From The ChesterBelloc Mandate:

Editor's Note: The past few months have been quite busy for two reasons. The first is due to a book in the works. This book will be Chesterton and the Distributists as has not been seen since the early days of Distributism. The title of this work will be Found Wandering. More information on this will be posted as details are confirmed.

The second is as follows. We at the ChesterBelloc Mandate have considered and gathered information to form a possible Distributist conference by the end of 2008. This conference, and we might add it is not definite, will be successful by the attendance of our readers and those interested in Distributism.

While certain names have already been spoken to as possible guest speakers, many of whom our readers are familiar with, none have been confirmed as of yet. Talks would include topics about the origins of Distributism, economic history, the Distributist economic model, and what we can do to further Distributism in contemporary society. This would start as a one day conference and hopefully blossom in the years to come as a two-day. Lunch would be offered as an option to attendees as well as conference rates at the hotel for anyone wishing to stay overnight.

You can help.

As we need to get a pulse for the growing interest in Distributism and whether or not a conference like this is desired, we ask our readers to vote in our poll located at the sidebar. We ask that only those considering attendance vote. It is understandable that we have many readers overseas, however we ask that those voting are seriously considering attending a conference of this nature, here in the States.

The conference would most likely take place in New Jersey or New York City, both great locations for anyone attending in the New England and Tri-State area, as well as affording those in the Maryland and Washington areas the possibility of attendance. Of course, we hope some of those attending would consider flying or other means of transportation to attend, but we believe the Tri-State area is our best chance for exposure.

To vote, please go to The ChesterBelloc Mandate.

Thank you all for your patience these past couple of months. May this year be promising for all of us as we restore Christendom.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Brief excerpt from Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, February 1954

"We need to look back to the city states of Italy (all of their good aspects, as Kropotkin did) and to the guilds; to our own early American principles, "he governs best who governs least;" we need to study such a teacher as Don Luigi Sturzo who held political office and founded a party which worked towards credit unions, cooperatives, labor unions, land for the people, as the beginning of an order in which men could be conscious of their dignity and responsibility; we need to consider the principle of subsidiarity when we talk of authority and freedom.

Everything needs to be broken down into smaller units to be workable and according to man's nature, whether it is States, cities, factories. A union, a cooperative, is no better than the men in it, than the locals or cells which make it up.

Man must be responsible, in other words, to exercise his freedom which is God's greatest gift to him. The greatest message which Peter Maurin had for us was this reminder of man's freedom."

Busy

We thank all of our regular readers and apologize to them for our absence. Unfortunately writing material for blogs doesn't pay our bills and we are all very busy. Please keep us in your prayers and keep coming! Hopefully we'll have updates soon.

Vintage Distributism

Land for the People
by Fr. Vincent McNabb




Readers, and especially Distributist readers, of G.K.'s Weekly, must share the good news that has come to re-kindle the fires of Distributist hope. Before me, as I write, there lies a new journalistic venture called, convincingly, Land for the People. Its title-page tells us that it is the Organ of the Scottish Catholic Land Association, and that its editor is one not unknown to G.K.'s Weekly, the Rev. John McQuillan, D.D.

I think I am speaking the mind of the Editor of the organ, who is also President of the Association in saying that the Association has come of a conviction that the withered hand can be cured only by being stretched out. Propaganda by the spoken and the written word is of (chronologically) first importance, because "in the beginning is the word." But in practical matter words must end in deeds, because the doing of the work is of (really) first importance. To quote the wise wisdom of Aquinas; "Finis est principium in operabilibus" (in practical matter the end is the principle).

It was easy to see but hard to accept the fact that if Distributist energy was to be expended merely on the spoken or written word, the enemy could quietly advance its fighting line and halve its fighting forces. Distributism, in order to live, had to take action.

Only two forms of action promised victory. Distributists could take political action, or both political and economic action. Moreover, that action to be effective would have to be taken at once against an enemy always alertly active and now entrenched in an almost impregnable position. What Soviet Russia is now attempting as a mere experiment in Marxian Socialism England, may be driven to attempt, as the last effort, to prevent destruction. Mass production with collective, servile labour is being applied to Russian agriculture, not in order to justify Russian Marxian Socialists. But English and Scottish agriculture, with all its attendant crafts, is in such a state of ruin that, all other experiments having failed, no argument could be urged against the methods of Big Business, Mass Production and Servile Labour.

To some Distributists a campaign of mere words seemed as helpful for economic salvation as the fiddling of Nero was helpful when Rome was burning. Something, of course, had to be said: indeed, something had to be said again and again and again. Thank God, G.K.'s Weekly was saying it, with an emphasis and distinction which gave it a place apart in journalism.

But something had to be done as well as said, if only to justify what was being said by the men whose craft was the word and the saying of the word. We, pulpit-craftsmen of the world, know how useless would be the best of all we say if nowhere in the world there were homes and cloisters living in the principles that are proved only by being lived.

It is to the credit of the Scottish Catholic Land Association that, leaving Distributist political action to others, they have determined to face salvation by taking economic action by leading men, women and children from the dens of Glasgow to the glens of Scotland.

Though nt all, nor perhaps not many, of the Scottish Land Association are Distributists, yet the starting-force of the Association was a borrowing from Distributism. How much the Association already owes to its first President it can hardly be expected to know. Nor again can the President know the extent of his indebtedness to the group of writers and thinkers that ahve made their orbit round G.K.'s and its two predecessors.

But the President and his fellow-Distributists have thought their best repayment of their borrowings was to do in Scotland what their creditors were asking men and women to do in England.

The rest may be told in the "Stater of Objects" in the Land for the People.

The Scottish Catholic Land Association has been formed for the following objects. -

1. The acquisition of land for distribution among Catholics.

2. The acquisition of information regarding Land Settlement, and the furthering of, by lectures and other propaganda, the transfer of Catholics from the town to the country.

3. The education of Catholics in the working and use of land.

4. The financing of Catholic prospective farmers to enable them to settle on th eland.

5. The formation of a Land Bank or Co-operative Trust, or both.

6. The doing of all such other lawful acts as are identical or conducive to the attainment of the above object.

7. Collecting monies for the advancement of the above objects.

I can best end this article by quoting from a letter occassioned by my sending the Land For The People to the West Country.

