tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27787431554482593022024-03-12T22:01:28.711-07:00Practical DistributismEconomics as though families matterDavid W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-32482294945886684322023-02-13T07:55:00.001-08:002023-02-13T07:55:50.428-08:00We've Moved!<p style="text-align: center;">We have enjoyed being a Blogger site for many years, but we are now ready to move on to our own domain. Future articles will be posted at the new <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com">Practical Distributism</a> site:</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://practicaldistributism.com">https://practicaldistributism.com</a></span><br /></p>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-2595712470017908742023-02-02T05:00:00.027-08:002023-02-04T08:17:38.160-08:00Addressing your Local Community: An interview with Chattanooga Civics<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB159WEKq4evMHm1Dw8BCMS07-2poktcAyKv_Rs5WBzYwj2TpK440h2jwhudLoo2INDNYYXYvfJnFiGCGyzmuWDJh5hF1TsUXPYi671opR1igMXjoaxJ_ht07ttxIQtXHMRZoC0gA59nSKQwr1ogoXFxrneQcoZadwx_tCTFylUDJtC1kBToliIa5w/s500/Addressing%20your%20Local%20Community.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB159WEKq4evMHm1Dw8BCMS07-2poktcAyKv_Rs5WBzYwj2TpK440h2jwhudLoo2INDNYYXYvfJnFiGCGyzmuWDJh5hF1TsUXPYi671opR1igMXjoaxJ_ht07ttxIQtXHMRZoC0gA59nSKQwr1ogoXFxrneQcoZadwx_tCTFylUDJtC1kBToliIa5w/s16000/Addressing%20your%20Local%20Community.jpg" /></a></div><br />by David W. Cooney</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>One thing that distributists are often asked is how we can begin to move toward a more distributist society. What are things that we can do now, in our current political and economic environment, to at least nudge society in what we consider to be a better direction. A lot of our response has been about how to do this economically; like supporting local businesses and using a credit union rather than a bank. That is good as far as it goes, but we must also address these questions politically. What steps can we take to help society as a whole to become more localist, to encourage our local government to address local issues and hold them accountable for doing so, and to encourage people in our local community to be engaged in the local political government and its activities?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHb_QKQbEY5OTXZfB23-dK4WqgWK7sc4aqJI2Ht4z7INuN_5Zo6wvIqIoye-MHR6D3Q3YWlrnvq8E1imceXz2egFnOC90bN8YLADAgLbYwo3r0dck_hVVsNjOh1y6F6dSa1OCMTUBkvNLW7_iZ-0V1yDOJUdFBG558D6MR1WnFmOAB2HSjD3rgF3l/s231/Nathan%20Bird%202.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="231" data-original-width="200" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHb_QKQbEY5OTXZfB23-dK4WqgWK7sc4aqJI2Ht4z7INuN_5Zo6wvIqIoye-MHR6D3Q3YWlrnvq8E1imceXz2egFnOC90bN8YLADAgLbYwo3r0dck_hVVsNjOh1y6F6dSa1OCMTUBkvNLW7_iZ-0V1yDOJUdFBG558D6MR1WnFmOAB2HSjD3rgF3l/s1600/Nathan%20Bird%202.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span><a name='more'></a></span>Enter Nathan Bird and <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/chattcivics/home" target="_blank">Chattanooga Civics</a>. Chattanooga Civics is a local resource created to help the citizens of Chattanooga know what is going on in their city and county governments so they can be informed about what their local governments are doing and what they can do about it. As it says on the About section of the web site, “When you hear someone talk about local government what comes to mind? You might think about taxes, schools, policing, roads, or even something as mundane as trash collection. But do you wonder how these aspects of government are managed? How are tax rates set? Who exactly oversees the police? Who determines the school budget? How can we, as citizens, stay informed and make our voice heard? If you've been looking for answers to these questions you’re in the right place.” I reached out to Nathan and he took the time to answer some questions about this effort. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: In our society, it seems to be assumed that local government is not effective and incompetent. As a result, people look to the federal government or the state government to address problems. What made you decide to try and address things at the local level?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>This project started in 2020, and there were a couple things that really made it clear to me how important local government can be. The first was COVID. We had all this information being handed out at the national level, but all the implementation was at the local level. Was your county issuing mask mandates? How successful was the vaccine rollout in your city? Did you ever experience an actual “lockdown”? COVID was a national issue that played out very differently depending not just on which state you lived in, but which city or town. Similarly, the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 sparked a national conversation about policing. But again, this is a national issue that plays itself out locally. Police budgets and policy are set at the city or county level. There are more issues like this that we often talk about nationally but require local action: affordable housing, sustainability, transportation policy, I could go on. But what I saw in my hometown (and I think this is pretty typical) was a lack of easily accessible and digestible information about local government. I didn’t even know who was in charge of making some of these decisions, much less what steps were being taken to address them. So I set out to create a platform that provided easier access to this information. It started as a podcast and has evolved to include a newsletter which summarizes local government issues each week. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: What kinds of things that impact daily life can local government address?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>For most people you start interacting with local government as soon as you leave your house. Do you walk? Then you depend on local government to keep the sidewalks maintained. Do you ride your bike? Then you depend on local government to provide safe biking paths. Do you drive? Then you depend on local government to keep the roads paved and the traffic signals timed. But there are more complex issues too. Zoning is, in my opinion, one of the most important issues a city can manage. It has all sorts of impacts on housing affordability, traffic patterns, what kinds of businesses you have in a given area, and ultimately what kind of density you have and what kind of property taxes are required to sustain maintenance. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: What were your biggest setbacks or frustrations in getting Chattanooga Civics going and what did you find the most helpful in overcoming them?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Honestly, getting the podcast started was the easiest part. I did everything on a shoestring budget. I bought a used digital microphone, downloaded Audacity for editing, and built my website on Google Sites. It’s all very “home brew”, but it’s gone pretty well. The barrier to entry for podcasting is just so low. I expected it would be harder to get guests, but actually nearly everyone is super excited to come on the show and talk about what they do. Now that might vary depending on the size and culture of a given city, but in Chattanooga I’ve had no problem getting guests and the list of people I still need to interview just keeps getting longer.</div><div><br /></div><div>The hardest part has really been making people aware of the podcast and interested in the material. I still haven’t figured out the best way around that. Local government just isn’t a priority for most people. I try and make the case every chance I get, but it only really happens a few people at a time. Really the most helpful thing is to find out where people are already talking about local government and building off that and reacting to those conversations. Chattanooga has a very active subreddit, so I go there to let people know about the show, get ideas for future episodes, and get feedback. It’s definitely the most engaged community I’ve found so far.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: How effective is local citizen involvement in changing things through local government?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>It’s more effective than doing nothing. There are a lot of road blocks to effecting change, especially at a grass roots level, but it’s no different than advocating at the state or federal level. It takes a lot of sustained work. It takes organization and patience. And in a lot of ways it’s more fun, more interesting, and easier, because you can organize with neighbors, you can meet your local representatives in person or even go address them on the record at a city council meeting. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: What are the realistic expectations people should have regarding making changes?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Change is going to be slow. Everything has to go through committees, public comment sessions, legal review, etc. So be patient, be willing to compromise, but don’t let up. You have to keep the pressure up, sometimes for years, so it helps to prioritize and figure out which issues are most important to you. If you try and tackle everything at once you’ll get burned out pretty quickly.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: What ways can members of the local community get more involved outside of running for office?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>I got started by joining my neighborhood association. It’s not an HOA, we don’t have any legal power. It’s just a bunch of neighbors getting together once a month to discuss problems and solutions in the area, announce events, and learn more about what’s going on in the city. Our city council representative comes to the meetings as often as she can, and other city officials will drop by occasionally to announce things that are happening in their departments that might affect us. These meetings don’t have to be super formal, you just need a handful of people who care. I recommend everyone try and join an existing association or start your own.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: What have you found to be effective ways to get members of the local community more involved?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>That’s the big question! It’s really hard to get people involved. Having more accessible information certainly helps, and that’s the goal of Chattanooga Civics, but ultimately it comes down to convincing people that local government is important and that every voice has the capacity to create change. So there’s no single answer that I’ve found, but I think the most helpful thing is to find an issue people care about and then connect it to the local level. And I’ve found that nearly every issue is influenced by local policies in some form or fashion.