other things, since the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
.
While converging with some aspects of traditional Toryism
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
, especially an appreciation of the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
and organic society, there were several points of significant contention. While many Tories were strongly opposed to reform, the distributists, in some instances, saw this not as conserving a legitimate traditional concept of England but, in many cases, entrenching harmful errors and innovations. Belloc was quite explicit in his opposition to Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
as a concept and schism
A schism ( , , or, less commonly, ) is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization, movement, or religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a split in what had previously been a single religious body, suc ...
from the Catholic Church in general, considering the division of Christendom
Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwine ...
in the 16th century as one of the most harmful events in European history. On the other hand, elements of Toryism were quite intransigent when it came to the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
as the established church, some even spurning their original legitimist
The Legitimists (french: Légitimistes) are royalists who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession to the French crown of the descendants of the eldest branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution. They re ...
ultra-royalist principles in regards to James II James II may refer to:
* James II of Avesnes (died c. 1205), knight of the Fourth Crusade
* James II of Majorca (died 1311), Lord of Montpellier
* James II of Aragon (1267–1327), King of Sicily
* James II, Count of La Marche (1370–1438), King C ...
to uphold it.
Much of Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
' writings on social and economic matters have an affinity with distributism. She may have been influenced by them or have come to similar conclusions on her own. As an Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
, her reasonings are rooted in the theologies of Creation
Creation may refer to:
Religion
*''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing
* Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it
* Creationism, the belief tha ...
and Incarnation
Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...
and slightly differ from the Catholic Chesterton and Belloc.
Economic theory
Private property
Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their land and related machinery, carpenters and plumbers who own their tools, among others. The cooperative approach advances beyond this perspective to recognise that such property and equipment may be co-owned by local communities larger than a family, e.g. partners in a business.
In ''Rerum novarum'', Leo XIII states that people are likely to work harder and with greater commitment if they possess the land on which they labour, which in turn will benefit them and their families as workers will be able to provide for themselves and their household. He puts forward the idea that when men have the opportunity to possess property and work on it, they will "learn to love the very soil which yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of the good things for themselves and those that are dear to them". He also states that owning property is beneficial for a person and their family and is, in fact, a right due to God having "given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race".
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, ''Time'' observed: "Wh ...
presents similar views in his 1910 book, ''What's Wrong with the World''. Chesterton believes that whilst God has limitless capabilities, man has limited abilities in terms of creation. Therefore, man is entitled to own property and treat it as he sees fit, stating: "Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with limits that are strict and even small." Chesterton summed up his distributist views in the phrase " Three acres and a cow".
According to Belloc, the distributive state (the state which has implemented distributism) contains "an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far the greater number of owners of the means of production". This broader distribution does not extend to all property but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for man to survive. It includes land, tools, and so on. Distributism allows society to have public goods such as parks and transit systems. Distributists accept that wage labour will remain a small part of the economy, with small business owners hiring employees, usually young, inexperienced people.
Guild system
The economic order envisaged by the early distributist thinkers would involve the return to some guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
system. The existence of labour unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
does not constitute a realization of this facet of distributist economic order, as labour unions are organized along class
Class or The Class may refer to:
Common uses not otherwise categorized
* Class (biology), a taxonomic rank
* Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects
* Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
lines to promote class interests and frequently class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
. In contrast, guilds are mixed-class syndicates composed of employers and employees cooperating for mutual benefit, promoting class collaboration
Class collaboration is a principle of social organization based upon the belief that the division of society into a hierarchy of social classes is a positive and essential aspect of civilization.
Fascist support
Class collaboration is one of the ...
. This does not suggest that distributists are against trade unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...
, however.
Banking and insurance system
Distributism favours the dissolution of the private banking
Private banking is banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks and financial institutions primarily serving high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs)—defined as those with very high levels of income or sizable assets. A bank that ...
and insurance system in favour of financial cooperatives
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
and mutuals such as credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit organization, nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including depo ...
s, building societies
A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingd ...
, mutual banks and friendly societies
A friendly society (sometimes called a benefit society, mutual aid society, benevolent society, fraternal and service organisations, fraternal organization or Rotating savings and credit association, ROSCA) is a mutual association for the purpo ...