"Dear Rev. Father, __ Many thans for the Land For The People, which arrived this morning. The first paragraph of your article was illustrated to me only yesterday.

A farmer's wife came to see me. She told me of how they now have the wireless and a motor-car and a piano and her girls go to dances, and her boys have money in their pockets. They had never dreamed of such ease and comfort. 'But we are no happier than when I was a girl, an' us had none o'these things. And we all stayed at 'ome together, and all of us from grandfather to the baby discussed the farm and the family.' Then she wept. 'I don't think we'd a been so hard on George (a younger son who got into a scrape and was banished the farm) if we'd all just talked about him together. We seem to be losing our common sense.'"

But at any rate there seems an untouched bed of common sense and even heroism North of the Tweed.

Through A Glass Clearly,

by Athanasius

In recent weeks there have been numerous recalls on Chinese products, especially toys because they had lead paint. Consumers have complained for years of Chinese goods soaked in formaldehyde, clothes sprayed with pesticides, and seafood raised in sewage. It is right and good for Americans to take a serious look at Chinese business practices, however it might do us well to have a look at our own.

It is rather like the concern over MSG in Chinese food. In the 1980's, everyone complained about Monosodium-Glutamate in Chinese food, and as a result many Chinese restaurants now advertise that their food is MSG free. This is excellent. However, has anyone looked at the extent to which MSG is used in American food by American restaurants? Just buy a bag of fried chicken at the grocery store and look at the ingredients, in the middle of the nomenclature, you will find MSG.
In fact upon closer inspection of stock and bullion cubes, you will also find MSG in the ingredients. Seasoning packets and gravy powders have the same. If you got ingredients from many restaurants, you would find MSG among them, and has anyone asked about pizza crusts? Yet no one thinks about that, they think about Chinese food.

This is very similar to what we see with Chinese goods. It is true that China not only engages in de facto slave labor, is a partner in the sex slave trade, and does not have American interests at heart (understandably, as they are Chinese not American), but they are also guilty of the safety and health violations that have produced so many recalls. Yet what is going on with products made elsewhere? Consider clothes for example.

Most are completely soaked in formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen (i.e. cancer causing) and is absorbable through the skin. While causing cancer, allergies, and killing brain cells, formaldehyde also tends to give textiles that wrinkle free effect. Hence, they are prevalent in the textile industry. While rightfully raising concerns about Chinese goods and textiles, we should realize that right here in the USA, we take our clothes to the dry cleaners, which also use unsafe chemicals. Traditional dry cleaning makes use of a chemical solvent, called perchloroethylene, to remove stains. That is the same chemical used in rocket fuel. The residue of this solvent is toxic to humans; in fact, many people experience adverse reactions from dry-cleaned clothing as dizziness, headache, sinus congestion, and shortness of breath. Perchloroethylene has also been found to cause cancer in animals.

But they save money, so everything else be damned.

Furthermore, before going out to the store, mall, or wherever you use your credit cards, consider that many companies we routinely buy from have formaldehyde in their products:

• Dove® Deep Moisture Body Wash
• L'Oreal® Lash Out Mascara
• Zeasorb® Super Absorbent Foot Powder
• Baby Magic® Gentle Baby Bath
• Revlon® Professional Cuticle Remover
• Hagen Flea & Tick Shampoo for Cats
• Phisoderm® Deep Cleaning Cleanser
• Blush By Cover Girl®
• Pond’s® Dry Skin Cream
• Huggies® Natural Care Baby Wipes
• Cover Girl® Simply Powder Foundation
• Hagen Tearless Shampoo for Dogs. - Source

Thus, while rightly condemning toxins in Chinese products, we should also not turn a blind eye to what companies closer to home are doing as well. In trying to establish a sensible stewardship of the environment, without the global warming hysteria, and to get man closer to the earth and into a healthier lifestyle, we should be looking for alternatives to the scourge of chemicals in our products and our environment.

The Rupert Murdoch Media Empire

by Athanasius

Here is an excellent article from Chronicles Magazine on the perils of gigantic media outlets. Here is a short excerpt:

Murdoch already uses his media power to influence public officials, domestic and foreign—which is a legitimate cause for worry. In 2003, Congress considered a regulation that would have required Murdoch to sell some properties. As the New York Times reported, one man who was behind the new rule was Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), an alleged conservative. Then Lott changed his mind. HarperCollins had paid Senator Lott $250,000 in advance royalties for his unheralded book, Herding Cats. Before that, Murdoch’s publishing house had offered a $4.5 million advance to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, which precipitated such vehement reproach that Gingrich returned it.

The most scandalous of Murdoch’s monkeyshines occurred in China. When he publicly proclaimed that modern media “proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere,” the Chinese Reds banned private ownership of satellite dishes, which threatened Murdoch’s Asian broadcasting venture, Star TV. No problem. HarperCollins published Deng Xiaoping’s biography, which, according to Joseph Kahn of the New York Times, included “mainly recycled propaganda about Mr. Deng.” Murdoch schmoozed with Deng’s handicapped son as well. He “chartered a jet to ferry a troop of disabled acrobats that the younger Mr. Deng had promoted to perform abroad.” And Star TV dumped the BBC because the Chicoms didn’t like its newscasts. That should worry journalists everywhere.

What I like about this is that it is not a hysterical hit piece from the left about Murdoch because he is supposedly "conservative" (which he is not). Rather, it puts Murdoch in perspective with the other media corporations and empires, they all have too much power and they are all corrupt.

What I also like is the author is not crying about how Murdoch will or will not run the news, but rather makes the case for small family owned media. An increase in the owners of media creates more choice and helps information flow better, while when it is concentrated into a few hands it removes choice, as with everything else.

