Allan Carlson, who has old liberal impulses but an aversion to modern economic structures, reports on a conference on Belloc-Chesterton-style Distributivism (or distributism) that took place in England this month, featuring philosophers and theorists of various sorts.
From his report, the analysis of the crisis is not entirely off base but the report suggests that the conference has an entirely predictable “third way” quality to it: down with socialism, especially down with capitalism, and up up up with something we won’t actually describe in any detail lest we expose our theory to critical examination.
The problems with distributivism (I spoke on this topic at the recent Acton University) are many but the main trouble comes down to its dogmatic opposition to modern technology and modern forms of property ownership. They imagine reform toward an equal distribution of private property (as if there is no trading on day 2), a return to agricultural life, and restoration of community-based work, and even something of a resurgence of medieval gilds, but they don’t come to terms with the possibility that forging such a world would require totalitarian planning structures, the end of anything resembling free enterprise, and might end up starving most of the world’s 6 billion people who cannot be fed, clothed, and housed in the context of a 12th-century-level of the division of labor.
I know they mean well, and they have a decent critique of the modern state and state capitalism but I can’t get passed the impression that these nice people are really engaged in a kind of romantic sharing of poetic reflections rather than engaging in real-world analysis. In this way, they seem to have much in common with pre-Marxian socialists.
Nor is this tendency irrelevant. It makes conservatives more sympathetic with bogus policy plans such as those promoted by environmentalism. And it leads to subtle “lifestyle” books designed to spread loathing of capitalism such as those pushed by the Crunchy Con movement.
As with the socialists, the way to deal with these people is to ask the question: what is to be done? The answer–always some version of “dismantle industrial civilization”–is less than viable.
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Jeffrey, I often appreciate the quantity and contents of your blog posts. However, please reduce your quantity of typos! [TUCKER: fixed, I think]
Beyond that, though, your comments on this particular subject bring to mind the “Humanitarian with a Guillotine” and various passages of Mises’ Socialism – usually relevant considerations.
Philip Blonde is viewed with some suspicion amongst the Conservative grass roots if past comments on the website ConservativeHome are anything to go by. He is seen as advocating a form of socialism.
The distributist goal is laudable: i.e., not equality, but a more widespread distribution of property and the reduction of abject poverty. I think they’re right that such conditions would promote a freer society. Property is linked to liberty. It’s also fair to say that the State, amenable as it is to influence by concentrated wealth rather than the poor, is historically the cause of much of the economic equality that exists in the world. Therefore, in the libertarian project of reducing the State, priority should be given to eliminating first those things which foster such inequality, and to “creating” conditions for more widespread property and therefore a freer society.
Unfortunately, the distributists do tend to favor State intervention to bring about their goals, whereas I think such goals would be better achieved by such things as replacing income and sales taxes with a Georgist single tax on the unimproved value of land and inheritance / gift taxes. Until income and sales taxes are eliminated, the amount of income that should be exempt from such taxes should be raised to at least the U.S. mean household income. In other words, rather than taking from the rich in order to give to the poor, it would be better if the State took (to the extent we allow it to take) from the rich instead of the poor.
I spoke on this topic at the recent Acton University
Does a transcript or a video exist?
Sounds a bit like the New Urbanists, too. A bit.
Jeffrey,
Upon learning that an economics professor (Prof. Stefano Zamagni – Univ of Bologna & Adjunct at Johns Hopkins) is considered one of the collaborators on the recently released encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, I began searching for some of his writings and came up with one entitled, “Humanizing the Economy: On the Relationship Between the Ethics of Human Rights and Economic Discourse” that was issued at a Catholic Studies conference. Others might find it interesting as well. Here is the link:
http://www.stthomas.edu/cathstudies/cst/conferences/puebla/papers/zamagni.pdf
Zamagni’s comments also appear in a section on social capital and quality of life (page 12) in a paper entitled, “Economics, Cooperation and Employee Ownership: The Emilia Rogmagna model – in more detail,” by John Logue, Director of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center and Professor of Political Science at Kent State.
Here is the link to that paper:
http://dept.kent.edu/oeoc/oeoclibrary/emiliaromagnalong.htm
Zamagni’s reference to “happiness-driven” economic models rather than “utility-driven” seem interesting given that Obama seems to be using some of the same language of late. In consideration of the recent discussion regarding extending TARP funds to small businesses, I can’t help but wonder if the cooperative employee ownership model (subsidized by federal funds) is what the administration has in mind, much like that favored when microfinance is provided from the developed to the developing world.
‘From his report, the analysis of the crisis is not entirely off base but the report suggests that the conference has an entirely predictable “third way” quality to it: down with socialism, especially down with capitalism, and up up up with something we won’t actually describe in any detail lest we expose our theory to critical examination’
Did you actually bother to look at the many specific recommendations this lot has had, from Chesterton and Belloc’s own day down to recent times, e.g. Bob Santamaria here in Australia?
“They imagine reform toward an equal distribution of private property (as if there is no trading on day 2), a return to agricultural life, and restoration of community-based work, and even something of a resurgence of medieval gilds, but they don’t come to terms with the possibility that forging such a world would require totalitarian planning structures, the end of anything resembling free enterprise, and might end up starving most of the world’s 6 billion people who cannot be fed, clothed, and housed in the context of a 12th-century-level of the division of labor”.