. Distributists disagree with the profit
Profit may refer to:
Business and law
* Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market
* Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit
* Profit (real property), a nonpossessory intere ...
-making basis in charging interest. Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
, for example, suggested abolishing legal enforcement of interest-rate contracts (usury
Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is ch ...
) issued by private banks. It would not entail nationalization
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
but could involve government involvement of some sort.
Antitrust legislation
Distributism appears to have one of its most significant influences in antitrust legislation
In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of mostly federal laws that regulate the conduct and organization of businesses to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies. The three main U.S. antitrust statutes are the Sherman ...
in America and Europe, designed to break up monopolies and excessive concentration of market power in one or only a few companies, trust
Trust often refers to:
* Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality
It may also refer to:
Business and law
* Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another
* Trust (bus ...
s, interests, or cartel
A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...
s. Embodying the philosophy explained by Chesterton above, that too much capitalism means too few capitalists, not too many, America's extensive antitrust legislation seeks to prevent the concentration of market power in a given industry into too few hands. Requiring that no company gain too great a share of any market is an example of how distributism has found its way into government policy
Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...
. This legislation assumes that decentralized economic activity among many different industry participants is better for the economy than having one or a few prominent players in an industry. Note that antitrust regulation does take into account cases when only large companies are viable because of the nature of an industry, as in the case of natural monopolies
A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming adv ...
like electricity distribution. It also accepts that mergers and acquisitions may improve consumer welfare; however, it prefers more economic agents
In economics, an agent is an actor (more specifically, a decision maker) in a model of some aspect of the economy. Typically, every agent makes decisions by solving a well- or ill-defined optimization or choice problem.
For example, ''buyers'' (c ...
to fewer, which generally improves competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
.
Social credit
Social credit
Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...
is an interdisciplinary distributive philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas
Major Clifford Hugh "C. H." Douglas, MIMechE, MIEE (20 January 1879 – 29 September 1952), was a British engineer and pioneer of the social credit economic reform movement.
Education and engineering career
C.H. Douglas was born in either Edge ...
(1879–1952), a British engineer who wrote a book by that name in 1924. It encompasses the fields of economics, political science, history, accounting, and physics. Its policies are designed, according to Douglas, to disperse economic and political power to individuals.
Redistribution of wealth and productive assets
Distributism requires either direct or indirect distribution of the means of production
The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
(productive assets)—in some ideological circles including the redistribution of wealth
Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth (including physical property) from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confisc ...
—to a wide portion of society instead of concentrating it in the hands of a minority of wealthy elites (as seen in its criticism of certain varieties of capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
) or the hands of the state (as seen in its criticism of certain varieties of communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
). More capitalist-oriented supporters support distributism-influenced social capitalism (also known as a social market economy), while more socialist-oriented supporters support distributism-influenced libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (201 ...
. Examples of methods of distributism include direct productive property redistribution, taxation of excessive property ownership, and small-business subsidization.
Social theory
Human family
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, ''Time'' observed: "Wh ...
considered one's home and family the centrepiece of society. He recognized the family unit and home as centrepieces of living and believed that every man should have their property and home to enable him to raise and support his family. Distributists recognize that strengthening and protecting the family requires that society be nurturing. Many proponents of distributism favour enabling the flourishing of family-owned businesses as a central aim of promoting the family unit.
Subsidiarity
Distributism puts great emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity. This principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political) should perform a function that a smaller unit can perform. In '' Quadragesimo anno'', Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City fro ...
provided the classical statement of the principle: "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do".[Pope Pius XI, ]
Quadragesimo anno
', 1931. Thus, any activity of production (which distributism holds to be the most critical part of any economy) ought to be performed by the smallest possible unit. This helps support distributism's argument that smaller units, families, if possible, ought to be in control of the means of production rather than the large units typical of modern economies.
In ''Quadragesimo anno'', Pope Pius XI further stated that "every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them". To prevent large private organizations from thus dominating the body politic, distributism applies this principle of subsidiarity to economic as well as social and political action.
Social security
Distributists believe in a society that is as self-reliant as possible. Some may advocate that families and charitable organisations ought to provide an alternative to social security as a means of advancing the principles of subsidiary. However, many distributists reject the idea of eliminating social security
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
.
Distributists like Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
did not favour social security when the United States government introduced it. This rejection of the new program was due to the direct influence of the ideas of Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. H ...
over American distributists.
