What is Distributism and What Does it Tell us About Economics?

A talk given to members of the American Solidarity Party, the only US political party which endorses Distributism. "We advocate...creating a society of widespread ownership or distributism." From the Party Platform

From Practical Distributism 

By Thomas Storck

The following was given as a talk to the Cascadia Amerian Solidarity Party on 19 September, 2024. 

I want to thank Jeremy Miller for inviting me to talk to the Cascadian ASP members tonight, and likewise all of you listeners. I hope that my remarks will make for some fruitful questions and answers afterwards. 

I will be talking about distributism this evening, but also about the whole subject of economics, because as you will see, distributism is about more than a rearrangement of who has power in the economy and who is able to receive a just return for his input, but, in its fullness, it fosters a different understanding of economics and the economy from that which is the result of several centuries of capitalism and indoctrination into capitalist ways of thinking. 

The platform of the American Solidarity Party states that "We advocate...creating a society of widespread ownership or distributism." Well, then, what is distributism? 

Although distributism originated in the early part of the last century and in the 1920s and 30s distributists were very active in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in the U.S., afterwards for decades it was more or less forgotten or even scorned. The New Catholic Encyclopedia, which appeared in 1967, opined that distributists "diverted part of a generation of intelligent people into a dream-world" and "presented an interpretation of Catholic social doctrine that was alien to the outlook of the times and became a barrier between the faith and the masses." 

Then, surprisingly, a revival of distributist thinking and writing began just before the turn of the millennium, manifested in articles, books, debates and conferences. So although the term distributism is much better known today, there is still considerable confusion, even among those who are well disposed toward "creating a society of widespread ownership" about exactly what it is and what it entails for our economic life and practices. There are some who liken it to socialism, while on the other hand there have been those who claimed that it is a form of libertarianism. So I'll try to deal tonight with some of these questions and some of the possible confusions that might exist in some minds. 

I will begin by stating two different ways of thinking about distributism, one a more or less formal definition, the other a description that at first might appear rather too vague. But I think that taken together, they can bring out different aspects of distributism and I hope that when considered together, they will help make our subject clearer. The first is from an article written in 1917 by G. K. Chesterton's younger brother, Cecil Chesterton. He wrote:

A Distributist is a man who desires that the means of production should, generally speaking, remain private property, but that their ownership should be so distributed that the determining mass of families - ideally every family - should have an efficient share therein. That is Distributism, and nothing else is Distributism.... Distributism is quite as possible in an industrial or commercial as in an agrarian community.... ("Shaw and My Neighbour's Chimney," The New Witness, May 3, 1917, p. 13) 

And the second is from the late Fr. Ian Boyd, founding editor of The Chesterton Review. Fr. Boyd once called distributism "a different rhythm of life." At first glance it might not be clear how these two statements fit together. But I think that both of them are important for getting a good grasp both of what distributism is and of the different approach to economic life that it can foster, different from that which has been inculcated and fostered by capitalism in the last 250 years or so. 

The first definition, that of Cecil Chesterton, points to the formal structural aspect of distributism. In order to understand the importance of this, we have first to ask what capitalism is. Sometimes capitalism is equated simply with private property or private property in the means of production. On the other hand, sometimes it is understood as the domination of the economy by a few owners or controllers of wealth or by corporations. And although I think that this latter is the almost inevitable result of capitalism, it does not, in my opinion, get at the key point of capitalism. What is that key point, then? Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno of 1931 defined the capitalist system as "that economic system in which were provided by different people the capital and labor jointly needed for production" (no. 100). In other words, under capitalism the economy is characterized by a disjunction or separation between the owners of the means of production and those who receive a wage or salary working on the enterprises owned by capitalists. Considered abstractly, this separation of ownership and work is not unjust, for as long as the capitalist pays a just wage and observes appropriate safety standards there is nothing inherently wrong in hiring a person to work for you. If an elderly grandmother hires the teenager next door to mow her lawn, then that's an instance of a capitalist economic arrangement, but usually not one we have to worry much about. But when capitalist practices come to characterize and control the entire economy, that is another matter altogether. And this is for two reasons. 

