Your observation seems to me somewhat, well, obvious. People seem to be at pains to make some sort of distinction between distributism and socialism, but frankly I can't see how the former isn't obviously a subset of the latter. Maybe my definition of "socialism" is more expansive than most.
By the way, good to have you back, Dale. God Bless.
"Socialism" = goverment owns and/or controls property and administers 'for the common good'.
"Distributism" = private individuals own private property and administer privately.
Nope, can't see the difference there.
Now (and GKC addressed this repeatedly), what happens is people look at the present capitalist system, say "how would we get there from here", and have a massive failure of imagination and believe that the only way would be for Big Government to seize property from Big Business to give to Little Distributists.
Such seizure, being of course a Socialist act, and therefore anti-Distributist.
More later, I hope ... I need to digest both the article and the commentary.
But I will admit to having observed in the wild Socialists calling themselves Distributists, so perhaps the confusion is understandable...
peace,
I read the critique, and I don't know if I thought it was fair even when talking about government regulation.
Because what we are basically speaking about is the scope of anti-trust principles. And I tend to think that the critiques of distributism often are attacking distribitism from a perspective that the corporation is this natural entity. It isn't. Businesses are natural, not corporations. Corporations are businesses that have availed themselves of a legal form that the law has created to give owners various advantages, the chief being the ability of its owners to limit their liability for the corporation's acts.
Now, I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. But given that context, I can't react to what amounts to anti-trust principles motivated by a disfavor for significant property consolidation as being an affront to personal rights. I think it needs to be evaluated in the context of the balance the law is trying to strike with the concept of corporations to begin with.
The argument that distributists are asking for the government to bust up big corporations and hand out the pieces to the little guys is a straw man. What would be nice is if the government, at all levels, stopped favoring the huge corporations, agi-industries, and mass retailers at the expense of the little guy.
as an example, the local USDA representative in a newpaper article lamented the lack of real farmers in my area, In spite of the fact that 40% of the local economy comes from farming. Seems he meant that there weren't but 3 or 4 farms large enough to collect government subsidies, paid for with the taxes of the hundreds of smaller farmers and loggers the big operators are busy trying to run out of business.
I'm actually more of a fan of participatory economics, as there is more written about how to make it a workable system.
Could this be a new, more practical kind of distributism? I think it could.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parecon
Rhys. That is Welsh. The Price name is derived from Rhys, ap Rhys. Ap means "son of." Weird wild stuff.
Interesting article.
BTW, point: in _physical_ terms it would be perfectly practical to have a US economy based on "forty acres and a mule", tho' it wouldn't in more densely populated areas like Europe.
The reason it's wildly outside the boundaries of the practical is that, whatever its virtues, apart from the Amish nobody really _wants_ to live that way.
I read a lot of odd publications; one is dedicated to voluntary subsistence farmers.
There's a picture there of a couple who farm in the Ozarks and who'd written an article on how to break oxen to the yoke, an art which they'd more or less reinvented based on hints.
They were standing beside "Buck and Ben", beaming with pride. Both were in their 30's. They looked about 50. A good, fit, hale&hearty 50, but...
If you read Chesterton's work, you'll find that he (and to a lesser degree Belloc) didn't understand the concepts of "economy of scale" and "division of labor".
That is, they didn't understand what these things _do_.
They understood that these forces produced large profits for capitalists, but they didn't realize that they were the sources of reductions in real _costs_.
For example, Chesterton wrote an essay on the Model T Ford, in which he regarded it favorably because it was small and cheap enough for ordinary people to own.
Then he went on to suggest that what was needed was a similar car built by master-craftsmen in small workshops, rather than by huge work-forces in giant factories.
He just didn't grasp the fact that if the Model T was made that way, it wouldn't be cheap any more -- that it would be an expensive luxury for the very wealthy.
Probably as part of the same problem, he also didn't realize just how low living standards had been in the preindustrial era.
Note on why farms get bigger: it ain't government policy, tho' that can accelerate the trend.
The basic reason is a cost-price scissors. Producivity in agriculture has increased faster than the market for agricultural goods.
Or to put it another way, there's a long-term secular trend for farm prices to fall _relative to other costs_.
This squeezes the bejayzus out of profit margins.
Under those conditions, the only way to get an even marginally competitive return on investment is to increase the scale of your operations so you make up on turnover what you lose on per-unit price.
Eg., relatives of mine farm wheat and canola (and crops like bird-seed) north of Regina in Saskatchewan.