The Democratic Labour Party of Australia espouses distributism and does not hold the view of favouring the elimination of social security who, for instance, wish to " ise the level of student income support payments to the Henderson poverty line".
The American Solidarity Party
The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a Christian-democratic political party in the United States. It was founded in 2011 and officially incorporated in 2016. The party has a Solidarity National Committee (SNC) and has numerous active state ...
has a platform of favouring an adequate social security system, stating: "We advocate for social safety nets that adequately provide for the material needs of the most vulnerable in society".
Society of artisans
Distributism promotes a society of artisan
An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...
s and culture. This is influenced by an emphasis on small business, promoting local culture, and favouring small production over capitalistic or socialist mass production
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
. A society of artisans promotes the distributist ideal of the unification of capital, ownership, and production rather than what distributism sees as the alienation of man from work.
Distributism favours a technological 'progression' in which the technological advances of our day are such that the craftsman and artisan can access them from their home or place of business. Examples of this are 3d printers or digital printing of books or small artisan woodshops. In other cases distributism favors 'regression' to a pre-Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
lifestyle since it explicitly favours the craftsman over factories and other industrial centres. Products such as food and clothing would preferably be returned to local producers and artisans instead of being mass-produced nationally or overseas. This 'regression' can either take the form of returning to old ways of production or advances in technology which reduce the physical size of industrial operations so that individuals may produce better results.
Geopolitical theory
Political order
Distributism does not favour one political order over another (political accidentalism). While some distributists such as Dorothy Day have been anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
, it should be remembered that most Chestertonian distributists are opposed to the mere concept of anarchism. Chesterton thought that distributism would benefit from the discipline that theoretical analysis imposes and that distributism is best seen as a widely encompassing concept inside of which any number of interpretations and perspectives can fit. This concept should fit a political system broadly characterized by widespread ownership of productive property.
Political parties
In the United States, the American Solidarity Party
The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a Christian-democratic political party in the United States. It was founded in 2011 and officially incorporated in 2016. The party has a Solidarity National Committee (SNC) and has numerous active state ...
generally adheres to Distributist principles as its economic model. The Brazilian political party, Humanist Party of Solidarity
The Humanist Party of Solidarity ( pt, Partido Humanista da Solidariedade) was a Brazilian political party. Its electoral code was 31 and it became a registered political party on 6 July 1995 with the denomination of "National Solidarity Party" ...
, is a distributist party, alongside the National Distributist Party in England, and the Democratic Labour Party in Australia. Ross Douthat
Ross Gregory Douthat (born 1979) is an American political analyst, blogger, author and ''New York Times'' columnist. He was a senior editor of ''The Atlantic''. He has written on a variety of topics, including the state of Christianity in Americ ...
and Reihan Salam
Reihan Morshed Salam (; born 29 December 1979) is a conservative American political commentator, columnist and author who since 2019 has been president of the Manhattan Institute. He was previously executive editor of ''National Review'', a column ...
view their ''Grand New Party'', a roadmap for revising the Republican Party in the United States
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the Two-party system, two Major party, major contemporary political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by Abolitionism in the United Stat ...
, as "a book written in the distributist tradition". The Pirate Party of Romania
The Pirate Party Romania ( ro, Partidul Pirat România) is a political party in Romania based on the Swedish Pirate Party. The party is a member of the international Pirate Party movement and is focused on copyright and patent reform, interne ...
is also considered to be a distributist party.
War
Distributists usually use just war theory
The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war is m ...
in determining whether a war should be fought or not. Historical positions of distributist thinkers provide insight into a distributist position on war. Belloc and Chesterton opposed British imperialism in general and explicitly opposed the Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
, but they supported British involvement in World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
On the other hand, prominent distributists such as Dorothy Day and those involved in the Catholic Worker Movement were/are strict pacifists
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigne ...
, even condemning involvement in World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
at much personal cost.
Influence
E. F. Schumacher
Distributism is known to have influenced the economist E. F. Schumacher
Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies.Biography on the inner dustjacket ...
, a convert to Catholicism.
Mondragon Corporation
The Mondragon Corporation
The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain.
It was founded in the town of Mondragon in 1956 by José María Arizmendiarrieta and a group of his students at a technical ...