At the very beginning of modern Catholic social teaching, Leo XIII spoke in RerumNovarum of "the party which holds the power because it holds the wealth; which has in its grasp all labor and all trade; which manipulates for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources of supply, and which is powerfully represented in the councils of the State itself" (no. 47). In other words, with rare exceptions it is the owners, or in some cases, the managers, of the means of production who call the shots in the economy, and in a capitalist economy only with the support of the state or of strong labor unions have workers ever been able to obtain their fair share in the fruits of economic activity. Naturally those who hold such massive economic power also possess vast political power, for not only are they able to make immense financial contributions to politicians, but they are usually the ones who own or control most of the media organs. So although in the U.S. we have an establishment media that by and large leans toward what we call the Left, actually they do not threaten the fundamental capitalist structure of American society. Instead they divert our attention by keeping the public divided and therefore politically impotent under the old program of Divide and Conquer. Moreover, these owners and controllers of wealth will use their political power to enhance their economic power, for example, fostering war and the fear of war in order to sell more armaments. 

But there is second way that this separation of ownership and work is harmful to society, what has been called the spirit of capitalism. This concerns how our economic arrangements affect our understanding of what the economy is all about. This in turn will shape our attitudes toward consumption, property, work and leisure, marriage, and in fact, probably every single aspect of our lives. 

Now it should be obvious that the entire reason for the existence of the economy is to supply people with the goods and services needed for a reasonable human life. The economy is thus subordinate to society, it exists to serve society. But the separation of ownership and work fosters a different attitude. This was well put by one of the original distributists, Hilaire Belloc, when he wrote: 

But wealth obtained indirectly as profit out of other men's work, or by process of exchange, becomes a thing abstracted from the process of production. As the interest of a man in things diminishes, his interest in abstract wealth - money - increases. The man who makes a table or grows a crop makes the success of the crop or the table a test of excellence. The intermediary who buys and sells the crop or the table is not concerned with the goodness of table or crop, but with the profit he makes between their purchase and sale. In a productive society the superiority of the things produced is the measure of success: in a Commercial society the amount of wealth accumulated by the dealer is the measure of success. (An Essay on the Nature of Contemporary England, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1937, p. 67.) 

Consider someone who opens a small brewery or any kind of small business. Usually he will be motivated by more than one thing. Certainly by a desire to make a living, yes. But almost always by a love of his craft and a desire to provide a good product to the public at a reasonable price. In such a case ownership is not separated from work. The same person is both owner and worker. 

But when ownership and work are separated, there exists a class of persons who are removed from the actual productive work of the business, and they will tend to regard the business, and indeed the entire economy, not as a means of supplying the public with quality goods at fair prices, but as simply a means of selling something and thereby amassing wealth for themselves. 

The further removed they are from the actual product and the productive process, the less interest they have in the real economy, for the product becomes for them simply a means of making a profit, a commodity. In fact, in the most developed form of capitalism, the corporation, the legal owners of the corporation, the shareholders, often have little or no knowledge of or interest in the actual product of the firm of which they are the owners, so long as their dividend checks keep coming or the stock price rises. And many of these shares are held by mutual funds or pension funds, introducing a further layer of separation between the actual production of a product and those who in one way or another are its legal owners. And still further, considering that shares of stock change hands by the minute on Wall St. and other stock exchanges, it is a little unreal even to speak of the owners of a corporation in any real sense. It is false to say that someone who owns a share of stock is an owner in the same way that a small farmer or small business owner is an owner. The word may be the same, but the meaning is different. 

"[I]n a Commercial society the amount of wealth accumulated by the dealer is the measure of success," wrote Belloc. This tendency to see accumulation of wealth as the standard of success has had immense influence not just on the economy itself, but on all of society. It has fostered the notion that instead of the economy having the inherent purpose of serving mankind's needs, it exists for the private purposes of whoever holds sufficient economic power. This in turn, as I already noted, has affected our entire life as a society, including our views and practices concerning marriage and children, education, technology, our treatment of the natural world, the very food we eat.