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Q: What recommendations to you have for anyone who wants to start doing something similar to what you do?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>There’s a bit of baseline knowledge required. You have to learn the structure of your local government. Every city and town is slightly different in how powers are distributed, so read your “founding document” (usually a charter) to understand how your local government works in the broadest sense. Find out who sits in your local legislative body, start reading local news, and see if you can access meeting minutes or recordings. Just familiarize yourself with the process. That’s really the foundation. Do that for a couple weeks and you’ll have a good understanding of who to talk to and what questions to ask. From there it’s really up to you what direction you want to go in and what issues you want to focus on.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: right;"><i><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qyn2QkqcVEp_LMfBsdg_TxEqMa-XTMEE/view?usp=share_link" target="_blank">Printable version</a></i></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Title image from the <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/chattcivics/home" target="_blank">Chattanooga Civics</a> web site. Used with permission.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-26399290693618995852023-01-20T07:49:00.025-08:002023-01-20T12:58:13.030-08:00Capitalism Eating Itself<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQSESyTryuTorhl--5fvgIzdM3ULP-wZhOZx2oaVaDefoukUZSdFBPb2BQLw56eIWxUlDrXf-1oKP4h6kv1rGjuHN6PJNBBwXpqojIgygCGIRgcgXWe1qX5kVJ8m6bCzSXADUG025r3s024zcsOK7AW-NW8VwSbkohl_7Em_y1x5Yokq3detihQ7W/s500/Capitalism%20Eating%20Itself.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQSESyTryuTorhl--5fvgIzdM3ULP-wZhOZx2oaVaDefoukUZSdFBPb2BQLw56eIWxUlDrXf-1oKP4h6kv1rGjuHN6PJNBBwXpqojIgygCGIRgcgXWe1qX5kVJ8m6bCzSXADUG025r3s024zcsOK7AW-NW8VwSbkohl_7Em_y1x5Yokq3detihQ7W/s16000/Capitalism%20Eating%20Itself.png" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">One of the criticisms that have been made about the distributist movement is that we make false characterizations about capitalism. We take selective examples of abusive behavior taking place within capitalism and use them to criticize capitalism as a whole. We use terms like calling average employees the proletariat and “wage slaves” to reflect how capitalists treat the working classes they claim to “lift up.” Our critics say that these are not the norm for capitalism; they are the exception and not the rule. However, what distributists actually say is that capitalism as a system is morally neutral because it is only about money and “what the market will bear.” Distributists respond that this is how capitalism really exists in the world, and that very fact is what ultimately makes it an unjust system. As I have mentioned many times, most capitalists will insist that everyone involved in business should act in a moral and ethical way, but many of them will also admit that capitalism as a system does not enforce that in any real way. The revelations of Steven Crowder and the Daily Wire over the last two days have shown how right we are.<br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>Now, I need to start by clarifying that I am not, in any way, claiming that Steven Crowder is a distributist, on his way to becoming one, or even that he’s friendly to our movement. He seems to be arguing that the dispute he is having is more of a “conservative” versus “liberal” issue, and that the conservatives at the Daily Wire are acting more like liberals by making the offers they do and holding the positions they have. His “Stop Big CON” movement seems to be more of a claim that the big corporate conservative media movement, as represented by the Daily Wire, is actually a false flag because they actually cooperate with the policies of the liberal leadership of the big tech companies rather than help smaller creators be successful without having to bow to Big Tech. <br /><br />Now, distributists may laugh as such an assertion, but Crowder seems to be sincere in thinking this. I’m not surprised. Today’s capitalists, particularly those who are conservatives, don’t seem to realize that what they believe to be the ideals of capitalism have never actually been part of capitalism as it has actually historically existed. Few aspects of Adam Smith’s view have actually been implemented besides the “invisible hand.” Crowder laments that the phrase, “it’s just business,” is what capitalists throughout the history of capitalism have said to justify actions that, to normal people, are wrong. Think about it. Capitalists do actually say that, so much so that it has become a meme. When do capitalists say “it’s just business?” He points out that it isn’t when they are giving large amounts of money to charity that they say this. It is usually when they are laying off a lot of employees after a corporate buyout, or when they are using predatory anti-competitive practices to put competitors out of business. The distributist point is that they do say it, and it is perfectly natural for them to do so because capitalism as a system has always been viewed as a field separated from ethics and morals. <br /><br />The basic information about the disagreement between Steven Crowder and the Daily Wire can be seen through three videos that have been released at the time of this publication. “<a href="https://rumble.com/v260f88-its-time-to-stop....html" target="_blank">It’s time to stop…</a>” by Steven Crowder,<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]</span> “<a href="https://rumble.com/v267coq-our-offer-to-steven-crowder.html" target="_blank">Our Offer to Steven Crowder</a>” by the Daily Wire,<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2]</span> and “<a href="https://rumble.com/v26c2hu-i-didnt-want-to-do-this....html" target="_blank">I didn’t want to do this…</a>” by Steven Crowder.<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3]</span> There have been lots of commentaries, but these videos represent the positions of the actual parties involved in this disagreement. One thing that needs to be said about Steven Crowder in this issue is that he is taking a moral stand for those whose position in conservative media is nowhere near his own. He appears to be genuinely looking out for the “little guy,” and I commend him for this. The Daily Wire made it clear in the conversation Crowder recorded that the bad terms were part of their normal process of negotiating with everyone, and not an exception because they were dealing with someone with as large a business as Crowder has. In fact, the Daily Wire representative actually said that the smaller creators would work as “wage slaves” for a little while. Yes, he actually used that term about the smaller creators in a serious, matter of fact, way as though “it’s just business.” <br /><br />So, while I still have some fundamental disagreements with Crowder, the information revealed so far indicates that Crowder is trying to apply some ethics to conservative capitalism and the Daily Wire seems to be acting in a predatory manner. In this, he appears to stand much closer to our position than the Daily Wire, even if he would cringe at hearing this fact. Even if the terms sent to Crowder were just a preliminary position to start negotiations, Crowder’s argument is that smaller creators don’t necessarily have the legal resources to recognize the truly bad portions of the deal, and might sign it without sufficient negotiation. Does anyone believe that the Daily Wire would pull back on those provisions which are extremely beneficial to themselves if faced with someone willing to sign the contract? This appears to be a major factor in Crowder’s objection to the practice. <br /><br />This should help you understand the actual position of distributists against capitalism. Capitalism could be done in a moral way. There is nothing inherently immoral with one person owning productive capital and employing others to do the actual productive work on that capital. However, capitalism as it exists is part of a philosophical movement that separated economics from ethics and morals. In trying to convince other conservatives to apply ethical standards in their economic interactions, Crowder is taking a similar stance to our own position. Distributism is based on a view that economics, as a field of study and activity, is a sub-category of ethics, and we are actively trying to show others why society needs to return to that view. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IfRU-QKpgsx0LbP7TiQfiixkuJaUShnm/view?usp=share_link" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Notes:<br />[1] https://rumble.com/v260f88-its-time-to-stop....html<br />[2] https://rumble.com/v267coq-our-offer-to-steven-crowder.html<br />[3] https://rumble.com/v26c2hu-i-didnt-want-to-do-this....html </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cover image is a screenshot from the video "It's time to stop..." by Steven Crowder<br /></span></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-23241191860085583682022-12-26T05:00:00.034-08:002022-12-29T06:41:16.990-08:00Is this a time to despair?<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZOZFiPh9nHSQuwj3N1xmvWNE2EHDOp2welJIUhXVaA_1hWYxMQvkZn7ko2cBjNfFpKcyEsVz1Jka8ykqX0xSnQU_qawIYT_luvDNyajqHnNLVuTV-cX2GK1G2L8o57BGZLfBWyppi06QqXz9doa6tfoJzJOuEhUqhBApv6rHZvVKXC0i0pHKC2F6/s500/Is%20this%20a%20time%20to%20despair.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZOZFiPh9nHSQuwj3N1xmvWNE2EHDOp2welJIUhXVaA_1hWYxMQvkZn7ko2cBjNfFpKcyEsVz1Jka8ykqX0xSnQU_qawIYT_luvDNyajqHnNLVuTV-cX2GK1G2L8o57BGZLfBWyppi06QqXz9doa6tfoJzJOuEhUqhBApv6rHZvVKXC0i0pHKC2F6/s16000/Is%20this%20a%20time%20to%20despair.jpg" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">This last decade has been a time of increasing disruption and conflict in societies around the world. Political and social divisions have only grown more intense and opposing sides are making graver accusations against each other. The idea of having any level of bipartisan compromise is becoming less realistic every day. We’ve seen governments throughout the “free world” exercise extreme totalitarian levels of control and coercion against their own subjects, including denying access to religious services. Local economies were shut down resulting in the loss of many small independent businesses while large corporations like Walmart and Amazon were allowed to thrive. People were denied routine medical services. Those who were in support groups for addictions or emotional issues were denied access to them, resulting in an increase of drug abuse and suicides. Evidence is now proving that the large technological corporations that control the primary means of social communication around the world have cooperated with governments to silence dissenting views, proving that those who were accused of being crazy conspiracy theorists for saying this were correct. Society was divided to the point where friends and families were torn apart over conflicting views of how societies should deal with a disease, with one side being called evil “grandma killers.” Our leaders and celebrities told us all to “trust the science,” even though certain scientific dissent on the official positions were censored. Celebrities suggested that those who disagreed with the official position should be reduced to second-class citizens who would not get full rights and should even be denied emergency health services. In addition to this, our society is increasingly divided on what it should accept as social norms. Finally, it seems that at least half of the population is fine with all of this. We may be tempted to ask, as we head into the new year, is this a time to despair?