Posted on 10/14/2008 5:48:49 AM PDT by stfassisi
The fictional fantasy in The Club of Queer Trades reflects Chesterton’s genuine hope for a just society. He spent his life arguing that such a society was really possible. Argumentation is about persuasion. Chesterton wanted to convince the world that there was a better social structure than either Socialism or Capitalism. But it was not a system that could be imposed on a society; it was something a society had to learn about and then choose. Distributism, he argued, is not something “done to people,” but “done by people.”56 Like Christianity, Distributism has not been an ideal tried and found wanting, but found difficult and left untried.
Fundamental to the Distributist philosophy is the idea of property, that each family should own its own land, which is not only a family’s haven, but also its tool, its means of support. Small, local government is better than big government. Small, local business is better than big business. The law must protect private property and the family not only against intrusion from the state, but against intrusion from huge companies, which are not accountable to anybody. The family should not be dependent on either the government or mega-corporations. The ideal is independence— liberty.
The whole point of liberty, and only point of democracy, is expressed in the word self-government. The word implies that a man should not be governed by another than himself; but it also implies that a man should be governed by himself. It implies that there is a moral authority in man, because there is a moral authority above man; and that the divine part of human nature has legitimate rule over the bestial. But it also implies that over large parts of his life at least, he must exercise this moral authority himself, and if it is taken from him he becomes a slave.57
Democracy can work only if it recognizes that the basic unit of society is the family. The family is itself a tiny kingdom. The family has greater authority than the state. It should make the basic decisions about life. In a broken society, that is, a society of broken families, individual rights trump family rights and the family is undermined. That is how we have come to see the rise of homosexual rights, abortion rights, and a myriad of other little bizarre special interests that were once unimaginable in a normal society. The State has replaced the natural authority of the family and has become, in turn, a very unnatural authority over the family, doing by coercion what was previously accomplished by a much greater force—love. The force in the family is not a hammer, it is a magnet. But when the State is the authority, the force is a hammer.
We have forgotten the first principles. We have forgotten the first things. Chesterton still reminds us that “the first things must be the very fountains of life, love and birth and babyhood; and these are always covered fountains, flowing in the quiet courts of the home.”58 Chesterton’s Distributist philosophy is centered on the first things of home and family. Property, of course, is a necessary component in creating “the quiet courts of the home.”
Property, however, is not an entitlement. It is an ideal, something that must be achieved, and a just society should try to achieve it for everyone, distributing property as widely as possible. It is a matter of justice. But how can it be done? This is the giant question when it comes to Distributism. Let the arguments begin. It can only be accomplished by persuasion and not by coercion. But at some point, it involves the rich helping the poor, which must be done directly, without government programs or private foundations. “The obligation of wealth,” says Chesterton, “is to chuck it.”59 The beggar is a man “who offers you [the opportunity] to fulfil your own ideals.”60
It is supposed that charity makes a man dependent; though in fact charity makes him independent, as compared with the dreary dependence usually produced by organisation. Charity gives property, and therefore liberty. There is manifestly much more emancipation in giving a beggar a shilling to spend, than in sending an official after him to spend it for him.61
All business growth is artificially capped by one's own reproductive capacity.
What he describes is what a totally Christian society would be like - everyone sharing everything as need arises. And, being Christians, no one would request more than they needed for their family to flourish.
However, this cannot work with secular values, due to the fallen nature of man.
Secularists try to make it happen through the government, and they just end up being tyrants using force.
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
At it's core this would seem to be true but we can take steps to be practical about distributism.
It's a far better system than what we have
Practical Distributism
http://distributist.blogspot.com/2008/03/practical-distributism.html
Been meaning to read some Chesterton.
Where should I start?
I am (if I may say so) very widely read. Books in a number of disciplines, across several centuries, there is very little that I cannot read with enjoyment and understanding. But, for some reason, the writing style of Chesterton (and also H.L. Mencken) is something that I cannot get through. There is something in the way these two fine gentlemen string words together that makes my brain turn off half way through any paragraph.
So, I cannot tell you where to start, but I do hope that you are luckier than I and that you find you can enjoy his writings.
His biography of St. Francis is also good, as is "Everlasting Man."
Ping to read (again) later
I would also note that assisting at Mass is number 52 on the list - so it is bizarrely prioritized as well.
This site has a great deal on Chesterton as well for free
http://distributist.blogspot.com/2006/07/all-our-thanks-to-gilbert-magazine.html
Thanks!
If you have less time than is required to read a book, search the web for GK Chesterton quotes. Although they made not be as filling as a meal (book), they make great snacks.
For instance - “Tolerance is the convenience of not having convictions”
Search on-line for the American Chesterton Society and the Catholic Channel (don’t remember the exact name of the channel) on DirecTV. They have a half hour show on Chesterton The Apostle of Common Sense!
“”For instance - “Tolerance is the convenience of not having convictions”””
How about this one..
“THE average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to vote with the whole of himself, as he worships or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of it should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, the difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is something less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter votes.”
Chesterton-’Tremendous Trifles.’
>> The ultimate problem with Distributism: to work, it requires that every family own and run its own business - a business that cannot be allowed to expand to a scale larger than the family. All business growth is artificially capped by one’s own reproductive capacity. <<
What makes you come to any of these conclusions?
>> According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (socialism) or wealthy private individuals <<
That hardly means that all business must be, or even should be, a single household; you’re carrying the call for widely spread means of production to absurdity not internally required by the proposal. Rather the principal is “subsidiarity:” No larger unit (whether social, economic, or political) should perform a function which can be performed by a smaller unit. If, however, a business is complex enough to require several employees, or a diversity of talents beyond what may be found in a nuclear family, a larger unit can better satisfy the need served by the unit.
I would argue that America suddenly achieving subsidiarity would result Starbucks being broken into 100,000 independent coffee shops, but Intel or General Motors being broken into merely several units, because successful factories functioning at efficiency requires cooperation between hundreds, or even thousands of workers. Branding often makes larger corporations more successful than smaller one, but this is an exploitation of man’s inability to make rational, informed decisions. Large-scale collaboration, on the other hand, I think is perfectly consistent with Distributism. However, I would state that an ideal would be to develop technologies requiring smaller degrees of collaboration.
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