, based in the Basque Country
Basque Country may refer to:
* Basque Country (autonomous community), as used in Spain ( es, País Vasco, link=no), also called , an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain (shown in pink on the map)
* French Basque Country o ...
in a region of Spain and France, was founded by a Catholic priest, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta
Father José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga ( Marquina-Xemein, Bizkaia, Spain, April 22, 1915 - Mondragon, Gipuzkoa, Spain, November 29, 1976) was a Basque Catholic priest and promoter of the cooperative companies of the Mondragon Corporat ...
, who seems to have been influenced by the same Catholic social and economic teachings that inspired Belloc, Chesterton, Father Vincent McNabb
Vincent McNabb, Ordo Praedicatorum, O.P. (8 July 1868 – 17 June 1943) was an Irish Catholics, Irish Catholic scholar and Dominican Order, Dominican priest based in London, active in evangelisation and Christian apologetics, apologetics.
...
, and the other founders of distributism.
Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic
Distributist ideas were put into practice by The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic
The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic was a Roman Catholic community of artists and craftspeople founded in 1920 in Ditchling, East Sussex, England. It was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and its legacy led to the creation of Ditchling ...
, a group of artists and craftsmen who established a community in Ditchling
Ditchling is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is contained within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park; the order confirming the establishment of the park was signed in Ditchling.
...
, Sussex, England, in 1920, with the motto "Men rich in virtue studying beautifulness living in peace in their houses". The guild sought to recreate an idealised medieval lifestyle in the manner of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It survived for almost 70 years until 1989.
Big Society
The Big Society
The Big Society was a sociopolitical concept of the first 15 years of the 21st century, that was developed by the populist Steve Hilton, that sought to integrate free market economics with a conservative paternalist conception of the social con ...
was the flagship policy idea of the 2010 UK Conservative Party general election manifesto. Some distributists claim that the rhetorical marketing of this policy was influenced by aphorisms of the distributist ideology and promotes distributism.[A Potential Step in the Right Direction]
21 July 2010 It purportedly formed a part of the legislative programme of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
.[Cameron and Clegg set out 'big society' policy ideas]
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
News 18-May-2010 The stated aim was "to create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a big society that will 'take power away from politicians and give it to people.'"[Government launches "Big Society" programme]
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...
website 18-May-2010 The idea of the Big Society was suggested by Steve Hilton
Stephen Glenn Charles Hilton (born 25 August 1969) is a British political commentator and former political adviser. He served as director of strategy for the British Prime Minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2012. Since 2017, Hilton has hosted ...
, who worked as director of strategy for David Cameron during the Coalition government before moving on to live and work in California. Big Society gradually declined as an instrument of government policy throughout the 2010–2015 government.
List of Distributist Parties
Current
* Australia - Democratic Labour Party
* Romania - Pirate Party Romania
The Pirate Party Romania ( ro, Partidul Pirat România) is a political party in Romania based on the Swedish Pirate Party (Sweden), Pirate Party. The party is a member of the Pirate Parties International, international Pirate Party movement and ...
* United Kingdom - National Distributist Party
* United States - American Solidarity Party
The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a Christian-democratic political party in the United States. It was founded in 2011 and officially incorporated in 2016. The party has a Solidarity National Committee (SNC) and has numerous active state ...
Historical
Notable distributists
Historical
* Herbert Agar
Herbert Sebastian Agar (29 September 1897 – 24 November 1980) was an American journalist and historian, and an editor of the ''Louisville Courier-Journal''.
Early life
Herbert Sebastian Agar was born September 29, 1897 in New Rochelle, New York ...
* Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. H ...
* L. Brent Bozell Jr.
Leo Brent Bozell Jr. (; January 15, 1926 – April 15, 1997) was an American conservative activist and Roman Catholic writer, and former US Merchant Marine. He was a conservative Catholic, and a strong supporter of the anti-abortion movement. ...
* Cecil Chesterton
Cecil Edward Chesterton (12 November 1879 – 6 December 1918) was an English journalist and political commentator, known particularly for his role as editor of '' The New Witness'' from 1912 to 1916, and in relation to its coverage of the Marco ...
* G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, ''Time'' observed: "Wh ...