<br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>The short and flippant answer is no, we should not despair. However, especially in these times, a more thorough answer is needed. The reality is that, while there are certain extremes on both sides of the usual political divide, the disaffected middle is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the established political parties and their inability to enact viable solutions to the problems confronting society. They are vocally dissatisfied with how educational institutions have become centers of indoctrination. I’m not pretending they are actively looking at distributism as the alternative for the status quo. Most of them have still never heard of distributism. However, many of them have actually voiced they are open to considering something new, and, for them, distributism is new. Those who describe themselves as “moderates,” both moderate liberals and moderate conservatives, see that their established parties and institutions have become either extremist or ineffective. They are unhappy with the changes that have happened to society, and they are aware that simply going back to the way things were is likely not going to actually solve the problems that got us here. They are searching for new answers to the old questions, and they have never heard the answers distributism has to offer.<br /><br />So, this is not a time to despair. This is a time to increase our voices, to try and reach out to those who are increasingly disaffected by our current political and economic systems and disillusioned by the prospect of society either continuing along its current path or merely going back a few paces along the path that led society to where it currently is. Yes, it is true that we are still a small and misunderstood group, but that will never change if it is an excuse to give up. Don’t give up. Don’t be complacent. Even if our efforts only benefit those who will come generations from now, it will be worth the effort. <br /><br />May God bless you and your loved ones in the upcoming year. </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X1fAqN-MVMgMj6_2lsmAe14AHb2fZtkM/view?usp=share_link" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title photo "Depressed young woman" by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Depressed_girl_by_brick_wall.jpg" target="_blank">U3143168</a>. Licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License</a>.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-77273375594708903652022-12-15T05:00:00.103-08:002023-02-13T11:09:34.020-08:00Real and Ideal in Catholic Social Doctrine<div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcij3lnzHUcDRcTPa3ismg1u69z3yBo53Yrnp0DJHHzmYqJk20oTNi3tbe4Q8h0uRzfoDK1OYRcgPiHSZP-bg4g8Q0ERDtNOWDj__LhAaVhXR8MShN8qaERrGrM2pQAGw78-0iMYDXbr3WECys82qznAfvVbaJ-nQ3r_cJCASN1GAZOvbtaMSzagjX/s500/Real%20and%20Ideal%20in%20Catholic%20Social%20Doctrine.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcij3lnzHUcDRcTPa3ismg1u69z3yBo53Yrnp0DJHHzmYqJk20oTNi3tbe4Q8h0uRzfoDK1OYRcgPiHSZP-bg4g8Q0ERDtNOWDj__LhAaVhXR8MShN8qaERrGrM2pQAGw78-0iMYDXbr3WECys82qznAfvVbaJ-nQ3r_cJCASN1GAZOvbtaMSzagjX/s16000/Real%20and%20Ideal%20in%20Catholic%20Social%20Doctrine.jpg" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/" target="_blank">Thomas Storck</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">Capitalism and communism are equally representative forms of this tendency of the world today not only to ignore Christianity, but to supplant it. To speak more precisely, the civilization of capitalism, as it was developed during the nineteenth century through the application to industry of the discoveries of experimental science, has created the ideal of an increasingly daring scientism trying to achieve by means of purely human efforts that reconquest of Paradise which is part of the eschatological expectation of believing Christians.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1]</i></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">- Louis Bouyer</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One of the difficulties affecting our contemporary understanding of the Church's social doctrine is our failure to understand that doctrine in the context of the gigantic shift in Western civilization that reached its climax between, roughly, the middle of the 18th and the middle of the 19th centuries. Catholic social teaching in its modern form originated as that shift was becoming consolidated, and as a result that teaching simultaneously harks back to another and lost era as a kind of ideal, and at the same time offers necessary moral guidance for those living in the reality of the new type of civilization.<br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>Although mankind has obviously engaged in economic activity since Adam and Eve tended their Garden, the 18th-century notion of the economy as pretty much a self-regulating market, separate from the rest of human life, was entirely new in human history. As Christopher Dawson wrote concerning this immense change in outlook, "Economic activity was no longer regarded as a function of society as a whole, but as an independent world in which the only laws were the purely economic ones of supply and demand, and of the relations between population and capital."<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>No society could, naturally, live for any length of time unless it possessed an economy of some sort; but previously to our time no economy has ever existed that, even in principle, was controlled by markets.... Though the institution of the market was fairly common since the later Stone Age, its role was no more than incidental to economic life.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[3]</i></span> </blockquote></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">But even more than the conquest of the economy by purely market forces was the conquest of society itself by such market relations, for now "society was made to conform to the needs of the market mechanism."<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[4]</i></span> Although contemporary man tends to take this new state of things for granted, it was not yet so in the 19th century, when the memory of a different way of life was still fresh. Thus the famous final condemned proposition of Pius IX's 1864 <i>Syllabus of Errors</i>, "The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile and adjust himself with progress, with liberalism and with recent civilization," although often condemned as the utterance of a retrograde reactionary, was actually the statement of a holy pontiff alarmed at the new type of civilization which classical liberalism and its offspring, capitalism, were creating in Europe.<br /><br />If we grasp this background it is possible to understand better what the Church's modern social doctrine meant in the context of these immense changes which had occurred in our civilization, and to recognize a certain twofold emphasis which lies within that doctrine, and hence a certain tension which at times can seem to constitute a conflict or contradiction.<br /><br />This tension appears with Leo XIII's <i>Rerum Novarum</i> (1891), the first of the modern social encyclicals, with its frank and devastating description of the new civilization:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">The ancient workmen's Guilds were destroyed in the last century, and no other organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws have repudiated the ancient religion. Hence by degrees it has come to pass that Working Men have been given over, isolated and <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">defenseless, to the callousness of employers and the greed of unrestrained competition. (no. 3)</div></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">These words surely echo his predecessor, Pius IX, and make clear his disdain for the new social order that had so recently triumphed. At the same time, however, the popes were not primarily indulging in a nostalgic reminiscence of the historic Christian civilization of Europe. They wrote with the chief aim of responding to the demands for moral guidance on the part of their contemporaries, Catholics as well as non-Catholics. Thus the main thrust of <i>Rerum Novarum</i> and of the other papal social documents has always been to offer moral guidance for the actually existing economies of their times. Such guidance can appear to constitute acquiescence toward the modern social order, but it is not acquiescence, rather a determination to offer realistic moral direction for the contemporary world. Even the most ambitious of these papal documents, Pius XI's 1931 encyclical <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i>, whose official title was "On Reconstructing the Social Order and Perfecting it Conformably to the Precepts of the Gospel," necessarily took as its point of departure the existing economy of the early 1930s and only offered a sketch of what a reconstructed and perfected social order would look like.<br /><br />When we read any particular document of the Church's social magisterium, we do well to keep in mind these two points, their intention to be relevant to the real and immediate situation for which they are written, but at the same time what is always in the background, the ideal of a culture which had not yet been conquered by market forces and in which the economy, by being firmly embedded in social relations, fulfilled its purpose of serving human life as a whole. The lack of recognition of these two aspects of Catholic social doctrine lies behind some of the difficulties experienced by many moderns in understanding it. Let us look at a notable example, the Church's attitude toward both socialism and capitalism and at the philosophical systems that underlie each.<br /><br />One of the points most contested among Catholics today is the question of the Church's stance toward capitalism. Does the Church condemn capitalism or specifically recommend it or is she neutral toward it? Although fundamental to any attempt to answer this is the question of what exactly we mean by capitalism, few writers on the subject seem to feel any need to define it. But if we begin with the only definition of capitalism given in the papal social encyclicals, we will be able not only to see what capitalism has historically meant for the Church, but what this means for the approach that Catholics ought to take toward contemporary economic questions.