Vintage Distributism

Poverty Without Tears
An Excerpt
By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, April 1950

"But there is not much chance that this book [Poverty, An Essential Element in the Christian Life, Translated by Rosemary Sheed] will find its way into the hands of the kind of people we meet up with, who are the destitute and the poor. So let us hope that it will reach and convert a tremendous number of lay apostles who themselves will espouse poverty and live it gloriously and bring a sense of joy to those who are poor. That joy will bring them the energy and power to praise God and begin to take what they need of His creatures instead of allowing themselves to be poisoned and perverted and deadened by the non essentials of our industrial America.

This is really a call to a general strike, a revolution, an expropriation of land and tools. It could be dynamite, this book, but it won't be, because the argument will go on as to what is poverty and what destitution, and how can you stop making bombs and tanks and airplane parts and television sets and pepsi-cola and brassieres and chewing gum and ash trays, and wouldn't it throw people out of work, and how can you stop buying all these things too, since that too would throw people out of work? The interminable idiocy of the talk about poverty! As soon as you begin talking of stripping yourself of cigarettes, (and ash trays) chewing gum and pepsi-cola, and (if you can afford it) television sets--then you are called a Jansenist or a Manichaen, negative in your approach, a deviationist heretic of an opponent of the working class as well as of the Church. If you cry aloud for land and home and tools and the good natural life for the poor without which a good supernatural life is impossible, then you are either an escapist and an inhabitant of an ivory tower, or you are a Communist in disguise trying to do away with property.

And you are a communist also if you cry out for peace and against increased armaments-- against the making of the hydrogen and atom bombs and the paying of federal taxes for the making of those bombs. We know, who picketed March 15 before the tax offices up on 45th street, because we heard these jibes as we walked to and fro with our signs.

Yes, it is hard to talk of the glory of poverty and the joy of poverty without offending all. "You make things sound too easy, too pleasant," is the accusation leveled at us by our own friends and readers when we talk of the pleasant aspects of living in the slums of the city, or in poverty on the land. Or--"What do you want --that people should stay in this condition?"

We can only reply with Eric Gill, that the aim of the Church is to make the rich poor and the poor holy. "There is always enough for one more," as a Spanish friend said, "Everyone just takes a little less." "If everyone would try to be better, then everyone would be better off," Peter Maurin said. "No one would be poor if everyone tried to be the poorest.""

Science, Normative and Positive

by John Médaille

Donald Goodman, in yesterday's post, points out that economics is not a science in the same way that physics and mathematics are sciences. And yet, economics is nevertheless a real science. The argument is often placed as a contest between "positive" sciences (like chemistry or physics) and "normative" sciences (which involve some normative judgments, like psychology). This, I believe, is a false dichotomy for any science. I just happened to be writing an article on the proper place of science and natural law, and I hope this excerpt will clarify the issue:

Some wag somewhere has remarked that economists suffer from “physics envy.” One could certainly make that charge against W. S. Jevons (1835-1882), one of the founders of marginal economics, when he wrote that a “perfect system of statistics … is the only … obstacle in the way of making economics an exact science”; once the statistics have been gathered, the generalization of laws from them “will render economics a science as exact as many of the physical sciences.”[1] More than a century has passed since Jevons wrote these words, and in that time there has been a growth of vast bureaucracies, both public and private, devoted to establishing this “perfect system” of statistics. Yet today economics seems no closer to being an exact science than it was in Jevons’ day. Despite this failure, economic orthodoxy clings to the notion of itself as a positive science. As Milton Friedman puts it:

"Positive economics is in principle independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgments. As [J. N.] Keynes says, it deals with “what is,” not with “what ought to be.” Its task is to provide a system of generalizations that can be used to make correct predictions about the consequences of any change in circumstances. Its performance is to be judged by the precision, scope, and conformity with experience of the predictions it yields. In short, positive economics is, or can be, an “objective” science, in precisely the same sense as any of the physical sciences."[2]

Friedman makes predictive success the criteria for judging a positive economics, yet such success is doubtful, despite the fact that we have access not only to vast amounts of statistics, but to computing power unimaginable in Jevons’ day. Yet the models, worked out in great precision and computed on engines of vast power, seem to lack any predictive reliability whatsoever.[3] Nevertheless, economists are (as Lev Landau said of cosmologists) “frequently in error but never in doubt.”[4]

In light of these failures, can we ask if economics really is a positive science? Let me suggest that the question is meaningless. Every science, insofar as it really is a science, is both positive and normative. Every science, insofar as it is a science, must be “normalized” to some criteria of truth. These truths will arise from two sources: an internal and an external source. The internal criteria involve a science’s proper subject matter and methodology. But these criteria are insufficient to found any science as a science. In addition, there must be external criteria of truth, and these truths can only come from one or more higher sciences. In the absence of such an external check, the science will merely be circular, dependent on nothing but itself and unconnected with the hierarchy of truth. Thus, for example, biology is responsible to chemistry, chemistry to physics, physics to mathematics. No biologist can violate the laws of chemistry, and no chemist can reach a conclusion contrary to physics. Thus every science is responsible to its own methodology (and therefore “positive”) and to the higher sciences (and therefore “normative”). Every science has, therefore, both its own proper autonomy, based on its subject matter and methodology and its own proper connection to the near sciences, based on the hierarchy of truth. In speaking of the autonomy of a science, we should note that it is only a relative autonomy, not an absolute one. A scientist’s obligation to be faithful to his proper method does not relieve him of the obligation to higher truths.

No science can provide its own criteria entirely without being merely circular. When a science attempts to do so, one of two things happens. The first possibility is that the science breaks up into mutually warring camps whose disputes can never be resolved because there are no accepted criteria of truth by which to resolve them. The second possibility is that the science becomes merely dogmatic, and no rational examination of its premises is permitted. In economics, both things have happened; the science is divided into warring factions with no arbiter of truth among them; the principles of the various factions have become dogmatic statements with little connection to reality.