“They imagine reform toward an equal distribution of private property (as if there is no trading on day 2)” is a misunderstanding. The idea is that day 2 would not take place under our distorted circumstances and with our distorted institutions that tend to undo the balance, but rather with things tending to keep the evening out in place.
Where on earth do “a return to agricultural life, and restoration of community-based work” come from? Just take a look at recent posts on John Medaille’s blog to see a different perspective.
“…but they don’t come to terms with the possibility that forging such a world would require totalitarian planning structures, the end of anything resembling free enterprise, and might end up starving most of the world’s 6 billion people who cannot be fed, clothed, and housed in the context of a 12th-century-level of the division of labor”.
Even supposing that that were the target, how on earth do “would require totalitarian planning structures, the end of anything resembling free enterprise, and might end up starving most of the world’s 6 billion people who cannot be fed, clothed, and housed in the context of a 12th-century-level of the division of labor” come into it? The most that is suggested is stopping the distortions that led away from that and/or (from just some of the proponents) pushing in the direction of the undistorted equilibrium to accelerate getting there – since everybody could be “housed in the context of a 12th-century-level of the division of labor”, if only they themselves had the resources that go with it (but, in any case, they are actually after a much later level of resources, distributed in that way). It no more “require[s] totalitarian planning structures” than a traditional country being turned into a modern capitalist system requires those for the change – although someone seekng to thrust that on the country would find it quicker and easier to get there in each case, although that wouldn’t actually make either take root.
“The answer–always some version of “dismantle industrial civilization”–is less than viable’.
Leaving aside that that is not what they are after – it is a straw man – even that would be viable, if only a suitable transition were followed. And, of course, the options before us include transitions towards much less soft landings, so it comes down to aiming for the better ones actually on offer.
“Even supposing that that were the target, how on earth do “would require totalitarian planning structures, the end of anything resembling free enterprise, and might end up starving most of the world’s 6 billion people who cannot be fed, clothed, and housed in the context of a 12th-century-level of the division of labor” come into it? The most that is suggested is stopping the distortions that led away from that”
That’s the thing. Who will “fix” these so-called “distortions”? In a free-market, when the cause of a distortion is removed, e.g. price controls, the distortion, e.g. shortages/surpluses, also disappear. By the way, your use of the word “distortion” in this context implies that the 12th century division of labor was somehow optimal. Doubtful.
A lot of the distributive thinking seems to come from an idylistic attitude toward pre-industrial revolution society. If only these people would learn some economics and some history. Their ignorance is astounding!
Much like the recent encyclical, distributism attacks what it views as the extremes of socialism and laissex-faire without giving any specifics on what they would like to see happen. And for the most part, it’s built upon the medieval fallacy of limited wealth.
Perhaps Briggs Armstrong should have been there as well to tell people: “Neglect your current labor specialization(s) and concentrate on learning how to cook.”
All in all, these people seem to be conflating “distributivism” with what the market does naturally in a laissez-faire environment. I’m seeing it everywhere: socialists pretending that a return to market-based economy somehow is an idea that they developed just recently and named “Distributivism” or “.”
Are they sure they don’t want to use force and coercion against people? If they do, they’re just another form of socialist. If not, they are wasting their time trying to pretend that the earliest laissez-faire liberals sitting on the left in the French parliament led us all — eventually and circuitously — toward a future where socialists will get to pretend that they “thought of it first.”
Ever have someone, at school or at work, take credit for your efforts? That appears to be the typical socialist strategy for “saving the world.”
Jeffrey Tucker’s article is badly researched. It reads like something written for spite rather than educational purposes. Where, for example, is the mention of the Mondragon Corporation with 100,000 owners and $3 billion turnover? Distributivism is concerned to improve capitalism for the benefit of the many. Nobody can currently argue that the current elite version of capitalism that allowed the Sub-Prime Fiasco to happen is working well and Jeffrey Tucker would be advised to dwelve a whole lot deeper to convince us all why we shouldn’t move away from elitist control of capital and government.
If Distributism can provide for a clearly superior entrepreneurial model, then great. Mondragon is far and away the greatest “distributist” success even if it isn’t even in the top 200 companies by turnover even using John’s $24B figure.
All the distributists corporations, collectives and coops combined amount to less than a hundredth the size of capitalist companies combined. Perhaps that share will increase, perhaps not.
I’d advise you to delve deeper into the Austrian school and see why your implication that somehow Austrians are in favor of elitist control of capital and government is plainly stupid.
Gerry, Its not a $3B turnover, more like $24B. Not only that, they run a complete social safety network system, school systems, training institutes, R&D centers, language instituties, and a University ALL WITH THEIR OWN MONEY and without gov’t support. The great irony is that if you wish to see anything approximating the libertarian ideal in action, you will to go to the distributists; the libertarians themselves cannot supply an living example.
All voluntary exchange represents libertarian ideas in action – even Mondragon. If you cannot see the successes of voluntary exchange (as opposed to some distributist ukaz mandating limits on the size of firms and restrictions on voluntary wage agreements), then you are blind.
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