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The basic premise of Distributism is that both economics and politics are subjects of ethics
because both exist to serve the common good.
This is different than the usual conservative and liberal dichotomy.
Distributism is economics as though families matter.
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Distributism at the Catholic Economics Roundtable, by Thomas Hackett, published on the 4th of November, 2021.
live stream hosted by Michael Lofton on the 23rd of January 2021. It can be viewed on
the Reason and Theology YouTube channel and is available as a podcast on the Tradesday
podcast on Podbean.
Well, hello again. My name is Thomas Hackett, and I'm a Catholic worker currently living and serving here at Holy Family Catholic Worker,
and I'm the co-founder of Tradiste, a Catholic worker organization devoted to the spread of Catholic social teaching.
I'm also a distributist. To be clear, distributism is not an adjustment to free market capitalism, nor is it simply socialism with a Catholic flavor.
Where socialism and capitalism are based on a modern, liberal, and false understanding of the human person,
distributism is grounded above all in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas
and the social doctrine of the Holy Fathers, especially beginning with Pope Leo XIII in 1891.
Now, definitions are very important, so I'll begin by providing a simple definition.
Distributism is an economic system with widespread ownership of private property.
In other words, a system in which working families
own the means of production with which they are laboring.
Does Catholic social teaching really call for distributism?
Absolutely. From Pope Leo 130 years ago to Pope Francis,
who gloriously reigns today,
distributism is a constant theme.
The tradition begins in Rerum Novarum,
where Pope Leo XIII says,
quote, the law therefore should favor ownership,
and its policy should be to induce as many people,
as many as possible of the people to become owners.
Section 46.
Forty years later, Pope Pius XI reiterated that a just wage must be paid so that workers
quote, may increase their property by thrift, unquote, and emerge from what he calls the
non-owning class.
That's from Quadre Jessimo Anno, section 61.
In 1961, St. John XXIII said it even more boldly,
quote, now, if ever, is the time to insist on a more widespread distribution of property.
It will not be difficult for the body politic to pursue an economic and social policy
which facilitates the widest possible distribution of private property, unquote.
That's from Madr Edmajistra, Section 115.
Pope St. John Paul II, who saw capitalism as a perversion of the natural order laid down in Genesis,
declared that, quote, the principle of the priority of labor over capital is a postulate of the order of social morality,
unquote, from Lebore-McZurson, section 15.
He states also that isolating capital and labor as separate property is, quote,
contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession, unquote.
After calling for the socialization of certain means of production, the Pope clarifies that,
quote, merely converting the means of production into state property in the collectivist system
is by no means equivalent to socializing that property. We can speak of socializing only when
each person is fully entitled to consider himself a part owner of the great workbench
at which he is working with everyone else. A way towards that goal could be found by associating
labor
with the ownership of capital as far as possible."
Lebore Mxersons, section 14.
Finally, Pope Francis has declared in Laudato Si
that, quote, every campesino peasant
has a natural right to possess a reasonable allotment of land
where he can establish his home, work
for subsistence of his family, and a secure life.
This right must be guaranteed so that its exercise is not
illusory but real, unquote, section 94.
Distributism is clearly demanded by Catholic social teaching.
But what does it look like in practice?
What we can leave behind is obvious.
No stock market, no usurious banks,
no billionaires, no multinational corporations. When mammon is dethroned, we will have no need
of these modern economic perversions. Distributors believe that the family is the foundation of
society, so we naturally believe that businesses should operate on a family scale. And when
governments are needed to promote the common good,
they should seek the flourishing of families and communities instead of individual autonomy or the GDP.
What kind of world would this produce?
First, a society of solidarity.
A more egalitarian distribution of the means of production means that the workers will not be dependent on wage slavery or the welfare state.
workers can fully enjoy the fruits of their labor, as God intended.
Furthermore, in a world not based on the profit motive,
the hoarding of the rich can be replaced with a Christian morality,
one of hospitality and magnanimous gift giving.
We must both feed the poor and eliminate the cause of their dispossession.
Second, a society of subsidiarity, political power requires economic power, so when ownership
is concentrated in the wealthy elite, totalitarian governments, whether nationalist, neoliberal,
or communist, are inevitable, only by more widespread ownership is it possible to have
a network of subsidiary temporal authorities from global to local, as can be seen in the
Middle Ages.
Third, a sustainable society.
As scientific evidence and natural catastrophes have shown, and as Pope Francis has authoritatively
explained in Laudato Si', our climate cannot keep pace with the unchecked growth of the
market.
The Holy Father denounces, quote, the lie that there is an infinite supply of the Earth's
goods.
This leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit.
unquote section 106. After robbing the medieval monasteries and the resources of the third world,
the atmosphere is the one commons left to be destroyed and used for profit.
Distributism, due to its agrarian roots, has always triumphed what Marxists have failed to see
and what capitalists refuse to acknowledge. Without a significant return to the land,
along with an ecological conversion and a traditional view of our relationship to the natural world,
we will destroy God's creation, on which we all ultimately depend for our daily bread.
Fourth and finally, the return of an integralist society, in essence, the social kingship of Christ.
Most would agree that we live in a deeply secular age.
St. John Paul II has taught that this is rooted in the atheistic materialism,
which is common to both capitalism and communism.
We are all trapped in a bourgeois and inquisitive anti-culture.
We are surrounded by wasteful consumerism, degenerate pornography,
and unlimited screaming and scrolling. All for what?
the increase of GDP, an idol which is the true God of this age.
We need to return economics to its true purpose,
supplying the physical needs and spiritual flourishing of mankind.
For those who are committed to traditional culture,
virtuous limitations, family values, living simply and Christian community,
distributism is the path forward.
Thank you for listening.
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