Thus any science, to be a science, must be properly located within the hierarchy of truth that is science. Our first task is to determine what the “higher sciences” are for economics. Now, the physical sciences terminate in physics and mathematics, but the humane sciences terminate in some view of anthropology derived ultimately from philosophy and theology. Therefore, some theology must be the ultimate source of truth for economics with, perhaps, some intermediate stops at psychology and sociology. It would seem to be self-evident that a complete view of man would involve theology, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, yet this view is not at all universally (or even generally) accepted by economists. How is it possible that a humane science can cut itself off from these indispensable sources of knowledge about humans? The answer lies in the fact that it doesn’t. It can’t. It is not possible to theorize about human actions without some theory of humans. What actually happens is that neoclassical economists accept as a purely economic truth that which is, in fact, a purely philosophic stance, namely that of Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, and its various descendants. What actually happens is that a philosophic assertion becomes a pseudo-scientific dogmatism, placed beyond all question and critique. What happens is that the science becomes less scientific and more dogmatic.

Natural Law and Naturalism

Part and parcel of the error about science is an error about the natural law itself. Modern economics was forged in the fires of Enlightenment rationalism, which may be defined as the effort to bypass the authorities of religion and custom and look directly at nature for answers to the most perplexing problems. The success of this approach was proved beyond any doubt by the success of Isaac Newton, whose simple mechanics solved problems which had vexed both scientists and theologians for 300 years. The enthusiasm for Newton is indicated by Alexander Pope’s famous couplet, “Nature and nature’s law lay hid in night/God said “Let Newton be,” and all was light.” The enthusiasm was not merely for the answer, but for the method; “nature” by herself, and without the help of religion, really did enlighten the mind, and complex problems could be reduced to the operation of a few simple laws. How much better this was than the absurdities of the theologians, the persecution of Galileo, or the religious wars of the 17^th century. And as Newton tamed the complex movements of the stars with the inverse-square law, economists hoped to tame the movements of the markets with a similarly simple law. Economics thus became a search for some “social” Newtonian principles. Adam Smith believed he had found them in the Labor Theory of Value and the Invisible Hand of self-interest. And when J. B. Clark refers to marginal productivity as the “deep-acting natural law” that fairly allocates all rewards, he is offering it as a social Newtonian, an economic “inverse-square” law.

However, such naturalism is a misunderstanding of the natural law. Natural law deals with how objects are moved to their ends. When we are dealing with objects such as rocks and stars, atoms and planets, such naturalism suffices, because their movements are determined by rigorous laws, and a study of their movements exhausts a study of their ends. Such objects can neither choose their ends nor deviate in their movements. But with objects like “men” and “women” it is otherwise. These “objects” must discover their ends and choose their means. In these cases, the natural law is the process of practical reason that helps us discover our true ends, the ends most in accord with our natures. For the operation of the practical reason, we must select a goal and judge our “movements” in relation to that goal. Therefore, natural law starts with teleology, the end or purpose of a thing. The determination of a various ends will give various “laws,” each of which seems “natural” to those who hold those ends. For example, if the end of man is to acquire all he can, one set of rules will make perfect sense; if his end is to live in peaceful community with his fellow-man, another set of rules will be reasonable. And if our journey through life is a preparation for another kind of life, then a third set of rules will be “natural.” In other words, natural law is not known by a mere inspection of nature, rather it involves a discernment and a judgment about the proper end and purpose of a thing, and especially of the "thing" called "man."

In applying the natural law to economic science, we must first determine what is the purpose or end of economics. Self-evidently, economics is the study of “the process of providing for the material well-being of society.”[5] Once we have determined an end, we have a rule by which we can judge the success or failure of a thing. In this case, we can judge how well or poorly the economic system provides for the material well-being of society. Such a rule is precisely what the practical reason needs to operate at all. Without such practical rules, there can be no practical science. But the rule cannot be determined from within the science itself. Some other discipline will have to instruct economists on the nature of man and the nature of his society. Those are questions beyond the competence of economics per se. The whole point of neoclassical economics was to avoid such messy teleological questions. In attempting to avoid the discussions of the purpose of things in order to become “scientific,” economics avoids the one thing that can make it a true science.

---

[1] Quoted in James E. Alvey, "A Short History of Economics as a Moral Science," Journal of Markets and Morality 2, no. 1 (Spring, 1999): 62.

[2] Milton Friedman, Essays in Positive Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 4.

[3] Paul Ormerod, The Death of Economics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994), 120-7.

[4] Ibid., 93.

[5] Robert L. Heilbroner, and William Milberg, The Making of Economic Society, Eleventh ed. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002), 1.

Distributism: A Catholic System of Economics

by Donald Goodman III

The Scientific Status of Economics


Many, particularly those who hold opinions contrary to those expressed in the papal encyclicals, hold that the Church has no authority in economic matters. Economics, they claim, is advanced and practiced as a science, on the model of physics and mathematics. The Church cannot make authoritative pronouncements about science; she cannot, for example, decree that the freezing temperature of water will be anything other than 32. Similarly, the Church cannot declare that when supply rises demand will also rise. Such things are simply true or not, and it is beyond the Church's competency to speak on them. This view, however, must be rejected on careful consideration. In the first place, it is a matter of open debate whether economics is truly a science in the same sense as physics and chemistry. This debate largely centers around the unpredictability of human action and the predictive power of science. Success in the empirical sciences is generally gauged by how well that science can predict the actions of its objects. Physicists, for example, formulate theories to predict the actions of light waves, and the truth of those theories (that is, the degree to which those theories accurately describe light waves) is proportional to the accuracy of those predictions. Economists can do no such thing; it seems unlikely, then, that it is truly a science in the sense described above.

Economists' definition of their purported science further prove that economics cannot be considered the same way as physics or chemistry. According to Christian economist Ronald Nash,7 economics is the study of "the choices human beings make with regard to scarce resources. "

As Aristotle teaches, the definition of a thing is its genus specified by its specific difference; that is, the type of thing that it is specified by whatever of its features makes it different from the other things of its type.9 In this case, the genus of "economics" is the "choice human beings make" and the specific difference is with regard to scarce resources. We know, then, that economics is a study of human choices, like ethics or politics, but that it studies those choices specifically as regards scarce resources, which makes it something other than the other sciences which study human choices. Nash has given us a very compact and specific definition, one which he believes describes a very scientific type of inquiry.