Our attitude toward higher education is a signal case in point. The discussion about whether it is advisable to pursue a college degree is almost always framed in terms of the cash value of the degree, of its Return on Investment. Would you be better off investing your tuition money and going directly into the job market? Seldom is there any serious consideration of any other reason for going to college. Learning to think clearly, being initiated into a great cultural and intellectual tradition, even becoming a more thoughtful citizen - these are seldom mentioned, except perhaps in occasional commencement addresses. 

This, however, is nothing new in this country. In 1941 Theodore Maynard in his history of Catholicism in the United States wrote that, 

In no other country in the world can first-rate doctors and lawyers be encountered who know nothing outside of their own profession. Culture, not having a cash value, is disesteemed. (Theodore Maynard, The Story of American Catholicism, New York : Macmillan, 1941, p. 586.)

On a formal level, then, distributism seeks to eliminate the separation between ownership and work by making workers owners and owners workers. In its ideal form this would be by small businesses, small workshops, small farms, owned and operated by individuals or families, with few if any hired employees except for apprentices who were learning the particular trade. But since this is not always practicable, especially given the state of technology, in the case of enterprises that by their nature must be large, distributism would favor worker owned cooperatives or worker owned businesses of some kind. There is no reason why even the most technically complex enterprise could not be run as an employee owned business, as the example of the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain illustrates.

In this way it will be workers, including managers, all those actually involved in the production of useful goods and services, who will possess economic power and receive their fair share of economic rewards. Hitherto the big obstacle to more workers obtaining economic power in this way has been that they lacked the necessary capital to start a business. But this is not an insuperable obstacle. In their unfortunately misnamed 1958 volume, The Capitalist Manifesto, by Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler, and in the 1994 book, Curing World Poverty, published by Social Justice Review in St. Louis, there is set out a feasible plan by which those without capital will be able to borrow necessary start-up funds based upon the future profits of their enterprise. These loans moreover could be guaranteed by the government and obtain a lower rate of interest thereby. So there is no reason why workers cannot become owners. If small businesses, family farms and worker owned enterprises received favorable tax treatment, then their number might increase and gradually our economy would take on some of the characteristics of distributism. 

Before I go on to talk about Fr. Boyd's characterization of distributism as "a different rhythm of life," let me deal with a couple of specific questions about distributism that are sometimes raised.

The first concerns labor unions. Above I mentioned that unions have been one important way in which workers, in a capitalist economy, have managed to achieve some measure of economic justice. And this is true. In a capitalist economy where owners tend to see their employees as primarily cost items, unions will be necessary to overcome some of the disparity in power between employers and employees. But in a distributist economy this would not be the case. Obviously in a family-owned business there would be no need for unions and in a larger cooperative enterprise this would also be the case. For if the workers are owners, a union is not necessary. The workers can hardly need to protect themselves against themselves. But as long as capitalist firms continue to exist, unions will be necessary for those employed by such firms. 

But there is another and less known form of worker organization which is very important and will illustrate how some other matters might be handled in a distributist economy and society. This is the occupational group, or, to give it a name that is more easily recognized, the guild. In the encyclical I have already quoted from, Quadragesimo Anno, Pius XI introduces the subject as follows: 

For as nature induces those who dwell in close proximity to unite into municipalities, so those who practice the same trade or profession, economic or otherwise, constitute as it were fellowships or bodies. These groupings, autonomous in character, are considered by many to be, if not essential to civil society, at least a natural accompaniment thereof. (no. 83) 

In other words, those who work in the same industry or trade have certain common interests and needs, and, most importantly, if their industry fulfills a legitimate human purpose, they cooperate in serving society's needs. In a minute I will discuss more fully the implications of this, but for now let me just say that in order to avoid or at least minimize the dog-eat-dog kind of economy that capitalism fosters, it will be necessary to introduce some kind of formal cooperation. The guild or occupational group provides that businesses are grouped in a formal organization according to their common economic function. In other words, say, grocers and other food suppliers would constitute an organization which not only would concern itself with common problems, much as trade associations do now, but would also have as their special concern much that today is the concern of the government, for example, safety standards and product quality. The medieval guilds were as much concerned with quality workmanship and fair prices as they were with insuring a steady supply of raw materials. They likewise instituted joint rules for training of apprentices. 

