tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post6298342203111542064..comments2023-01-17T08:20:40.994-08:00Comments on Practical Distributism: Distributism Basics: Distributism vs. SocialismDavid W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-69003622946093488962013-11-22T08:27:05.532-08:002013-11-22T08:27:05.532-08:00I would like to respond to a comment made by a rea...I would like to respond to a comment made by a reader to the Facebook page of The Distributist Review. The comment was about the simplistic description of socialism relying on an unrealistic altruism.<br /><br />In fact, all economic systems - including distributism - have an "ideal" which includes a certain level of altruism that may be described as unrealistic. The deeper question, which this series will only address in a basic way, is what happens to that economic system when faced with reality?<br /><br />As stated in this article, the fundamental goal of socialism was to establish a classless, moneyless, and stateless society. This goal can only be established with an extreme level of altruism. When faced with reality, socialism had to modify itself, as Hilaire Belloc predicted in The Servile State, in a way that it actually moved very much away from its ideal. In other words, we may still call it socialism but it was actually something very different. The socialist societies that came to be were anything but classless, moneyless, or stateless. Some socialists may argue that such was a transitional state. I disagree.<br /><br />When Adam Smith penned the principles of capitalism, he talked of how self interest would prevent the injustices that actually occurred under capitalism. In reality, business interests used their economic power to employe the forces of government in their favor. This will be discussed more in the next article of this series. The point I will make here is that capitalism was modified in a way that moved away from its ideal. It is still called by capitalism by everyone except those who cling to the ideal (who mistakenly call it socialism), but it has become something very different. Again, Hilaire Belloc predicted this in The Servile State.<br /><br />Distributism has its ideal as well. Ideally, everyone would be a proprietor either independently or cooperatively. The point I'm trying to make is that, from its formulation, distributism never expected this ideal to be reached. I wrote about this in an article titled "Utopia" published at The Distributist Review and which I will eventually post on this site as well. Because of this, the economic structure has always included protections to mitigate the ability of those who will act contrary to the altruistic ideal to ruin the system. In other words, unlike capitalism and socialism, distributism will not need to become something other than its founding principles in order to work. <br /><br />In other words, what I hope to show in this series is that the ideals of both capitalism and socialism faced obstacles that their economic systems were not designed to overcome. Because of this, they had to be modified to ultimately become something other than what they were truly meant to be. What we call socialism had to abandon the true essence of socialism in order to function. While certain schools of capitalism dispute that we are currently living under capitalism, what is generally known as, and is called capitalism also abandon the true essence of capitalism in order to function.<br /><br />Distributism, however, is structured so that it does not have to do this. It does, however, require a great change in society to be realized. Just as the introduction of capitalism was preceded by a change in the underlying philosophy of society, I believe that distributism must be preceded by the same sort of philosophical change, and this is why in addition to discussion concrete matters, I believe that an approach to discussing distributism that doesn't include a serious philosophical discussion is simply not practical.David W. Cooneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com