However, this definition does not describe a science because the study of human choices is never an exact science. The human will is, as good philosophy and revealed faith teach us, free, and therefore not subject to the operations of economic laws. The economist, then, cannot make accurate predictions about the choices that human beings will make with regard to scarce resources. He can certainly make generalizations: if you glut the wheat market, the price of wheat will go downand that is certainly a very useful and valuable ability; it is not, however, truly an empirical science, in the sense of physics or chemistry.

Other, more learned arguments have been made against the status of economics as a science, particularly by MacIntyre10; the end result is that economics, if it is to be regarded as a science in the sense of physics and chemistry, must be regarded as a singularly bad one. But within its own sphere, that of predictive generalizations, it is, of course, useful and honorable, and my argument should not be construed as advocating its abandonment.

Even if these cogent arguments against the status of economics as a science are rejected, however, one still cannot claim the immunity of economics from the moral authority of the Church. First, of course, conomics is the study of human choices, and human choices are always moral and therefore subject to the decrees of Holy Mother Church. But second, and more significantly, what we call economics, as a study of human action, is simply a branch of political knowledge, and as such is a subset of ethical science, the authority of the Church over which no Catholic can deny.

The Profit Motive

It is axiomatic among capitalists that riches are not sinful. This is, of course, true; riches are not per se sinful. However, it is indisputable that riches are proximate causes of sin. Wealth is a dangerous thing, which Our Lord and His Church have been teaching throughout the ages. But still many of the rich insist that their possession of wealth represents no hindrance to their virtue or the obtaining of eternal happiness. Our Lord, however, thought otherwise, and not infrequently took the opportunity to say so. For Christ tells us that "[i]t is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven."61 The wealthy, however, often seem to think that the camel can navigate the eye of the needle without difficulty, thus putting the words of Our Lord to naught. Again, the rich young man approached Our Lord and asked what he must do to gain the kingdom of heaven. As happens so often, Our Lord responded, "Go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven."62 The young man's wealth was a hindrance to his salvation; Our Lord therefore, in His infinite goodness, instructed him to give it up, for "if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell."63 Can we, in the face of Our Lord's clear words, claim that riches are neutral in our pursuit of eternal salvation?

The Church, indeed, supports the teaching of the Gospel. Even in Rerum Novarum, concerned principally with the poor and not the rich, we and a warning about the dangers of wealth.

Therefore, the well-to-do are admonished that wealth does not give surcease of sorrow, and that wealth is of no avail unto the happiness of eternal life but is rather a hindrance; that the threats pronounced by Jesus Christ, so unusual coming from Him, ought to cause the rich to fear; and that on one day the strictest account for the use of wealth must be rendered to God as Judge.64

The Church is not condemning the rich to Hell, any more than Christ Himself is; she merely, following her divine Founder, seeks to warn those of her children with wealth of the dangers they are facing. It is maternal care, not socialistic vindictiveness, which motivates her cautions.

This is certainly not to say that riches render virtue impossible. Indeed, riches can be the source of great virtue; witness King St. Louis, for example, or any other of many wealthy saints. But their sanctity was due to their resposible use of their wealth for the benefit of others; had they used it for their own benefit, they could never have become the saints they did. As Leo XIII says, "No one, certainly, is obliged to assist others out of what is required for his own necessary use or for that of his family, or even to give to others what he himself needs to maintain his station in life becomingly and decently."65 Indeed, thepontiff even quotes St. Thomas Aquinas to this effect. However, he does not hesitate to insist that "when the demands of necessity and propriety have been su-ciently met, it is a duty to give to the poor out of that which remains."66 In so saying Leo is echoing the words of Our Lord, Who teaches that with "that which remaineth, give alms; and behold, all things are clean unto you."67 The holy pontiff teaches unequivocally that:

[t]he substance of all this is the following: whoever has received from the bounty of God a greater share of goods, whether corporeal and external, or of the soul, has received them for this purpose, namely, that he employ them for his own perfection and, likewise, as a servant of Divine Providence, for the benefit of others.68

So we see that riches are not unalloyed good; they impart grave responsibility on their holders, and we must always recall that great axiom of the moral life: "from those to whom much is given, much is expected."

(For the full text go to Goretti Publications)

Capitalism and Economic Liberty, and the aims of Distributism

I could do a great many things before I came to definitely anti-social action like robbing a bank or, worse still, working in a bank.

-G.K. Chesterton

One of our opponents, is still confused by a modern myth, the idea that wages (which are not within his control) and renting (something which is owned by others and consequently not within his control) are more "stable" and provide more "freedom" (over things he has no control over) than owning one's own means of production (which he does have control over) and owning his own property (which surprise! he also has control over). If that is the case, then by all means, let us call unstable "stable" and restriction "freedom". For that matter, let us also call the spend crazy "frugal", and that which is poisonous "healthy", or, that which is cheap "good quality". In fact, industrial capitalism does all that too!

In attempting to make various terms clear in the debate between Distributism and Capitalism, he says (note: all emphasis mine)

The capitalist tends to define an economic system by what the legal apparatus does and does not allow. This point of view defines capitalism as the system in which economic freedom maximized, i.e. where goods and services are bought and sold freely without government interference. (source)

This is entirely false. If Capitalism maximizes economic freedom, it does so for only one group: the wealthy owner. This is because one type of freedom is maximized within the capitalist system: the freedom to buy. It turns the traditional understanding of freedom into a materialist, like an angel dressing up as a devil. The traditional understanding of freedom is the ability to choose to do the good. For the capitalist, it is to buy, and only one group in society benefits from this, that is the owner. The owner decides what is made and consequently what men will buy. Men then basically have the freedom to do what the owner wishes them to. Perhaps we are not so far from Belloc's servile state as we may think.

The reality is, the standard by which freedom is judged is entirely false, which is why everything else in the Capitalist system is false. Furthermore there is no other area of society in which freedom is judged by this standard. To be true to reality, this view in fact represents a minority of the thought within Capitalist economics to begin with, which makes the idea that it could be a science more laughable. There are numerous different schools of capitalism, some favoring tarrifs and trade protection, some favoring high taxes and government made social services (which are not tantamount to socialism per se), and some, those of the economic liberals, which favor no government action of all in the realm of economics, that somehow, a hidden hand will make markets smooth and all men rich.