<br /><br />In <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i>, no. 100, Pius XI speaks of capitalism as "that economic system in which were provided by different people the capital and labor jointly needed for production." And he goes on in the next section to say that "it is not vicious of its very nature." Thus if we understand capitalism to mean what Pius XI means, then we can certainly say that the Church does not condemn it as such. But as Pius immediately goes on to say,<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>it violates right order whenever capital so employs the working or wage-earning classes as to divert business and economic activity entirely to its own arbitrary will and advantage without any regard to the human dignity of the workers, the social character of economic life, social justice and the common good. (no. 101)</blockquote></div>In other words, capitalism, the separation of capital and labor, is not wrong provided that the many prescriptions contained in the Church's social doctrine are obeyed. The mere technical arrangement of one man owning capital and employing others to work for him is not in itself unjust. That is one side of the question, the side designed to give moral guidance to the pope's contemporaries. But in view of the twofold nature of Catholic social doctrine, on the one hand responding to contemporary questions and situations, on the other always keeping in mind the Christian social order that once existed, there is more to be said than merely that the Church neither condemns nor recommends the capitalist organization of industry. To understand this, let us look at the treatment of socialism in the same encyclical.<br /><br />As part of his survey of the contemporary economic scene in <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> Pope Pius noted that socialism had "for the most part split into two opposing and hostile camps," (no. 111) that is, into Soviet communism and what he termed "mitigated socialism." When considering the stance which Catholics should take toward this moderate socialism, Pius stated that its economic program, considered simply as such, frequently resembles that of the Church, "for it cannot be denied that its programs often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers," (no. 113), and "it may well come about that gradually the tenets of mitigated socialism will no longer be different from the program of those who seek to reform human society according to Christian principles" (no. 114). If this is so, then the question naturally will arise, can a Catholic consider himself a socialist of this moderate type, can a Catholic in fact be a socialist? And Pius' answer is well known, a clear negative. But not, be it noted, because of the socialist's economic programs, which "often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers." Rather, because in contrast to the Christian view socialism conceives society in an essentially this-worldly manner.<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>Socialism, on the contrary, entirely ignorant of or unconcerned about this sublime end both of individuals and of society, affirms that living in community was instituted merely for the sake of advantages which it brings to mankind. (no. 118)</blockquote></div>The point to remember here is that Pius XI condemned socialism primarily because of its materialistic attitude toward life and society. Now let us consider a parallel teaching on capitalism.<br /><br />One of the key papal social writings of recent decades is undoubtedly St. John Paul II's encyclical <i>Centesimus Annus</i> (1991). Often wrongly hailed as embodying a fundamental shift in papal teaching on the economy - something which <i>ipso facto</i> is impossible - John Paul in fact offers a remarkable instance of the twofold emphasis in papal social statements. This concerns the relations between capitalism and atheism. In no. 13 of <i>Centesimus</i> St. John Paul first discusses socialism, and notes what his predecessor had noted:<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>we have to add that the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism... [T]he source of this mistaken concept of the nature of the person and...of society...is atheism.</blockquote></div>But Pope John Paul develops these reflections in an unexpected manner.<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>The atheism of which we are speaking is also closely connected with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, which views human and social reality in a mechanistic way. Thus there is a denial of the supreme insight concerning man's true greatness, his transcendence in respect to earthly realities, the contradiction in his heart between the desire for the fullness of what is good and his own inability to attain it and, above, all, the need for salvation which results from this situation.</blockquote></div>Now who were those Enlightenment rationalists who viewed "human and social reality in a mechanistic way"? None other than the early capitalist theoreticians such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. In other words, just as socialism, considered as a doctrine, is contrary to the Faith, while socialist economic proposals "often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers," similarly the liberalism that always has underlay capitalism is rooted in atheism and hence condemned, even though the mere separation of ownership and work, what Pius XI identified as the keynote of capitalist enterprise, can be morally acceptable. In both cases the broader philosophic movements that gave birth to these economic doctrines stand condemned by the Church, and for exactly the same reason. John Paul II's comments on capitalism and atheism both put in context his remarks in the same encyclical about capitalism and a free economy and are one more example of this double aspect of Catholic social teaching. In no. 42 of <i>Centesimus</i>, John Paul asks the question whether "capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society."<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>The answer is obviously complex. If by "capitalism" is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative.... But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality and sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.</blockquote></div>That the usual understanding of this passage is simply a misunderstanding, or in some cases perhaps deliberate disinformation, is made clear by other passages, such as John Paul's demand that "the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the State, so as to guarantee that the basic needs of the whole of society are satisfied (no. 35), or that "there is a risk that a radical capitalistic ideology could spread which refuses even to consider these problems,...and which blindly entrusts their solution to the free development of market forces" (no. 42). But in any case, John Paul's qualified endorsement of capitalism is contrasted in the same encyclical with his pointing out that the mechanistic approach to economics put forward by "the rationalism of the Enlightenment" is rooted in atheism. Thus again, as did Leo XIII and Pius XI, John Paul II both gives immediate ethical guidance to his contemporaries about how to deal with the concrete and usually less than ideal economic choices that are presented to them, and points toward a Christian social ideal, based on a different anthropology. The Church's acceptance of capitalism as not inherently unjust and her recognition that socialist economic programs "often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers," in both cases prescind from the fact that the philosophical roots of both systems are rooted in error. Given certain safeguards their economic proposals can be acceptable; their philosophical presuppositions can never be.<br /><br />Hilaire Belloc nicely captured this necessarily twofold Catholic attitude toward the social order when he wrote:<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>On the one hand, no one will doubt that Catholicism is in spirit opposed to Industrial Capitalism.... It is demonstrable that historically, Industrial Capitalism arose out of the denial of Catholic morals at the Reformation. It has been very well said by one of the principal enemies of the Church, and said boastfully, that Industrial Capitalism is the "robust child" of the Reformation....</blockquote></div>Yet in their desire to give guidance to those who must live and work within today's economy, the popes do not condemn those things that are not in themselves unjust, even when they arose from a historical spirit opposed to the Faith. Thus Belloc continues,<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>Yet...there [is] no doctrine which can be quoted to contradict any one of the necessary parts of Industrial Capitalism.…<br /><br />No one can say that it stands condemned specifically by Catholic definition, for what is there in Catholic morals to prevent my owning a machine and stores of livelihood? What is there to prevent my offering these stores of livelihood to destitute men on condition they work my machine, and what is there in Catholic morals to forbid my taking a profit upon what they produce, receiving from such production more than I lay out in the sustenance of the laborers?<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[5]</i></span></blockquote></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i></i></span>Christians, of course, like everyone, must always live in the present, in the real world. But that does not mean that we should or can forget the past. For, to quote <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> again:<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>At one period there existed a social order which, though by no means perfect in every respect, corresponded nevertheless in a certain measure to right reason according to the needs and conditions of the times. (no. 97)</blockquote></div>We obviously no longer live in such a social order. We can, however, look to that social order - even though "by no means perfect in every respect" - as the ideal toward which we strive. The fact that such a society once existed should give us hope and inspiration that Catholics, if we are true to the Church's authority and vision, might recreate such a civilization again. Even while we make do with what we have, we should not forget what we once had and the mandate to try to rebuild that. That is the only way to exist as Catholics, the only way to make the Church of Jesus Christ and her teachings supreme in our intellects and in the whole of our lives.<br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWOBOHzyGn3NLD6CSVMr2IXN-rB1hryC/view?usp=share_link" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Notes:<br />1: <i>Liturgical Piety</i> (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, c. 1955), p. 262.