* Seward Collins
Seward Bishop Collins (April 22, 1899 – December 8, 1952) was an American New York socialite and publisher. By the end of the 1920s, he was a self-described " fascist".
Biography
Collins was born in Syracuse, New York to Irish Catholic par ...
* Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
* Adam Doboszyński
Adam Doboszyński was a soldier of the Polish Army, writer, engineer, and a social activist. Born in 1904 in Kraków, he was murdered by the Communist secret services in 1949, in the notorious Mokotów Prison in Warsaw.
Early life and education
...
* Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin (; May 9, 1877 – May 15, 1949) was a French Catholic social activist, theologian, and De La Salle Brother who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day.
Maurin expressed his philosophy through short pieces of ...
* Horacio de la Costa
Horacio Villamayor de la Costa (May 9, 1916 – March 20, 1977) was the first Filipino Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus in the Philippines, and a recognized authority in Philippine and Asian culture and history.
A writer, scholar, and ...
* J. P. de Fonseka Joseph Peter de Fonseka (1897–1948) was a Sri Lankan essayist and editor. His essays were noted for their trenchant humour and defence of Roman Catholic values, in the style of G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. He was a friend and collaborato ...
* Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...
* Douglas Hyde
Douglas Ross Hyde ( ga, Dubhghlas de hÍde; 17 January 1860 – 12 July 1949), known as (), was an Irish academic, linguist, scholar of the Irish language, politician and diplomat who served as the first President of Ireland from June 1938 t ...
* Saunders Lewis
Saunders Lewis (born John Saunders Lewis) (15 October 1893 – 1 September 1985) was a Welsh politician, poet, dramatist, Medievalist, and literary critic. He was a prominent Welsh nationalist, supporter of Welsh independence and was a co-found ...
* Vincent McNabb
Vincent McNabb, Ordo Praedicatorum, O.P. (8 July 1868 – 17 June 1943) was an Irish Catholics, Irish Catholic scholar and Dominican Order, Dominican priest based in London, active in evangelisation and Christian apologetics, apologetics.
...
* Arthur Penty
Arthur Joseph Penty (17 March 1875 – 1937) was an English architect and writer on guild socialism and distributism. He was first a Fabian socialist, and follower of Victorian thinkers William Morris and John Ruskin. He is generally credited wit ...
* Hilary Pepler
Harry Douglas Clark Pepler (1878–1951), known as Hilary Pepler, was an English printer, writer and poet. He was an associate of both Eric Gill and G. K. Chesterton, working on publications in which they had an interest. He was also a founder w ...
* Óscar Romero
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop of Santiago d ...
* William Purcell Witcutt
* Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
* J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
Contemporary
* Dale Ahlquist
Dale Ahlquist (born June 14, 1958) is an American author and advocate of the thought of G. K. Chesterton. Ahlquist is the president and co-founder of the American Chesterton Society and the publisher of its magazine, ''Gilbert''. He is also th ...
* Phillip Blond
Phillip Blond (born 1 March 1966) is an English political philosopher, Anglican theologian, and director of the ResPublica think tank.
Early life
Born in Liverpool and educated at Pensby High School for Boys, Blond went on to study philosophy ...
* Allan C. Carlson
Allan C. Carlson (born 1949 in Des Moines, Iowa) is a scholar and former professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. He is the President Emeritus of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, former director of the F ...
* Charles A. Coulombe
Roy-Charles A. Coulombe (born November 8, 1960), known as Charles Coulombe, is an American Catholic author, historian, and lecturer. Coulombe is known for his advocacy of monarchism.
Early life and education
Coulombe was born in Manhattan on ...
* Sean Domencic
* Bill Kauffman
Bill Kauffman (born November 15, 1959) is an American political writer generally aligned with the localist movement. He was born in Batavia, New York, and currently resides in Elba, New York, with his wife and daughter.
A devout Roman Catholic, ...
* Race Mathews
Charles Race Thorson Mathews (born 27 March 1935
) is an Australian Joseph Pearce
Joseph Pearce (born February 12, 1961), is an English-born American writer, and Director of the Center for Faith and Culture at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee, before which he held positions at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in ...
*
* Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Mark Rushkoff (born February 18, 1961) is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture and his advocacy of open sourc ...