Of course when we come back to reality not many men are rich. In fact, not many men are well off. Some are better off than others. Now some have nice trinkets and goods, nice computers, nice televisions (which they don't really own, some bank owns them through funds it lent them via a credit card). Most struggle to get by and require their spouse to work in order to pay the bills. They are not free to start a business venture, because a bank will not give them a loan, or if one does, it is on such unfavorable terms as to make the venture impossible or so risky as to be foolish. A company which is already millions of dollars in debt with a proven track record for inefficiency and poor customer service on the other hand has no problem getting large loans, much more money than what is proposed to be given to those who start a small business. Why is this state of affairs? Because without any interference in the economy, there is only one motive: greed. The larger businesses, indebted as they are with debts bigger than the economies of 3rd world nations, have the illusion of permanence, and thus the bank invests in the large businesses, because the interest on large loans (that will never be paid off) will yield more money than the small business will ever see. It may be that the small businessmen will never have economic freedom, will work until they are dead, and be forced to buy from the big shops where the bank invests, but that scarcely bothers the businessman, or the banker. It is quite simple, human beings, when left to themselves, operate according to a wounded human nature. This human nature so wounded, places an immediate good in place of a final good. As such, the immediate good of enrichment is far more desirable to most men than the overall good of a healthy society, or helping the poor not with a handout but with a share in ownership, which Pope Leo XIII described as the only way to cure the social evils addressed in Rerum Novarum.

Capitalism in all of its forms necessitates toward the same end, what Belloc and Chesterton called the "Capitalist paradox". What this means is that the laborer will become so poor that he is unable to buy the goods he produces, and the owner will be unable to find a market for the goods. Is that any surprise since wages are now lower than they were in the previous generation? Mortgage loans are defaulting at a staggering level, which had caused a free-fall in the stock market until recently when the government borrowed money from other countries to put money in the banking industry. As men have less money at their disposal, they are unable to meet usurious rates of loans, which are now necessary to own property in this country. Then of course no one will have economic freedom. Given the high cost of the basic means for getting to a job, gas and a car, can we seriously maintain there is a high level of economic freedom simply because the wealthy can market their products to us without the government keeping open a window for us to enter the playing field?

Thus, the definition given by Belloc, that capitalism is the concentration of wealth and the means of production in the hands of the few, is entirely correct for this reason: In every capitalist society this is the net result of so-called "economic freedom". Arguing this point is almost like arguing with Communists about the evils of Communism. They often deny that Communism is intrinsically bad, they will just say it got corrupted by Stalin (ignoring Lenin's murderous rampage). The fact is that wherever Communism has been tried it requires a murderous rain of terror to concentrate property in the hands of the state. Likewise in Capitalism, wherever it is tried it concentrates society's wealth into an elite: a small class of owners and a group of bankers whose interests are international. If you doubt that consider World War II. International banking and oil interests bankrolled both the Nazis and the Allies throughout the war. J.D. Rockefeller helped produce tank engines for Roosevelt and sold fuel additives from U.S. standard oil to Hitler through a partner, I.G. Farben which allowed Hitler to bomb Britain. Union Banking Corps, based in New York City, gave millions to Hitler, funded his rise to power, and at last after the war was discovered with tons of Nazi money in their vaults. American business and banking interests supported both sides, because in war, governments borrow from banks, and enrich banks, they buy from big business, and enrich them, which is why big business necessitates toward war. That is why we had a World War twice, and have been involved in umpteen billion wars since. What of the economic freedom of the men putting their lives on the line for these business interests? In war, no wealth is produced, though it is often destroyed. Governments borrow money, and money produces more money, for the elite, which they hold from the community and invest in the interests which they alone wish to invest. It is not the common man who is economically free.

Moreover, it is in a desperate attempt to cling to this false reality, that our opponent must mischaracterize our solution, unless we have been so vague as to cause him to not yet grasp it:

The capitalist defines distributism as the system in which the government prejudices the legal apparatus against the large business, in favor of the small venture (source).

This is also incorrect. Distributism, unlike Capitalism, favors local government. The term "government" is used of course in the pejorative, as if it is a bad thing to have government! With the exception of economic liberals such as our opponent, Capitalism supports big government since the big government necessarily must borrow money from banks, and the interest guarantees a continued indebtedness to the banks and a slave status for government. Our opponent is an unwitting ally of this concept by supporting big business, even though it is against his ideology.

Distributism does not favor big government. It favors strong local government, and mediating economic bodies such as a guild, to set pricing, restrict (though not eliminate) competition,
and protect small business from ruination by the direct actions of larger entities. By applying this controls and checks on the economy, Economic freedom is thus preserved for the family, at the expense of the greedy. No grandiose promises of wealth and fortune are made, they are certainly possible, but something far better is offered within this framework, security for the family.

Distributism is then defined as the economic system in which the vast majority of people have personal ownership of productive capital, ie are running small businesses. The historical exemplar of this is an agrarian farming community with the occasional non-farming specialty tradesman, but distributists stress that they are not advocating that everybody turn to farming or reject technology (source).