<br /><br />2: "Christianity and the New Age" in <i>Essays in Order</i> (New York: Macmillan, 1931), p. 236.<br /><br />3: Karl Polanyi, <i>The Great Transformation</i> (Boston: Beacon, c. 1944), p. 43.<br /><br />4: Ibid., p. 201.<br /><br />5: <i>Essays of a Catholic</i> (Rockford, Ill.: TAN, [1931] 1992) pp. 220-21.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title photo "Bernburg (Saale), town square, Mary´s Church and former town hall of the lower city" by Dguendel. Licensed under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:GNU_Free_Documentation_License" target="_blank">GNU Free Documentation License</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></div></div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-50336553264615165692022-09-23T10:29:00.002-07:002022-09-23T15:03:01.145-07:00Where does Distributism fit in?<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5Jff6qd0PzEwowVlDc9Iu2Dhw29iN14JWwNGFmuOx8SCMM0qkHXKojoEHyIsikALK_uJYU_8jKcaPXbk7DK7E88tV6tiwmvmI1gvyBMHNIwJjj2QuClKqUrBmOaBJjdH7Nm3SoBLqBdJnBRHlmSVNmwkMf7__WYDim7zgCPp9futAA4TPU9fhwyq/s500/Where%20does%20Distributism%20fit%20in.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5Jff6qd0PzEwowVlDc9Iu2Dhw29iN14JWwNGFmuOx8SCMM0qkHXKojoEHyIsikALK_uJYU_8jKcaPXbk7DK7E88tV6tiwmvmI1gvyBMHNIwJjj2QuClKqUrBmOaBJjdH7Nm3SoBLqBdJnBRHlmSVNmwkMf7__WYDim7zgCPp9futAA4TPU9fhwyq/s16000/Where%20does%20Distributism%20fit%20in.png" /></a></div>One thing that seems to confuse many people looking at distributism is that they really can’t imagine a society beyond our current conservative/liberal or right/left paradigm. I believe this is the source of a good deal of the criticism against us. If we’re not conservative, then we must be liberal. If not liberal, then conservative. If not capitalist, then socialist. We are not liberal in the modern sense, nor are we Classical Liberals. We are not Modernist, nor are we Post Modernists. We are not Libertarians and we are not totalitarians. I believe the root of the problem is that people don’t see the connecting thread between all of these views. They not only think several of these positions are fundamentally different things, but that these are essentially the only things that are. For myself, even though there are significant differences between these views, they are fundamentally the same, and the reason I say so is that they are all various forms of Liberalism. Distributism is not a product of Liberalism, so they really have a lot of difficulty understanding it. It just doesn’t fit into any of the neat little categorizations that have been the basis of their political and social arguments for more than a century. <br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>The foundation of Liberalism, the so-called “Classical Liberalism,” is that existing social/cultural norms needed to be broken in order to have a more liberal society. Now, people who say they are Classical Liberals will argue many positions that they believe to be the foundation of their view. Things like the value of the individual, the idea that people should be able to improve their state in society through education and work and frugal living, the idea that women have rights and slavery should be abolished. The reality is that these ideas were not only around before the advent of the Classical Liberal movement, but they were more than just ideas. They may not have been implemented in a perfect way, but they were in play in Western societies before the rise of Classical Liberalism. Unfortunately, societal disruptions during the Renaissance reversed many of the advances that had been made in regard to these ideas. I do not deny that the Classical Liberals brought these ideas back into society, but I do deny the claim by today’s self-identified Classical Liberals that these ideas were first introduced by Classical Liberalism. <br /><br />The method Classical Liberals used to break the existing norms was to become part of the existing institutions that teach what the norms are and also the institutions that enforce those norms through its laws; in other words schools and government. (They did also resort to literal warfare, but that would be a topic for another article.) This has been the method from its beginning. However, the true flaw of their view was, and continues to be, that the basis for determining what needs to be changed is rooted in a philosophy of materialistic individualism, a philosophy that essentially removes the ability to look outside of ourselves for this determination. In other words, there are no true and external norms based on natural law, on morality, or especially on religion, which are not subject to being changed. Each individual gets to decide what is right and wrong with society and therefore, what needs to change. The problem for the original Classical Liberals was the same as it is for today’s “moderate” liberals; When you combine this philosophical view with the acceptance of the method, you end up with no argument against those who want to change what you have established based on the same philosophical view and using the same methods. <br /><br />The original Liberals had modest goals, they only wanted a few changes to the social norms and they accomplished those changes. However, they failed to prevent changes beyond what they wanted. The reason they failed is that they seemed to assume the movement as a whole would not “progress” beyond what they believed were reasonable changes to society. They were wrong. The movement always contained “progressives” who wanted a more “liberal” society than the they did. The Liberal movement was always “Progressive” because it always argued that the changes they were advocating were progress for society. They simply had no accepted means of agreeing to any limits to change. This is just as true between the moderate Liberals and the Woke today as it was between the original Classical Liberals and those who wanted even more change during the Enlightenment era. Because this movement has no standards external to itself, there really is no defense against those who what more change. Every change, it is argued, is “progress,” and the more change that takes place, the more rapid the next change seems to become accepted. <br /><br />In the early days of Classical Liberalism, this led to a split in the group between those who wanted to conserve the new norms, and those who wanted more change. In other words, the “Conservatives” and the “Progressives.” What a lot of people today don’t realize is that the Conservatives have always been Liberals, just not as liberal as the other factions of the movement. In today’s political environment, all of the predominant political and social positions are various levels of Liberalism. As the Progressives continued to change society, the terms “right” and “left” were adopted from the French revolutionary period, where those on the “right” oppose new change and those on the “left” advocate for it. The adoption of this terminology allows us to picture the spectrum of this movement as it spreads out over time, with the more Conservative position to the right and the more Progressive positions to the left. <br /><br />The Conservative faction also became known as “reactionary” because they were always reacting to the new changes being advocated. Ironically, those who label others as “reactionary” eventually become the ones reacting to the changes that go beyond what they imagine. This has been the experience of the academics at the center of the Grievance Studies project, and at the heart of the controversy that rocked Evergreen State College in Washington State several years ago. They seemed to find it a cruel irony that they were no longer viewed as part of the vanguard group for real Liberal progress in society. Instead, without realizing it, they had become the reactionaries who could only find what they considered to be a reasoned response among those they considered to be very Conservative. They view the Woke Left as Post Modernists and therefore not really Liberal. However, the Woke Left has clearly labeled them as “right wing,” especially since they dared to talk to those on the Conservative side of the spectrum. I view the Post Modernists and Woke as simply the latest phase of Progressive Liberalism that has left these academics behind. What they fail to realize is that, while the current tactics of the Woke Left are far more extreme than they ever used, some form of those tactics were always used by Progressives. Why is it only now, when they find themselves excluded from the academic elite, that they are seriously questioning the fact that the universities have become institutions that only present one side. Even if “speakers” from the other side were invited in previous times, the overwhelming majority of the actual tenured professors have been Progressives for many decades. As they have said, “the right cannot fix the universities.” The reason for this is that the right has been excluded from real representation in the universities. Now, some of that exclusion was self-imposed, but not all of it. And if you think it’s bad for the right, imagine what it is like for those who hold traditional religious views! Ironically, they sincerely believe that they and the universities were open minded when they were in charge. The right cannot fix the universities. The right cannot even fix itself. <br /><br />The reason Conservatism will always fail is that it is just the right-most faction of the Liberal spectrum. They view themselves as “Classical Liberals.” However, as the overall spectrum of Liberalism continues to “progress” more and more to the left, so does the scope of what is considered “Conservative.” The Conservative Right today includes positions that were promoted by the vanguard of the Left, the leftest of the Left, just twenty years ago. The Conservative Right of twenty years ago included positions that were considered very liberal a generation before that, and so on. Just think of the different changes in social norms that have been accepted by the so-called Conservatives in the last few decades. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types – the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.”<br /> – G. K. Chesterton, <i>Illustrated London News</i>, 19 April 1924.