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Thread: Distributism vs. Free Market Globalism

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    Distributism vs. Free Market Globalism

    Some radical thoughts on distributism, a derivative of the principle of subsidiarity, or what I prefer to call localism--as a third way.

    Distributism vs. Free Market Globalism

    It is important, first and foremost to see distributism as a derivative of the principle of subsidiarity, which holds that political, economic, and social problems are resolved best and most justly when dealt with at the most immediate level consistent with their solution.

    Distributists draw the vital connection between the freedom of labour and its relationship with the other factors of production, i.e. land, capital, and the entrepreneurial spirit. The more that labour is divorced from the other factors of production the more it is enslaved to the will of powers beyond its control. In an ideal world every man would own the land on which, and the tools with which, he worked.

    In an ideal world he would control his own destiny by having control over the means to his livelihood. This is the most important economic freedom, the freedom beside which all other economic freedoms are relatively trivial. If a man has this freedom he will not so easily succumb to encroachments upon his other freedoms.
    We can't he argues, achieve ideals but ought to strive for them.

    Distributism is the only alternative to proletarianism, the latter of which comes in two forms, one of which is sometimes called “capitalism,” a word I usually try to avoid using, and the other is sometimes called “socialism.” Socialism is strikingly similar in practice to “capitalism” insofar as both systems place the means of production into the hands of a privileged few at the expense of the proletarianized masses. Whereas “capitalism” or what might more fruitfully be called economic proletarianism centralizes the ownership of land and capital into the hands of a small number of powerful businessmen, socialism centralizes or collectivizes it into the hands of a small number of powerful politicians. In both cases the vast majority of ordinary people remains without either land or capital and are therefore proletarianized. As such, the choice between “capitalism” (as Belloc and Chesterton define it) and socialism is a choice between economic proletarianism and political proletarianism. It is a choice between being ruled by Big Business or Big Brother, a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, or between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber!

    The real irony is that these two forms or proletarianism, economic and political (“capitalist” and socialist), are not going to fight to the death, with one or the other ultimately emerging triumphant, but are melding into a single politico-economic proletarianism, in which Big Business and Big Brother reach a mutually agreeable modus operandi. One thinks perhaps of the cooperation between global corporations and communist China, or of the Confederation of British Industry’s opposition to Brexit and its support for the socialist European Union. This understanding between Big Business and Big Government at the expense of the perennially powerless majority will herald what Belloc calls the servile state and which we might prefer to call the welfare state.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Some radical thoughts on distributism, a derivative of the principle of subsidiarity, or what I prefer to call localism--as a third way.

    Distributism vs. Free Market Globalism



    We can't he argues, achieve ideals but ought to strive for them.
    Interesting. I know the guy (Richards) on the right. He had a show on EWTN called A Force for Good.

    http://www.ewtn.com/series/shows/for...at=DOME&sc=FCG

    He's a free market Catholic.
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


    ~Alain de Benoist


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    Chris (08-02-2018)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    Interesting. I know the guy (Richards) on the right. He had a show on EWTN called A Force for Good.

    http://www.ewtn.com/series/shows/for...at=DOME&sc=FCG

    He's a free market Catholic.

    That link didn't go to video but I think I found what you were referring to:

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    That link didn't go to video but I think I found what you were referring to:

    Yeah, that's it. The younger guy with the fair hair. He had 10 episodes or so. I had actually meant to mention it to you in the past and this reminded me.
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


    ~Alain de Benoist


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    His opening is good. He says economics consists of a bundle of related things. There's the empirical question of "What?" The theoretical question of "Why?" The ethical question of "What ought we to do?" And there's the philosophical or ideological question of "Who [what school?] best articulates 1-3?"

    It'll be an interesting argument.

    I'm a little leery of him, and he intermingles this even in that opening, he's an advocate of Intelligent Design, and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. I don't want to get distracted by that, but in Intelligent Design Theory: Why it Matters he states "We now have a reliable scientific method, formalized by mathematician and philosopher William Dembski (in The Design Inference, Cambridge University Press, 1998), for detecting designed objects and distinguishing them from the products of chance and impersonal laws. Scientists already use the design inference intuitively in fields such as cryptography, archaeology and forensics. When applied to nature's fine-tuned laws, DNA sequences and Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical systems, the clear conclusion is that they are intelligently designed."