They've got 16,000 of good black land (aspen-belt prairie, originally) and millions of dollars worth of investment.
The entire operation is worked by one family, with occasional outside help -- one of my brothers goes and helps with the harvest, frex.
50 years ago there were probably at least a dozen families living on and farming that area -- 80 people as opposed to 8.
But if the operation today was any smaller, equipment would lie idle and the family wouldn't be fully employed. That would cut the return on investment from "so-so" down to "impossibly low".
Even as it is, my relatives could probably make about as much by selling up, putting the money into bonds, and living on that -- and they'd work a hell of a lot less. They're paying a heavy premium in foregone leisure for the fresh air and work they like.
All the above is Market Economics 101.
The only way you can make a small farm pay is to produce something with a very high unit price; organic vegetables for a fancy restaurant, for example, or really, really high-priced wine.
Bulk products like wheat and corn and beef just can't be produced that way.
Of course, if you're willing to live like a farmer 100 years ago, you may be able to pull it off -- the Amish do. But that's another matter.
Note: as population starts to fall globally (probably within the next 30 years or so, on present trends) the cost-price scissors operating against agriculture will get worse.
But Zach (sorry for the late response):
I'm sorry, but that doesn't follow at all. Perhaps I'm missing something, but here's the definition I've found (from distributism.org, no less):
Simply stated, distributism is the economic state where the possession of land and capital, instead of being concentrated in the hands of a few, are maximally distributed among all men throughout society.
The obvious question is "distributed by whom," and suddenly I feel Hayek gently tapping me on the shoulder, telling me that it must be done by some regulatory agency with some level of coercive power. It may not involve the actual seizing of property, but it must needs some messing about with market forces that will most likely cause more problems than they solve.
At any rate, by no possible definition of "private" are private individuals under such a regime administerisng anything but those things which the regulatory powers have decided not take under their authority (for the time being).
It may mot be strictly socialist, but it certainly is collectivist in both spirit and letter, and that usually ends up in the same place.
-Marc
Hello Marc,
No apology necessary. Heck, I'm several months behind in owing Mr. Stirling some intelligent notice of prior good commentary he's made ... 
You said:
At any rate, by no possible definition of "private" are private individuals under such a regime administerisng anything but those things which the regulatory powers have decided not take under their authority (for the time being).
no No NO NO NO!!!
[I really wish the ChesterBelloc had come up with a better name for this thing ...]
What you are describing is not distributism, but socialism (so your instinct is good to identify it as such). Actual distributism as advocated by ChesterBelloc, et al., is anti-collectivist. The point is to get real land & capital into the hands of real folk who will do with it as they see fit (since they are, after all, owners).
Think farmers, shopkeepers, and craftsmen rather than bureaucrats...
I know there's been some thinking done on the issue of "what do you do about things which inherently need to be bigger than a sole-proprieter farm or business?", but honestly, I'm fuzzy on that point (I think ChesterBelloc were, too.) Thus things like worker cooperatives, talk of Guild revivals, etc.
So, how do we get there from here? Heck if I know, other than by a series of very many small steps. Any simple solution would involve that tyrannical battleaxe, and would, I think, end up being socialism in sheep's clothing.
I don't want the govenment to do it, I want them to stop being anti-distributist! The examples are many -- but to pick just one: Mr. Stirling is correct that government alone hasn't been responsible for the destruction of farming as a profession for the many -- but since WWII, they've deliberatly acted as an accellerator, not a brake, on that process. (See The Unsettling of America for the sorry story.)
Now, I don't expect or want the government to seize and administer or break up the megafarms -- but could they stop favoring them, please? (Current example: the coming abomination that is NAIS, a Big Brother system that only a Tyson or Monsanto could love, and that promises to put what's left of small independant animal farming out of business...)
peace,
Oh, and I think Mr. Stirling is also right about one more thing: it does take a religious motivation. These are, ultimately, different views of what The Good Life is.
If the Good Life is to sell your time for wages to MegaCorp so you can finance the right stuff from StuffMart, then laissez-faire is the way. What's good for Wal-Mart is good for America.
I think, though, that what we see in the Christian (and before that, in both the Jewish and the classical pagans) is a different vision of what the Good Life is.
I just wish we had a better name for it.
peace,
When it comes to the work you do to live, there are a number of different factors to consider.
I've done a number of different things -- farm work, for example, and I was a bouncer for 2 nights (long story).