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">For just about all of the changes that have occurred, those advocating change argued that the change was slight. No one is talking about substantial changes. No one is talking about changing the law, or the definition, and no one is talking about imposing their views on you. They may have been completely honest in regard to themselves, but the claim doesn’t take into account the faction of their movement that actually does want more change – a faction that always seems to exist, a faction that seems to always grow beyond what the old majority imagined. The “slippery slope” argument may be a logical fallacy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. <br /><br />Today’s “moderate Left,” those who continue to protest that they are ideologically on the left and therefore not Conservative, but also not extremist like the “Woke,” those who say they are “Left” but not “leftist,” are struggling in what I believe to be a futile effort to save the “true” Liberalism from what they seem to view as an infiltration by “Post Modernism.” While they view Post Modernism as something different than true Liberalism, I simply see it as the latest step along the overall path of Liberalism. A step that is consistent with what Progressives have done throughout their history. Just as the original Liberalism was supposed to be “progress” for pre-Liberal society, the modern “Woke” movement is supposed to be “progress” for the current liberal society. Just ask them. <br /><br />So where does Distributism fit into all of this? Well, it just doesn’t. It has no place in the spectrum of Liberal ideas. Conservatism, Liberalism, Progressivism, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Woke ideology, Critical Race Theory, the Social Compact theories of society, and many other things that are rampant in our society are all based on some level of acceptance of the foundational philosophical view of Liberalism. Distributism is based on an older view. A view that accepts that natural law and morality are based on something outside of ourselves, and that we are subject to them rather than their master. What happens when we refuse to be subject to them? You end up with something like the Woke movement of today. Distributism is based on a view that political and economic life are categories of ethics and therefore subject to ethics; a view that has no problem with profit, but also teaches that profit cannot be the highest motive; a view that has no problem with wealth, but also teaches that wealth has a broader social purpose and implication than just the individual person or family; a view that accepts that government can have a role in helping those who are destitute, but that role is limited and subordinate to the role that others in society have; a view that teaches that it is immoral to refuse to work when you are capable, and immoral to refuse to assist those who are need of it; a view that believes that parents have more rights over the raising and education of children than society as a whole; a view that believes that government should interfere with business as little as practical, but that there are also moral limits to business practices; a view that is not rooted in a philosophy of materialistic individualism. <br /><br />This is the difference. To really become a Distributist is to reject the Liberal aspects of the other views. While some of our positions may sound similar to some Liberal positions, they are founded on a completely different reasoning. While some of our positions may sound similar to Conservative positions, they are also founded on a completely different reasoning. This is why I have repeatedly said that our greatest difficulty in presenting Distributism is that Distributism is truly a fundamental shift in how to view government, economics, and society as a whole.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eMzHBihgY76fdjmI6BuhpYlZqX8UkJ9_/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title image includes "<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Noun_confusion_Delwar_781825.svg" target="_blank">Noun Confusion</a>" by Delwar Hossain, BD, licensed under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International</a> license. </span></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-59842714048931847122022-08-12T05:00:00.034-07:002022-08-12T06:58:41.251-07:00What, exactly, is "proto-capitalism?"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8Dmqmjmlyts606S6a8ZyaozZ4Ph_IDwtgYtc08jSgTFJKdafYw5CsAFp7f4RS_gUMqhJ4S-VFxBWaH_owxvOwfGtJYgVL-QIbtClX0Ln8Pz7fS-LE00NfN88NYTvan3OfzSqEWKBHiNyGc8tsvwrh3g_nj-6GNTPQPp7DfY35tIdHtvTfwWdSCUR/s500/What%20exactly%20is%20%22proto-capitalism%22.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8Dmqmjmlyts606S6a8ZyaozZ4Ph_IDwtgYtc08jSgTFJKdafYw5CsAFp7f4RS_gUMqhJ4S-VFxBWaH_owxvOwfGtJYgVL-QIbtClX0Ln8Pz7fS-LE00NfN88NYTvan3OfzSqEWKBHiNyGc8tsvwrh3g_nj-6GNTPQPp7DfY35tIdHtvTfwWdSCUR/s16000/What%20exactly%20is%20%22proto-capitalism%22.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Have you ever heard of the term, "proto-capitalism?" I have heard it from two groups. The first group are those Catholics who wholeheartedly accept capitalism. For this group, the proto-capitalism period is evidence that the capitalism under which we live today has its origins in Catholic teaching. The second group are other capitalists who say that the proto-capitalism period was a period of transition from economics being considered a sub-category of ethics, where it was subject to religion and philosophy, to its own separate field of study. There is one thing that is generally acknowledged by both of these groups, however. Whatever proto-capitalism was, it was not capitalism. It is the name given by these groups to a particular time that, according to them, was a transition in European economics to capitalism. This leaves some important questions. What was the preceding economic system? What changes separate proto-capitalism from the period that preceded it? What changes separate proto-capitalism from actual capitalism? Finally, is there possibly another name we in the current age can apply to what these groups call proto-capitalism? </div><div><br /></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span>According to these groups, proto-capitalism seems to have started around the 11th Century. Capitalism is generally regarded to have started in the late 18th Century. This is a very significant period of time for both political and economic life in Europe. Instead of being viewed as just one period, it is better considered as three distinct periods. The time from the 11th Century to the middle of the 15th Century is known as the High Middle Ages. This was followed by the periods called the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The reason each of these periods need to be distinguished is that the political and economic changes that occurred in these different eras were significantly different. </div><div><br /></div><div>The general political and economic environment of Europe in the early Middle Ages, prior to the 11th Century, is generally known as the feudal period. Feudalism itself was a period of tumultuous transition in Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. In order to understand this, we must first take a look at how Rome seems to have managed its colonies in Europe. After conquering an area, Rome left a garrison under the command of a governor whose title was rex. The purpose of this was to ensure that there would not be an uprising against Rome and that the taxes would be collected and sent back to Rome. This is where we get the expression that “all roads lead to Rome.” After an area was conquered, roads were built to make sure the taxes and tributes could be transported back to Rome. What is very interesting about what Rome did, however, is that the local people were able to maintain a form of their own government. They could have their own king who was subordinate to Caesar and the local governor. They could keep their own laws and customs. They could continue to worship their own gods as long as they paid the required tribute to the gods of Rome. They could even have their own army which basically acted as law enforcement. The Roman soldiers “kept the peace,” but didn’t interfere in purely local matters. Another important point is how the Roman garrisons interacted with the local communities. A lot of the Roman soldiers were not actually Roman. Many Romans would only marry other Romans, but many of the other soldiers ended up marrying with the local community. The garrison would go to local merchants to maintain their equipment and purchase things. They became very integrated with the local economic life. </div><div><br /></div><div>When Rome collapsed, these colonies were left without the central government that had coordinated their protection by exerting its authority. These colonies essentially became independent with the local governor (“rex”) becoming the local king. The leaders of the garrison under his command became local lords with the responsibility to defend the community against other communities who might try to attack. Since they no longer had support from Rome, the king and his garrison became more dependent on the local community, while that community remained dependent on them for its protection. The fact that soldiers had married into the community strengthened that mutual bond. This was the rise of the Feudal Era. </div><div><br /></div><div>The early Feudal Era was essentially Roman in its mindset. The kingdom cities became divided between the lords and the people, who were serfs. Serfs were essentially slaves. Their lords could tell them where to live and what they had to provide as their taxes. They could be hanged if they tried to leave the lord’s land. About the only advantages they had was that the lord was obligated to provide them with a place to live and they could also keep any excess of what they produced for themselves. This latter fact helped to set up the transition from the Feudal era of the early Middle Ages to the High Middle Ages. Another important factor in this transition was the growing influence of the Church. </div><div><br /></div><div>Before discussing the High Middle Ages, we must face certain facts. While it was a period of tremendous advancement for the time, it was certainly not without its problems. Corrupt and bad people have existed in all times, and you will be able to find examples of them in any period of any society. While these need to be acknowledged, we will focus on the general changes that occurred that made the High Middle Ages a very different period from the feudalism of the early Middle Ages. </div><div><br /></div><div>In my opinion, one of the biggest changes in terms of both economic and political life was the transition of the people from being serfs to being peasants. Many people today have a very negative understanding of what a peasant was. In reality, a peasant was a free person. Serfs were told where to live and what they had to produce. Peasants were free to move and could try different professions. The university system was established and was open to both men and women. This period also saw the emergence of what would eventually become known as a “middle” class which could actually send at least some of their children to university. It was also a period where it was accepted that women would engage in at least some professions. Not only were women doctors, because it was generally not acceptable that a woman would be examined and treated by a male doctor, but there are also records of women being members of various guilds and even becoming masters of their crafts. Now, these were certainly a minority of cases, but they were there. </div><div><br /></div><div>The kings of this era were not absolute monarchs. During the Feudal Era, different kings would