Such guilds or occupational groups might provide for the health care of their members and families, establish retirement plans and create banks or credit unions to provide for the financial needs of members. These guilds would not be departments of the government, but would be private self-governing organizations, but anyone who wished to engage in a particular line of business would be obliged to become a member of his respective guild and abide by its decisions. Of course, there would be general supervision by the government to insure that no guild neglected its responsibilities to the public and to the common good and became merely a cartel. 

Hilaire Belloc speculated that it might be possible for a labor union to gradually be transformed into a true occupational group. He wrote: 

Some of our greater trade unions to-day, though not officially chartered, have in practice attained many of the powers which an official charter would give. They, in practice, regulate wages, consider the opportunities of employment, prevent their function from being swamped with numbers and in general substitute status and order for chaotic competition. It would be possible to begin by regularising these few successful experiments, giving them a legal basis, and using them as models for extension into other fields. (The Restoration of Property, pp. 139-140.) 

One of the keynotes of a distributist understanding of economics is the need for organization to foster cooperation, and the already existing labor unions could provide a basis for a more fully-developed system of guilds. For unless there is some framework to promote cooperation and order in the economy, no matter how many small businesses or small farms we start out with, with free competition there will be the tendency toward economic concentration and ultimate corporate economic domination. It is not enough to have well-distributed property if we do not take steps to keep it well-distributed. 

This is why any true system of distributism is not a form of libertarianism. For libertarianism necessarily allows for concentrations of property, since its basic principle is that anything goes so long as it is not accomplished by force or fraud, both very narrowly defined. It is nothing but another form of capitalism, and would inevitably lead right back to where we are today, or to something worse. 

Another point worth talking about is the relationship of distributism with socialism. Many seem convinced that there is little or no difference between them. In fact, the differences are crucial but complex. 

Socialism can be difficult to define, because its specific policies have differed considerably over time and place. The socialism of the 19th century is not the socialism usually advocated today. But there are certain constants that persist in any genuine form of socialism, and I think we can rightfully speak of a spirit of socialism, just as we speak of a spirit of capitalism. 

But before we examine what I mean by the spirit of socialism, let's look at some of the specific socialist economic proposals. I think that the evaluation of socialism made by Pope Pius XI in 1931 might surprise many people today. He noted that in his time socialism had split into two camps, communism and more moderate socialism. After rejecting communism, Pope Pius went on to talk about moderate socialism. He wrote: "it cannot be denied that [the programs of moderate socialists] often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers.... For it is rightly contended that certain forms of property must be reserved to the State, since they carry with them an opportunity of domination too great to be left to private individuals without injury to the community at large" (Quadragesimo Anno, no. 113/14).

So if you look at the specific economic proposals of socialists you will see some important overlaps with what any distributist could advocate. For example, advocacy of worker or cooperative ownership of large enterprises, advocacy of government ownership of certain industries, such as utilities. These have been staples of socialism for some time. Why distributism, then? Why not simply join our forces with the socialists? Well, for the very reason that Pius XI, while noting the similarity of many socialist economic proposals with Catholic social teaching, still gave a negative answer to the question of whether a Catholic could be a socialist. And the reason for that lies in the historic philosophical roots of socialism which he identified with materialism and atheism. Its philosophical foundations, which it has never disavowed, are in a tradition, if not hostile to, at least alien to any Christian or religious viewpoint. And because of their historical roots, they exhibit certain features that concern or ought to concern, a distributist. 