* John Sharpe
* John C. Médaille
* Richard Williamson
Key texts
Rerum novarum (1891)
papal encyclical by Pope Leo XIII.
papal encyclical by Pope Pius XI.
papal encyclical by Pope John Paul II.
apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis.
''What's Wrong with the World'' (1910)
by G. K. Chesterton
eText
''The Outline of Sanity'' (1927)
by G. K. Chesterton.
''Utopia of Usurers'' (1917)
by G. K. Chesterton.
''The Servile State'' (1912)
by Hilaire Belloc.
* ''An Essay on The Restoration of Property'' (1936) by Hilaire Belloc .
* ''Jobs of Our Own'' (1999) by Race Mathews
Charles Race Thorson Mathews (born 27 March 1935
) is an Australian Agrarianism
Agrarianism is a political and social philosophy that has promoted subsistence agriculture, smallholdings, and egalitarianism, with agrarian political parties normally supporting the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants ...
* Bioregionalism
Bioregionalism is a philosophy that suggests that political, cultural, and economic systems are more sustainable and just if they are organized around naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined throug ...
* Catholic social teaching
Catholic social teaching, commonly abbreviated CST, is an area of Catholic doctrine concerning matters of human dignity and the common good in society. The ideas address oppression, the role of the state (polity), state, subsidiarity, social o ...
* Distributed economy ''Distributed economies'' (DE) is a term that was coined by Allan Johansson et al. in 2005.Johansson A, Kisch P, Mirata M., 2005Distributed economies - A new engine for innovation . Journal of Cleaner Production 2005;13:971-9
Definition
There is no ...
* Distributive justice
Distributive justice concerns the socially just allocation of resources. Often contrasted with just process, which is concerned with the administration of law, distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. This subject has been given considera ...
* Localism (politics)
Localism describes a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identi ...
* Market socialism
Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy, or one that contains a mix of worker-owned, nationalized, and privately owned ...
* Mutual aid (organization theory)
In organization theory, mutual aid is a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid projects can be a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and ch ...
* Predistribution
Pre-distribution (or Predistribution) is the idea that the state should try to prevent inequalities occurring in the first place rather than ameliorating them via tax and benefits once they have occurred, as occurs under redistribution.
The term ...
* Subsidiarity
Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines subsidi ...
; Similar positions
* Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in b ...
* Christian democracy
Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism.
It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...
* Gandhian economics
Gandhian economics is a school of economic thought based on the spiritual and socio-economic principles expounded by Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. It is largely characterised by rejection of the concept of the human being as a rational actor always ...
* Georgism
Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including ...
* Guild socialism
Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influent ...
* Mutualism (economic theory)
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and economic theory that advocates a socialist society based on free markets and usufructs, i.e. occupation and use property norms. One implementation of this system involves the establishment of a ...
* Traditionalist conservatism
Traditionalist conservatism, often known as classical conservatism, is a political and social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of transcendent moral principles, manifested through certain natural laws to which society should adhere ...
* Ujamaa
Ujamaa ( in Swahili) was a socialist ideology that formed the basis of Julius Nyerere's social and economic development policies in Tanzania after it gained independence from Britain in 1961.
More broadly, ujamaa may mean "cooperative economics ...
References
Further reading
* Cooney, Anthony. ''Distributism''.
* Kurland, Norman
''The Just Third Way: Basic Principles of Economic and Social Justice''
Center for Economic and Social Justice
* Sagar, S. ''Distributism''.
*
Shaw v Chesterton: a Debate between George Bernard Shaw and G. K. Chesterton
'.
"Union Square Speech"
by Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
*
Distributism as a means of achieving third way economics
', a paper for the Secular Party of Australia
The Secular Party of Australia is a minor Australian political party, founded in January 2006 and registered as a federal political party in 2010. written by Richard Howard of the Humanist Society of New South Wales
The Council of Australian Humanist Societies (CAHS) is an umbrella organisation for Australian humanist societies. It was founded in 1965. It is affiliated with Humanists International. The official symbol of CAHS (and all member organisation ...
* Pabst, Adrian
"Pope Benedict's call for a civil economy"
''The Guardian'', 20 July 2009.
External links
The Distributist Review
{{authority control
Anti-capitalism
Anti-communism
Centre-left ideologies
Economic ideologies
Political theories
Pope Leo XIII
Power sharing
Syncretic political movements
Mixed economies