This should be expanded and clarified. The agrarian question is a thorny issue. What percentage of society will have to be agrarian in order for the society to have enough food. Donald Goodman, in his e-Book "Distributism, a Catholic system of economics" suggests that it would need to be as much as 50%. This is possible, but perhaps it is lower, maybe 35%. To interject with my subjective experience, the number of people who I have known who wanted to farm but could not meet the financial burden placed by the twin evils of big government and big business suggests to me that it is a sufficient number in society to meet that percentage. Furthermore, most economic liberals (though I believe our opponent is an exception in this) have advocated in recent years opening the borders, getting in as many illegal immigrants as possible to do farm work. Why? Because major bloated farms need lots of workers, but they can't pay a lot of money to attract commuters because Agribusiness is overproducing food, and in the absence of an agent to set prices to a just level, they follow simple supply and demand and drop. When the prices drop, privately owned farms suffer. Because these farms operate on a Capitalist rather than Distributist model, they are big and bloated and removed from habitation, so there are no young children to hire for a few hours of work, no teachers on summer vacation, no townspeople in general to assist, and no local market for the food which drives up the costs to begin with. So abusing Mexicans and paying them low wages seems like the answer to most free market economists! By having farms near markets, that meet the demands of local markets, most of these evils are eliminated or severely reduced.
The historical exemplar is not an agrarian economy per se, because the Roman Empire used such an economy, but it was a slave economy. Distributism's exemplar was the economic model that the Catholic Church built during the middle ages, which transformed the Roman Slave into the serf who inherited rights and protection, and from that into the medieval peasant who was free and who could will his land to his descendants, and no one could take it from him, until society itself broke down, as it did with the Reformation.
Now modern society provides all forms of private enterprise that can be understood as Distributive. The concept of a co-operative for example, where all the employees are owners, would not qualify as a big business, because all the employees were owners. This follows the concept of subsidiary, namely if smaller units can do the work they ought. There are irreducibly complex goods like computers, like cars (although one man could build a car, that would scarcely be possible economically), power equipment and industrial goods. Distributism does not propose thousands of technicians in shops producing these goods night and day to meet demand. Instead we propose co-ownership as the means of "gaining the share in the land". Then workers will receive a living wage verses a minimum wage, and profits according to the goods they produce.

The distributist defines his terms differently, although both competing definitions seem to referencing the same state of affairs in most cases. (Source)

The difficulty here is there are two different applications. There is the society we want to get to, namely a society that can be called Distributist, where the mark of that society is of widespread ownership, and there is the present society, where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, which we want to see made into a Distributist society. That means transformation. The principles inherent to a process of transformation do not apply after the transformation is complete. When you have turned flour, oil, butter, salt and yeast into a loaf of bread by applying heat of 400 degrees Fahrenheit in an oven, you do not continue applying that temperature after the transformation! This is true in transforming the character of society, except with Communism, where the murder used in establishing the government seems to continue after it is established. Thus, where Belloc talks about using taxation against large businesses and subsidizing small business for a time, he does not intend that to mark Distributive society, but to establish one. When he talks about taxing heavily the purchase of property by the wealthy from the small man, but lightly taxing if taxing at all the purchase of property by the small man from the wealthy, it is only for an intermediary period. Thus these are the two applications of ideas in establishing a Distributist society. However, unlike Capitalism and Communism, which as far as we are concerned is generally the same thing, one where an elite owns capital, and another where the state owns it, Distributism can not be established from above by a minority on the majority. There must be desire for it in society. You can not entrust property to someone who has no desire for it, the stroke will go rather astray. Thus the first mission of Distributism, is to increase a desire for economic liberty that comes with property amongst the populace, and then, only then, can some reform be enacted.

Vintage Distributism

The Significance of Distributism
An excerpt by George Maxwell


Human labour has two purposes. One essential and permanent, the other incidental and transient. The essential end is to develop and perfect himself as a person. The transient end to enable him to earn his living.

When free men meet together for the purpose of producing shoes or anything else, they do not shed their dignity as "persons" or as responsible social beings ruled by justice and charity. The specific objective of their work is the making of shoes or whatnot, but the principle objective is the perfection of the person in union with other persons. Under industrialism it is the reverse. Is this one of those things of which Mr. Chesterton said: "You may look at it 999 times and not see it. If you look at it the 100Th time you are in grave danger of seeing it for the first time."

The second factor in Distributist policy is the restoration of property. By property I mean the effective ownership and control of the means to exercise liberty. The essential means for responsibility. A homely illustration will, I think, suffice to show its necessity. You will have heard it said that, "No kitchen was ever built big enough to hold two women." Its a generalisation and the idea underlying the saying is, I believe, true - and trust that it will remain so. Here is the commonest though noblest of all craftsmen - the maker of the home. She takes for granted that her workshop, her workbench, her tools, her policy and the tempo of her work shall be in her sole control to order as she wishes. Her responsibility. Any attempt to interfere with this control by whomsoever it may be, is met at once by opposition. Her defences are called into play and are usually effective and sometimes subtle, such as would put the T.U.C. to shame. Nevertheless when the need arises she understands the need for charity and in these days she is not wanting. This theme could be developed more but it should not be necessary.

Had men insisted on keeping the ownership and control of their tools as she has, insisted on responsibility in their work to anything like the same extent, the position to-day would be different. But a fifth column is active against the home in all sorts of ways. The philosophy of Distributism is the only one I know which can counteract this. The only one I know which embraces the personal and social life of the whole man. Its chief significance lies in that everyone, in no matter what circumstances can move towards its goal. It may be very shortly and with halting steps, but so long as one is moving in the right direction then a path is being made to make it easier for others whose steps may be still more faltering, but willing to move to restore the lost culture of Christianity to men and to England.

As things are at present, to some there may be a temptation to rewrite in the mind the Gospel of St. John, to read "In the beginning were the circumstances, and the circumstances are with us, and the circumstances are omnipotent." This is despair and by definition this is mortal sin. Take consolation from that, because if it is mortal sin, it can't be necessary. The service of truth will bring Freedom, and Truth is not a concept of the mind, but a 'person.'

Taken from The Distributist

Vintage Distributism

On Usury
By Hilaire Belloc
taken from The Crisis of Civilization

Usury, to take that first, like the greed from which it proceeds, is as old as human society. Like the other evils proceeding from the Reformation it was not created by the movement. We shall find in the case of Usury, as in the case of unbridled Competition (the force which, coupled with Usury, achieved the creation and enslavement of the proletariat), as likewise we have already found in the case of Contract replacing Status, that the seeds of the change had been sown long before the actual disruption of Christendom took place. What happened after the Reformation was not that these new evils, including Usury, then appeared for the first time but, as I have said, that they turned from exceptions into admitted and general habits. They were accepted, they grew, and at last came to cover the whole field of Society.

Unlike the transformation of Status into Contract and the undue growth of Competition, Usury was an evil in itself.