For example, in the United States, socialism does not seem entirely comfortable with individual private ownership of productive property. To take one historical example, in the 1912 presidential campaign the Party's campaign book proclaimed that "the Socialist Party believes the time has now come for the beginning of socially-operated farms; these farms would be sufficiently large to use the most improved machinery; they would be officered and directed by the socially-trained graduates of our agricultural educational institutions..." and the official Party platform of that year advocated "The collective ownership of land whenever practicable...." Neither of these is something that Wendell Berry is likely to approve of. (Quoted in H. Wayne Morgan, ed., American Socialism, 1900-1960, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964, pp. 83 and 57.) 

And although the current platform of the Democratic Socialists of America does acknowledge small farms, there is little or nothing about small businesses. G. K. Chesterton once quipped that the only difference between socialism and big business is who your boss is to be, and the statements of socialist parties give some credence to that idea. 

Moreover, the Democratic Socialists of America also proclaim as part of their platform "free abortion on demand." In fact the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists sells t-shirts with the slogan, Free Abortion on Demand without Apology. Nor have they ever escaped from the Marxist tradition. I am the first to admit that there are things we can learn from Marx, but that oughtn't to make us Marxists. And in addition to recommending for study works of Marx and Engels on their website, they also recommend Lenin's State and Revolution as well. So while we can agree with socialists about certain specific reforms, we cannot be socialists. I should note that this does not mean that everyone who has ever called himself a socialist is a materialist or an atheist or is suspicious of private property, but that historically considered, the socialist movement as a whole has been. Thus it is noteworthy and important that the American Solidarity Party specifically places itself in the tradition of Christian Democracy, a tradition of robust thinking about socio-economic matters that has very different philosophical roots from socialism, even when there is agreement about certain specifics. Incidentally, I might add that John Paul II in his encyclical Centesimus Annus (no. 13) situates the intellectual roots of capitalism likewise in atheism, a point that might surprise many of our fellow citizens. 

Nor does distributism have anything to do with Fascism, as some stupidly have asserted. Actually very few Americans appear to have the faintest idea of what, historically, fascism was, and it's used pretty much simply as a meaningless term of abuse. But distributism, with its emphasis on subsidiarity or decentralization has nothing to do with historic fascism. 

It would be fascinating to talk more about the philosophical roots of the different political philosophies and how two or more political movements can advocate for similar policies and especially make similar critiques and yet have widely different fundamental social orientations. Moreover, for the most part, these differing political movements are concomitant with differing cultural movements, which manifest themselves in quite surprising ways. Today, for example, the political divide in the United States in many respects is really a cultural divide, and very often one's adherence to one side or the other is based more on a distaste for the cultural atmosphere of the other side than on account of specific political proposals. But this would take me too far afield to go into now. 

I'm sure that some of you who are listening to me tonight have studied economics, at least on the elementary level. Economics in the tradition descending from Adam Smith simply assumes the separation between ownership and work. Likewise it assumes that economics is about the allocating of scarce resources according to the presumed desires of each individual economic actor to become rich. The economy does not exist to provide for humanity's needs but to fulfill our individual desires. The late Paul Samuelson, Nobel prize winner in economics, and author of probably the most used economics texts in the world, basing his analysis on the supposed scarcity of economic goods, put it in this way: 

A situation of scarcity is one in which goods are limited relative to desires. An objective observer would have to agree that, even after two centuries of rapid economic growth, production in the United States is simply not high enough to meet everyone's desires. If you add up all the wants, you quickly find that there are simply not enough goods and services to satisfy even a small fraction of everyone's consumption desires. Our national output would have to be many times larger before the average American could live at the level of the average doctor or big-league baseball player. (Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, Microeconomics, 17th ed., 2001), p. 4.) 

Here you can see the thinking that underlies the understanding of economic activity that capitalism has created. First, there is no distinction between needs and wants. Secondly, it is simply taken for granted that every American would like to "live at the level of the average doctor or big-league baseball player." And even if this is true in the case of most Americans, is this a constant of human nature or is it something which our cultural norms have taught us, namely, that the purpose of life is simply the amassing of goods and pleasures according to our individual preferences and desires? 

