Steps and Stumbles

[In 2010], I wrote about a potentially exciting movement supported by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. This was branded as the “Big Society,” and it promised that the central government was going to distribute political authority from itself to the local level. It consisted of several programs to assist local councils in taking on additional responsibilities that were currently being handled at the central level. The idea was that the common citizen, working with local government, would be capable of dealing with local issues and would no longer be dependent on the central government to deal with every problem. If it could be handled at a local level, the local level would be empowered to handle it. This was not a fully distributist plan, but it had the potential to be a step in that direction.

Utopia

“They say it is Utopian, and they are right. They say it is idealistic, and they are right. They say it is quixotic, and they are right. It deserves every name that will indicate how completely they have driven justice out of the world.”

– G. K. Chesterton

The Common Good

This article was originally published by

The Distributist Review

on 1 August, 2012

Innovation

This article was originally published by

The Distributist Review

on 29 April, 2012

A Review of All the Devils Are Here

This article was originally published on

The Distributist Review

on 4 February, 2012

All the Devils Are Here, by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, is a fascinating look at the principle players who brought about the financial crisis of 2008. It reveals the motives and mistakes made over the course of a decade by those who were entrusted with running the largest financial corporations of the world as well as those who were entrusted with regulating them. It explodes the myth that the market is self-regulating in a way that will result in what is best for all. It also explodes the myth that centralized regulation of huge corporate interests will protect the average citizen from corporate greed. I can’t imagine too many Austrian or Keyensian capitalists would truly like what is revealed in this work, for both sides can only defend their positions by ignoring half of what these authors have uncovered and presented for us.