    Whoa, wait a darn minute, Demski's formulation is mathematical but not scientific, about as reliable in its abstraction as Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism. It amounts to Demski and his follower Behe reaching a point in biological explanation where they throw up their hands befundled and declare must be an Intelligent Designer. All their examples have been explained away biologically.

    So for all the brilliance of his approaching economics at four distinct levels is somewhat tarnished by belief in the old Watchmake Argument of Paley.

    I digress but had to get that out there.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    His opening is good. He says economics consists of a bundle of related things. There's the empirical question of "What?" The theoretical question of "Why?" The ethical question of "What ought we to do?" And there's the philosophical or ideological question of "Who [what school?] best articulates 1-3?"

    It'll be an interesting argument.

    I'm a little leery of him, and he intermingles this even in that opening, he's an advocate of Intelligent Design, and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. I don't want to get distracted by that, but in Intelligent Design Theory: Why it Matters he states "We now have a reliable scientific method, formalized by mathematician and philosopher William Dembski (in The Design Inference, Cambridge University Press, 1998), for detecting designed objects and distinguishing them from the products of chance and impersonal laws. Scientists already use the design inference intuitively in fields such as cryptography, archaeology and forensics. When applied to nature's fine-tuned laws, DNA sequences and Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical systems, the clear conclusion is that they are intelligently designed."

    Whoa, wait a darn minute, Demski's formulation is mathematical but not scientific, about as reliable in its abstraction as Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism. It amounts to Demski and his follower Behe reaching a point in biological explanation where they throw up their hands befundled and declare must be an Intelligent Designer. All their examples have been explained away biologically.

    So for all the brilliance of his approaching economics at four distinct levels is somewhat tarnished by belief in the old Watchmake Argument of Paley.

    I digress but had to get that out there.
    I don't know much about the guy except for what I've seen on that series but ID is irrelevant for us here. I brought the guy up not because he is a great economic mind (not sure I would recognize one in any case) but because he's a good example of the diversity in the Catholic approach.While the Church has a long tradition of defending private property rights (a fact many American conservatives appear ignorant of) the Church has been more ambivalent when it comes to the market. Thought it might be of some interest.
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


    ~Alain de Benoist


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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    I don't know much about the guy except for what I've seen on that series but ID is irrelevant for us here. I brought the guy up not because he is a great economic mind (not sure I would recognize one in any case) but because he's a good example of the diversity in the Catholic approach.While the Church has a long tradition of defending private property rights (a fact many American conservatives appear ignorant of) the Church has been more ambivalent when it comes to the market. Thought it might be of some interest.
    Appreciate that. Still listening to the video.
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    Interesting, Jay Richards is an individualist. He speaks of economic prosperity. Economics dominates his views. Joseph Pearce is more of a holist. He speaks in terms of social flourishing. Economics has a place in that, but a subordinate one.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Interesting, Jay Richards is an individualist. He speaks of economic prosperity. Economics dominates his views. Joseph Pearce is more of a holist. He speaks in terms of social flourishing. Economics has a place in that, but a subordinate one.
    Exactly regarding Richards. After watching a few episodes of his show I thought Chris might like this guy. I lean more towards Pearce myself but listening to Richards revealed the impact of American culture on Catholicism in a way that's harder to get from a book...at least for me.
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


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    So the one aspect of distributionism that's criticized as the debate goes on and turns into questions and answers is its willingness to use big government to redistribute. This is contradictory to the notion of subsidiarity. It's based on its sharing with Marx, based on Smith, the mistaken labor theory of value that says capitalism exploits labor and predicts that as capital value increases labor value descreases--wages have increased. Pearce defends the idea that government should intervene to keep companies/coporations small with the benefits attained in a few examples, one Thatcher selling government-owned housing to renters at low prices and laws passed to allow small beer brewers access to pubs monopolized by four big brewers. Those resulted in good effects, the interlocutor in the middle agrees, but they were examples not of the extension of government but the retraction.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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