This brings us to our second way of talking about distributism I mentioned, a different rhythm of life? You will have noticed that the institutions of a distributist economy, primarily widely-distributed property and guilds, have a very different aim and presuppose a very different understanding of the economy than that of capitalism. Instead of a means for enabling everyone to "live at the level of the average doctor or big-league baseball player," distributists see the economy as a means for providing the human race as a whole with the goods and services necessary for a truly human life. This does not mean becoming as rich as possible, and so at the outset we introduce the distinction between needs and wants, something which Samuelson and those who think like him refuse to do, because they presuppose a radical individualism in which each individual's understanding of reality and his desires are the norm on which both the economy and society as a whole are based. 

But distributism understands not just the economy but society, and indeed human life as a whole as governed by a different rhythm, a rhythm in which cooperation and not competition are the foundations of the economy and society. The common good, the good of the entire community, is recognized as primary, and our individual goods find their proper places within the common good, not as opposed to it. If distributism simply meant a different structure of ownership, then distributist entities might well be just as cutthroat in their dealings with other businesses and with consumers as capitalists often are. But for a distributist those making the same product should not be seen as competitors, but as engaged in a joint activity to supply some necessary human need, as we've already talked about. Obviously this does not mean that producers aren't concerned with making a profit, but it does mean that as long as each producer is making sufficient to support himself and his family in a reasonable manner, that should be enough, and instead of striving to expand his business, to make more and more, we should turn our attention to those things of greater importance: to our families, to intellectual and cultural activities, to our spiritual lives. This is what life is really about, not about living "at the level of the average doctor or big-league baseball player." 

Obviously we are far from being able to create a distributist economy all at once. A tremendous task of education lies ahead of us. But this task of education and changing of attitudes must go hand in hand with changing the laws. This is admittedly difficult, and one that goes against much of what our culture has exemplified and teaches. 

But there are steps, both small steps and potentially larger steps which we could take to work toward distributism. Obviously shopping at and encouraging small businesses, farmers markets, worker-owned businesses is one step that almost anyone can take. Depending on our vocations, our opportunities, our contacts, and so on, we can work to introduce into public discussion some of the other ideas and proposals that I've touched on today, such as favorable tax-treatment for small startups, or tax breaks when an owner converts his business into an employeeowned firm. Some of these already exist or have been proposed in a limited way. I wish I could set forth a detailed five-year or even ten-year plan to convert our economy, our whole society, into something akin to distributism, but this is not going to be a something so simple or quick. 

In the 1930s there was considerable radical economic thinking in the United States, caused, of course, by the depression and the recognition that things weren't working well. In the Catholic Church there was much more recognition and acceptance of the Church's social doctrine and one wasn't immediately labeled a socialist or a communist for voicing harsh criticisms of capitalism. 

Now, however, the sharp division of most politically active Americans into liberal and conservative tribes has made many Christians associate any criticism of capitalism with advocacy of positions that are clearly contrary to Catholic teaching. By and large in the United States the Catholic hierarchy does not have a keen sense of economic justice or much understanding of the issue. If they think about it at all, they are likely to frame the question merely in terms of less or more government regulation, which is only one small part of the social question and avoid any really radical critique such as distributists make. So, speaking as a Catholic, the Church has a really robust tradition of thinking about economic justice, and one important thing we can do is to acquaint ourselves with it. In this way we can show skeptics that a severe Catholic critique of capitalism is nothing new, nothing that is the result of the last few decades of Catholic life. Indeed, the strictures against capitalists and capitalism found in earlier documents, including papal documents, often make the criticisms of today seem mild in comparison. 

So this introduces the question of how we are to engage with skeptical or even with sympathetic but unsure friends or acquaintances on the subject of distributism. 

Earlier this year I was talking with someone who asked me how distributism differed from communism. Doesn't it mean, he said, that the government will confiscate all property and redistribute it according to some bureaucratic scheme? 