I'm lucky enough to do something now(writing novels) which I really like, so I can get up in the morning, rub my hands and say: "Oh, goodie, I get to _work_ today."
But most people aren't in that category -- and never were. When most people were farmers, it was because they had to farm or starve.
Now, it's entirely possible to take some non-economic satisfactions from what you have to do to feed yourself and your family.
Many did, particularly people who worked their own land. But that isn't to say most _liked_ it, in the sense that they'd keep doing it if something else which paid better and meant less killing toil was available.
You're much more likely to find farmers today who like what they do -- they've got alternatives. (Also it's not so gruesome a job -- I've picked tobacco by hand, and believe me, it's no accident they used to use slaves for that.)
Likewise, the fishermen my family grew up among back when my father was a young man (Newfoundland) took considerable satisfaction in what they did.
It was hard, dangerous, and highly skilled work, and it was a man's pride to endure for his household's sake. As a song from there goes:
"In a leaking boat off Labrador
Aching hands on a freezing oar;
Hauling nets -- hunting seal
To feed his family."
But that doesn't mean they _wanted_ to be poor fishermen. One of my great-uncles (an Anglican pastor) actually starved to death (or possibly froze) there in the 30's, because he'd given away everything he had to fisher families worse off than he was. Women used to lose a tooth with every child, and people refused to eat lobster because of all the dead dorymen they fed on after a storm.
As one I met said when asked, "Lord tunderin' Jayzus, no. Them days was too hard."
Hi Jack:
The argument that distributists are asking for the government to bust up big corporations and hand out the pieces to the little guys is a straw man.
I did not make that argument Jack. I merely noted that to implement distributivism, that some entity would have to take property from some to give to others remains to be circumvented.
Hi Danby:
What would be nice is if the government, at all levels, stopped favoring the huge corporations, agi-industries, and mass retailers at the expense of the little guy.
Since 75% or more of the federal budget is unconstitutional, you will get no argument on the above from me. But there is power in the hands of the consumer to shop at smaller businesses...I do as much as I possibly can within reason.
Hi Mark L:
The obvious question is "distributed by whom," and suddenly I feel Hayek gently tapping me on the shoulder, telling me that it must be done by some regulatory agency with some level of coercive power. It may not involve the actual seizing of property, but it must needs some messing about with market forces that will most likely cause more problems than they solve.
At any rate, by no possible definition of "private" are private individuals under such a regime administerisng anything but those things which the regulatory powers have decided not take under their authority (for the time being).
It may mot be strictly socialist, but it certainly is collectivist in both spirit and letter, and that usually ends up in the same place.
To use a traditional catholic expression: BINGO!!! That is the problem with distributivism in a nutshell: getting it to work in reality as wonderfully as it sounds in theory.
Hi Zach:
What you are describing is not distributism, but socialism (so your instinct is good to identify it as such). Actual distributism as advocated by ChesterBelloc, et al., is anti-collectivist. The point is to get real land & capital into the hands of real folk who will do with it as they see fit (since they are, after all, owners).
I know what distributivism is Zach. The question boils down to how it is implemented in reality and I do not see how it can be without formal contradiction of the theory itself.
Hi S M Stirling:
The only way you can make a small farm pay is to produce something with a very high unit price; organic vegetables for a fancy restaurant, for example, or really, really high-priced wine.
Bulk products like wheat and corn and beef just can't be produced that way.
Precisely. The reason is because of supply and demand. If demand is constant and supply increases, then the cost of the product per unit price will go down. The only way to keep it constant or raise prices if supply increases is either (i) federal subsidies which are unconstitutional, (ii) find ways to increase demand for the product naturally, or (iii) force people to buy the product and increase
...(iii) force people to buy the product and increase demand unnaturally.
Of course, if you're willing to live like a farmer 100 years ago, you may be able to pull it off -- the Amish do. But that's another matter.
Indeed it is.
Hello all, this is Roy F. Moore, one of four contributors to the weblog "The Distributist Review", as well as moderator to the Distributism Yahoo Group.
I have read the comments here from both Mr. Sterling and Mr. McElhinney, and get the impression that they may perceive that Distributist Thought stopped developing with the death of Belloc and Chesterton. They have not, gentlemen, but their legitimate successors have worked on it for many decades to answer many of your objections.
I invite you all to read our weblog, or join our Yahoo Group to read the discussions on Distributism and how it can -- and IS -- being practically implemented.
Thank you all for your time, and may you and yours all have a Happy Easter.
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