It was not only evil because it got out of proportion, and swelled beyond due measure, as did the replacement of Status by Contract and the practice of Competition, but was of its own nature a thing to be condemned and extirpated, if possible, as a disease. It may be remarked that it had already permeated like a mortal poison the society of pagan antiquity at its close and was one of the main evils under which the society of Graeco-Roman civilization collapsed in the West, and before the Mohammedan invasion of the East.(1)

The morals of the Church, when the Church gradually overcame the world and molded a new Europe, forbade Usury as strongly though not with so much practical effect, as did later Mohammedanism. Every sane philosophy, every religion, had forbidden it. The Greek pagan philosophers with Aristotle at their head denounced it; so did the Oriental pagans; so did the Jewish law.

Now why was this? Why was Usury thus regarded universally as immoral, and why has it been found in practice to be a poison ultimately destroying Society?

In order to answer these questions we must first understand what Usury is, in the sense in which we here employ the term; for there is great ambiguity in the use of the word and therefore misunderstanding of the thing which the word connotes.

Usury in the sense of an economic evil does not mean the taking of interest on a loan. It does not mean the taking of interest higher than some permitted minimum. It means that taking of interest upon a loan of money alone (or still worse, upon a mere promise to lend money, an instrument of credit) whether that money be invested soundly or no, whether it represent productive energy or no. Usury is, properly speaking, the taking of increment upon a loan of money merely because it is money, or worse still the taking of such increment upon a credit-instrument.

The reasons for condemning interest upon money alone, as distinguished from profit, are twofold: First, it is asking a tribute from Society as the price of releasing currency hitherto withheld from its proper function of acting as the circulating medium of exchange; secondly, it is arranging a claim for payment of a share in profit which may, but also may not, exist.

As an example of the first evil, let us consider a market in which the supply of currency is in the hands of a small number of those present, buyers and sellers; or even in the extreme case (the case of a bank in a small market town), in the hands of one controller only.

No transactions in the market, save those of mere barter, can take place unless the monopolist holding the currency permit it to be used for its natural purpose.

The natural purpose of currency is this: the facilitation of the multiple exchange of goods. If I have a surplus of wheat, having produced more than I can consume of that article, while my neighbor has a surplus of hay, having produced more than his establishment can consume, we will, if we are in contact, naturally exchange the hay for the wheat; since it is to the mutual advantage of both of us that we should do so.

Now let us suppose a third party, who had produced more potatoes than he can consume, but has not sufficient hay for his purpose; a fourth who has livestock for food in excess of his needs and would exchange the surplus for wheat; a fifth who is a craftsman and has produced clothes and boots for the supply of others in exchange for goods which he needs. Then there arises a condition not of simple barter but of multiple exchange.

The man with the hay is not in contact with the man who produced boots, nor either of them with the man who has the surplus of potatoes. There must be present a common medium of exchange which shall circulate among them if the various surpluses are to be distributed according to the demands of the producers and purchasers.

That is the true function of money, and of instruments of credit based upon money: to make possible the action of multiple exchange.
Now insofar as the monopolists hold back this current medium from general circulation, demanding a price for its use, they are demanding increment for something which has no natural increment: which does not breed. They are asking for a surplus although that which they advance produces of itself no surplus. Although that which they advance produces of itself no surplus. They are holding up the community by refusing it its normal medium of exchange.

That is the first wrong attaching to taking interest upon money alone. The second and in complex times such as ours, much the more important-evil attaching to usury is the taking of increment from a non-productive loan.

This is manifestly immoral.

A man comes to me and says: "I have found upon my property a vein of ore, but it lies deep, so that I shall require a considerable capital-say $100,000-to extract the valuable metal. That metal, when it shall have been extracted, will be worth at least $200,000. But I cannot obtain this advantage until I purchase the instruments for developing the mine and have hired the labor required to work it. Lend me the $100,000 necessary for the operation. I answer him: "If I do so, you must give me a share in the profit, say half of the total." He agrees, that without my capital he could not develop the mine; without his ore my capital would not be used. The combination of the two is productive of wealth, and we share that wealth. That is a perfectly moral transaction, even if the profit be one of 100 percent or 1000 percent over the original investment; so that if, with my stipulated half profit, I make 50 percent or 500 percent on my original loan, I am in now way to blame. The increment is not properly speaking interest on a loan of money: it is a share of real wealth.

But if I lend the money, saying; "I care not what your profits may be, nor whether there be a profit or no, but I demand $10,000 a year for the use of my $100,000"- then in case the speculation fails the borrower will be bound to pay the $10,000 perpetually, without any production of wealth to correspond to it. He will then be paying interest on an unproductive loan, and it is manifestly immoral to ask for share of wealth which does not exist.

Now, any loan at interest which is a loan of mere money may partake of this character; and among a number of such loans many will partake of this unproductive character. Of the money bearing interest merely because it is money, some large proportion at any one time must be demanding interest from activities which create no wealth out of which to pay the interest.
For instance, nearly all of the War loans issued in the belligerent countries to pay for the Great War [WWI] were loans unproductive of wealth, yet bearing interest. The money was expended, not in developing productive capacity not in turning potential wealth into actual wealth, but in feeding men occupied in killing each other, in clothing them, in giving them their wages, and armament. When the effort was over, a vast indebtedness remained; a vast annual interest was claimed in perpetuity- and yet there has been no wealth produced out of which such increment could come.

But though Usury is in itself immoral, and justly condemned by every ethical code, its chief and worst defect in the particular case we are now examining, the growth of Capitalism and its increasing proletariat, is the centralization of irresponsible control over the lives of men: the putting of power over the proletariat into the hands of a few who can direct the loans of currency and credit without which the proletariat could not be fed and clothed and maintained in work.

1. It must be remarked that one of the principal factors of success in the Mohammedan over-running of half Christendom between the 7th and 8th centuries was its active penalizing of Usury. This leading tenet of Islam in its social morals gave immediate relief to myriads of debtors in North Africa, Syria and Mesopotamia. It is strictly enforced today. Nothing is more remarkable in the Mohammedan countries of North Africa today than to see how, under the rule of Europeans there, the Mohammedan still refuses to take interest from his fellow Mohammedan on a mere loan of money, and how the whole trade of Usury is confined to the European immigrants and the native Jews.