I've already spoken about how the root differences between distributism and socialism lie in our differing philosophical commitments. However, I suspect that if you explain this, it will not do much to placate people worried about government confiscation. So, in the first place, you can simply tell such people that distributism does not mean confiscation of property by the government or redistribution according to a bureaucratic scheme. But I fear that often this too will not be enough to reassure them. And in many cases this is because their understanding of property is rooted in the Lockean understanding of private property as an absolute right. For many people, many Americans especially, any discussion of limitations on property or of the social duties of property will sound strange and be immediately labeled as socialism. Nor is there any recognition of the differing types of property ownership, which I've already mentioned. The ownership of homes or farms, for example, bears an immediate relationship to the common good, something that ownership of shares of stock does not. I am not advocating confiscation of stocks, but I am pointing out that we need to think hard about each form of property and how it contributes to or impedes the common good, and as a result, what kinds of regulations and restrictions ought to be in place for that particular kind of property. 

There are many methods by which we could work toward a more distributist economy, but someone who thinks private property is an absolute right having no relationship to the common good, will likely be suspicious of any of them, even the most mild. Hilaire Belloc's plan to tax concentrations of property at an extremely high rate in order to compel a sell-off of concentrated property is not the only method of working toward distributism. While I do not think that Belloc's proposals are unjust, obviously there is no possible way we could have a serious discussion of anything like that today. But generally, I think that the first step in any discussion with a hostile or suspicious questioner is to talk about the purpose of the economy, to try to show that the economy, as a crucial part of our social life, must be subordinated to the overall common good. This is very hard for people to grasp or accept, and, of course, immediately raises fears of socialism. In part, of course, this is due to ignorance, ignorance of both what the Church teaches and of how, historically, the economy of pre-capitalist Europe operated. Sadly, it's probably not going to be a quick job, it will take a certain amount of willingness on the part of your questioner to learn, since the absolutist concept of private property is very deeply ingrained in the American consciousness. 

Related to this is the idea that somehow our economy would be ruined if we were to take steps toward distributism. In too many minds it is assumed that it is capitalism that is responsible for the plentitude of goods that we enjoy or suffer from, and that whatever its faults, any alternative to capitalism in the long run means poverty. And related to that, distributism is often firmly identified with the slogan, Three acres and a Cow, with everyone being a subsistence farmer and living a harsh life, probably without electricity or even a smart phone! Now Chesterton never offered Three acres and a Cow as a definition of distributism, but naturally most people don't know that. In the 2009 debate at Nassau Community College on Long Island, where I represented distributism and Michael Novak capitalism, Novak asked me: How could you have air planes with distributism? I've already mentioned the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain, producers of numerous sophisticated industrial and consumer products, which are worker-owned companies, and I see no reason why they couldn't manufacture air planes if they wanted to. After all, what would change with a distributist air plane factory? Not the workers, neither engineers nor welders, but only the way the company was organized. The idea that capitalists are uniquely qualified to run businesses is, I think, hardly born out by history, and in any case, in corporate America it is usually not the owners, the capitalists, who run their businesses, but hired managers. If these managers are all that effective, I see no reason why they couldn't work in a distributist model, performing much the same function that they do now, and being part owners of the companies they presently control. So I don't think that, technologically speaking, we have anything to fear from a distributist orientation of our economy. And when we look at the actual record of capitalism, we see a huge number of failed and bankrupt companies, which doesn't give one much confidence in our present way of managing things. 

Capitalism has an inherent tendency to overreach, to exhaust its resources. That is because, like so much of modern thought, capitalism prescinds from any notion of purpose. There is never enough with capitalism, because there is never a goal, never anything aimed at, never anything to be satisfied with. If you're rich, why you can be even richer. That this is ridiculous and because ridiculous immoral, should be obvious. In a way, the fight for distributism against capitalism is a fight to overturn the entire modern project, the project of autonomous individuals whose actions are restrained by nothing except what is self-chosen and self-willed. You can see the difficulty of this task, and in the end I think that it will never succeed without a fundamental reorientation of our thinking, even without a religious conversion. But that is another topic for another time and place perhaps. 

Thank you.