make alliances where one was acknowledged as the leader of the others and they would mutually protect each other. However, these alliances were pretty loose. The local lord, who remained essentially king in his own area, maintained his own troops who were loyal to him, similar to the local garrison and governor under Roman rule. Because of this, a local lord could break his alliance and join with a different king. These relationships had become much more stable by the High Middle Ages, but the basic structure had remained the same. The king has his own army of soldiers directly loyal to him, but so did each local lord. Kings coordinated the defense of the realm and settled disputes between lords, but the lords generally governed their own lands. The craftsmen and tradesmen of the local communities established their own governing bodies in the form of the guilds. The guilds of this era were responsible for many of the things that city, county, and state governments have assumed in the modern age. Membership in a guild was essentially your business license. The guilds established standards of quality and employment. They provided care for their members and supported their local communities. Another important feature of this time was the area known as the “commons.” Under feudalism, the lord was considered the titled holder of all the land. During the High Middle Ages, craftsmen and merchants eventually were able to buy land from the lord, but there was also an area of land that was generally available for common use among the people. This was a long established custom that actually had the force of law and the rights of the people to the commons was upheld in courts. </div><div><br /></div><div>The High Middle Ages was also the period where society was divided in the three or four different “estates” that generally designated their function. An important thing to note about these estates is they each provided things to society that were needed by the others. This created a type of mutual dependence. It was a short-sighted monarch who would become a tyrant because he would find himself without basic needs. The initial three estates were the lords, the peasants, and the Church. Later in this period a merchant class of traders emerged. </div><div><br /></div><div>The lords were those who fought. Kings in those days didn’t just send out their armies, they were in the field fighting with the rest of the army. Image if, today, those who declared wars also had to fight them. The peasants were the main producers of just about everything. They grew the food, made the clothes, made equipment and weapons, and built the buildings. The Church provided both spiritual and material support for the society as a whole. She was the primary educator outside of the family and eventually established the university system. The Church was also involved in most technological development of the time. She participated in the development of farming methods, smithing technology, architectural development, and medical research. Monks in one area would also meet with monks from other areas where they would discuss and share what had been developed, so advancements were shared between different kingdoms. The tithes the Church collected provided food and housing for the poor, and the lords often supported these charitable works. The merchants were the traders, who handled imports and exports from other regions. The political and economic environment of this era was very similar to what distributists promote today, but implemented in a way appropriate to that time. </div><div><br /></div><div>As European society transitioned to the Renaissance era in the middle of the 15th Century, the authority of kings became more absolute and they started sending others to war while they stayed at home. The political turmoil that came with the Protestant revolt from the Catholic Church resulted in the confiscating of Church properties and brought an end to the support systems the Church ran for the benefit of the poor. In some cases, the confiscated land was given by a king to those who supported him, creating a wealthy landed class. Another thing that happened was that the long upheld right of the people to the commons was revoked. This took away an important economic resource from the people, who became more destitute as a result. This era also saw the beginning of the breakup of the guild system. The guild system didn’t collapse on its own, it was crushed through acts of law made to benefit the new wealthy class who supported the growing power of kings. This was a clear break from the economic and political environment of the High Middle Ages, and it resulted in a much more powerful central government authority with a supportive wealthy, landed class on one side, and a growing class of economically disadvantaged people on the other who were losing the means of their livelihood. </div><div><br /></div><div>As society transitioned from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment eras, toward the end of the 18th Century, it also saw the transition to capitalism. This involved the gradual, general revolt against all forms of monarchy and the establishment of federal republics throughout most of Europe. It is true that England maintained its monarchy, but the power of parliament had grown to the point where the monarch eventually became more of a figure head, while the power of parliament was similar to the republics that were being established. The wealthy land holders started to develop factories and other large production systems which they expected to be manned by the poorer classes whose economic situations had degraded during the Renaissance. They openly wrote with disdain about this class, calling them indolent and lazy, and saying they wasted valuable time with leisure that could be used to produce more. These first capitalists used their economic influence to get laws changed to hinder any remaining home industries, so the workers they wanted would basically have no choice but to work in the factories. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, looking at these different phases of political and economic history, what period can rightly be called “proto-capitalism?” The main distinguishing feature between capitalism and other economic systems is the existence of two economic classes, one that owns productive capital and employs the other to do the actual work of production for a wage. Which period was a definite move toward this while not yet being true capitalism? For me, the typical commentator who points to the High Middle Ages is wrong. The transition that occurred during that time was more people independently owning the productive capital they used to provide for their own needs. Because many were able to transition to paying their taxes in coin instead of specific products, the lords no longer directed their production. While there were certainly some who could be considered employees during that era, most businesses of that era were owned by the people who did the productive work. </div><div><br /></div><div>I would say that the late Renaissance Era is more appropriately considered the time of proto-capitalism. This era kicked the workers out of the productive capital known as the commons, and left them in a situation where they would have to work for a wage in order to support themselves. This era established stronger central governments who could make wide sweeping changes in laws at the behest of the wealthy land owners to limit the independent economic efforts of the common people so they too would become dependent on working for a wage to make a living. This era was also the beginning of the religious revolt throughout much of European society that would eventually justify ignoring the classical view that economics was a sub-category of ethics, instead viewing it as an independent field of study. </div><div><br /></div><div>The High Middle Ages, on the other hand, never separated economics from ethics. Ethics were integral to all aspects of economic life. The Scholastic Catholic philosophers of the time were very thorough in their examination of economic life. They included theories of monetary value and the injustice of inflation and deflation, theories of just price that included the cost to bring products to market, the subjective value of the product to the community or individual, and ethical principles of Christian morals, the idea that there is inherent dignity and value in labor and living by the fruits of your own labor, the rejection of slave labor, the idea that individuals can improve their state in life by making modest profits and frugal living. This included being private business owners operating in a free economy where business were self-regulated within their guilds. It was a time with banking and systems of profitable credit and investment for complex commercial activities. However, the profit could not be made by usury, but by other compensations in exchange for the loan or investment. </div><div><br /></div><div>In conclusion, my view is that the Renaissance era is the earliest period that can rightfully be called proto-capitalism. The High Middle Ages was a transition from the feudalism of the early Middle Ages, but not in the direction of capitalism. What was established in the High Middle Ages was much closer to what distributists propose than capitalists. It was the Renaissance Era that made the changes necessary for the implementation of capitalism, a system essentially defined by two economic classes, one that owns the productive capital needed for production and the other employed by those owners to do productive work for a wage. </div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1joUNCeFJqAiGu2meWrMRKnyUobpC4T_2/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Printable version</a></i></div></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-28050005741878831162022-04-14T05:00:00.031-07:002023-02-13T11:07:16.774-08:00Distributism and "Preppers"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2tdXD6fR3csCcB6NO1QpD8u6VVjIFJ764TZ937KBUqYn9JTcLvwDxKPPKui--p2c04Mos2coxhIN61XwV-Bunh-s7kWhNKVUEeKFkOVtLkwa7YdwsiPYWyBmgQbmGQbZkWnwHzWW5v97vbpfeo8nt6bNgeed_hHGZZfYR5FCsNnETRt9L_RvSTRC_/s500/Distributism%20and%20Preppers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2tdXD6fR3csCcB6NO1QpD8u6VVjIFJ764TZ937KBUqYn9JTcLvwDxKPPKui--p2c04Mos2coxhIN61XwV-Bunh-s7kWhNKVUEeKFkOVtLkwa7YdwsiPYWyBmgQbmGQbZkWnwHzWW5v97vbpfeo8nt6bNgeed_hHGZZfYR5FCsNnETRt9L_RvSTRC_/s16000/Distributism%20and%20Preppers.jpg" /></a></div><div>Distributists emphasize personal and local economic independence as the foundation of personal, political, and economic freedom. For nearly one hundred years, we have been saying that society overall needs to move away from our dependence, not only dependence on big government, but also on big business. As long as we continue to accept these things, we will be in a state of dependence, which means that we will not truly be free. So, what does this have to do with the so-called “prepper” movement that has gained popularity in the last two years? </div><div><br /></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span>The prepper movement is one that emphasizes individual preparedness for what some say is an orchestrated economic collapse. Preppers stock up on pre-packaged food supplies and weapons, and even plan on escaping to secluded locations to escape the hordes of people who will be rioting and looting when they can no longer buy or get basics needs like food and water. As I write this, there is a war between Russia and Ukraine that is threatening to rise to some level of global conflict, right at the time many Western governments are relaxing the public restrictions that have been imposed for the last two years due to COVID-19. Even though rising gas prices and vaccine mandates were already causing problems with the so-called supply chain on which most cities are entirely dependent for basic every day needs, this conflict is being blamed for rapidly exacerbating these issues at the present time. Regardless of the proximate or ultimate causes of gas prices, the <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/10/14/the-breakdown-of-the-supply-chain/" target="_blank">problems with the supply chain</a>,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1]</i></span> and inflation in general, the practical reality of these things seems to be that we are heading into an economic crisis for which the population at large is ill prepared. </div><div><br /></div><div>For the past one hundred years, while the distributist movement has advocated wide spread smaller scale local production, the nations of the West have steadfastly moved toward more centralized large scale production of basic necessities, even to the extent of becoming dependent on foreign countries for some basic necessities. This has resulted in us being very dependent on the continued movement of these goods through ports, across highways, and into local stores in an efficient and cost-effective way. It all seems to work just fine, until something happens to disrupt that movement. The lock downs and vaccine mandates of the last two years caused some disruption of this. Local stores were forcibly closed down and many of them went out of business. Requirements and restrictions on trucking resulted in less trucks being available to take goods from one area of the country to another. Shipping containers piled up in ports to the point where the ships had to wait outside of the ports for space to become available to unload their cargoes. People have gone to the stores that remain in business to find shelves that are either sparsely stocked or empty of some goods. People have even taken to looting the shipping containers as they are moved on trains, resulting in a lot of goods being tossed to the ground to be sifted through by the looters and others instead of reaching the people or stores who paid for them. </div><div><br /></div><div>The problem with our extreme dependence on this supply chain is that our major cities simply cannot support the basic needs of their populations. Stores might hold enough supplies to last for a few days, but without the constant flow of new goods, the people in those cities will very quickly face a very unpleasant prospect, and the situation in those cities is likely to quickly become very unsafe for the average person. It is reasonable to expect that looting and rioting will take place, and that a lot of people will be hurt in the process. This is not a difficult conclusion to reach, so it is easy to see why the preppers have taken the precautions they have. </div><div><br /></div><div>What, on the other hand, is a distributist response to this? Well, distributists have to speak carefully on this matter. I don’t think we can fault the preppers for trying to make sure they have provisions for their families if this type of situation arises. At the same time, we continue to reach out to everyone, including the preppers, to understand that this situation could be avoided, at least in the future, if communities throughout our societies decide to not be so dependent on the supply chain we currently use. Today’s distributists are making the same suggestions as the distributists of the past; communities need to make themselves as economically independent as possible. Preppers store up packaged foods to prepare for a time when trucks won’t be available to deliver enough food from distant producers to local stores. If, instead of this dependence, the production of food was dispersed and local to communities across the country, the preppers would not need to worry about the failure of the supply chain caused by an economic collapse. </div><div><br /></div><div>The preppers are being proven right. Given the actual economic structure in which we live, our dependence on long distance supply chains for the basic needs of daily life, and the recent actions of governments that resulted in wiping out a significant portion of the actual local economy, it makes sense to prepare for a time when basic needs cannot be acquired through normal economic activity. The main problem with the prepper movement is that it is essentially individualistic. This is not their fault. They are dealing with the reality of the political and economic environment in which they are actually living. Distributism however, takes a different approach. While there may be distributists who are preppers, because we too have to deal with the reality of the political and economic environment in which we actually live, we are also proposing sincere, realistic, and concrete changes at a societal level which, if accepted and adopted by a large enough segment of the population, would make “prepping” unnecessary. </div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12ZibptHYEcwxJ8fZSp82cM-CisHK8zPe/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Printable version</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div>Notes:</div><div>[1] David W. Cooney, “The Breakdown of the Supply Chain.” <i>Pactical Distributism</i>, 14 Oct. 2021 <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/10/14/the-breakdown-of-the-supply-chain/">https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/10/14/the-breakdown-of-the-supply-chain/</a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title photo by Heptarch. Licensed under <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html" target="_blank">GNU General Public License</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-21550182744962422102022-03-10T05:00:00.038-08:002023-02-13T11:05:00.070-08:00Our Usurious Economy<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTmnOjYBB4uUocbCBb-0xcQ9tTkiUY8KKD6zHdAmMfkjhemyfHAP28fh2ZtBuY5RthX1SKLH-frxRjdz76vXN1AR8bGy229alogiGwFYKOizGMHMasyO9N3s6oO-SEiChTV2LvvA9SbM30kmJ1AJPt0lvL_Ggyo2WYuhSt8uFM2ht8QwSDKnneQxta=s500" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTmnOjYBB4uUocbCBb-0xcQ9tTkiUY8KKD6zHdAmMfkjhemyfHAP28fh2ZtBuY5RthX1SKLH-frxRjdz76vXN1AR8bGy229alogiGwFYKOizGMHMasyO9N3s6oO-SEiChTV2LvvA9SbM30kmJ1AJPt0lvL_Ggyo2WYuhSt8uFM2ht8QwSDKnneQxta=s16000" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"> by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/" target="_blank">Thomas Storck</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What is usury and is it of any relevance to people today? For the most part, in modern times the term <i>usury</i> has come to mean the taking of excess, often outrageous, interest on a loan. But the classical definition in Catholic theology of usury was something a little different: the taking of <i>any</i> interest, in any amount, and no matter what the loan would be used for, simply because there is a loan contract. The most complete papal statement of this is found in the 1745 encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV, <i>Vix Pervenit</i>, the relevant portions of which run,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><span><a name='more'></a></span>The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owned him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.<br /><br />One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one's fortune...or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan....<br /><br />By these remarks, however, We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles - which are not at all intrinsic to the contract - may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">For many today, and perhaps especially for economists, this sounds absurd, a relic of an outdated approach to economics that the world discarded when it entered into modernity. For is not money something which any enterprising person can usefully employ in making even more money, and therefore is one not justified in charging something for the use of his money?<br /><br />The answer to this is No - unless a lender can point to some gain he will likely forgo or some loss which he will likely suffer on account of being temporarily deprived of his money, the lender is entitled to nothing above the principal loaned. For some centuries before Pope Benedict's encyclical theologians and jurists recognized the fact that a creditor might miss some opportunity for gain or suffer some kind of loss on account of his having loaned someone money. Accordingly, they recognized two chief possible titles to legitimate interest which correspond to these two possibilities, and which were known as <i>lucrum cessans</i> and <i>damnum emergens</i>. These, while they "are not at all intrinsic to the contract - may run parallel with it," and when they are present "entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract." And of course, in the past and especially today, there do exist numerous investment opportunities on account of which someone might claim to take advantage of one of these parallel titles. So, one might argue, the modern practice of regularly charging interest is fully justified according to the most severe tenets of Catholic moral theology.<br /><br />And perhaps in an abstract way this contention is correct. In a highly commercialized society opportunities for investment are always present and surely by loaning money to one person, I miss out on some other profitable investment I might have made. But what makes this somewhat unreal as a reason for the taking of interest as the norm of economic life is that for the most part <i>all</i> the investment opportunities involve some kind of interest taking. So is an investor entitled to claim <i>lucrum cessans</i> on account of a loan he makes which deprives him of an opportunity to make a different loan? Can he claim a right to interest because of other interest forgone?<br /><br />When the parallel titles of <i>lucrum cessans</i> and <i>damnum emergens</i> were originally formulated the economy was such that in many places there were hardly any opportunities for legitimate profitable investments. So a usurer's money would otherwise sit idle if it were not loaned to someone - say a craftsman or a farmer who needed to buy tools. In such a case the lender clearly had no right to receive more than the face amount of the loan, for he had forfeited no opportunity for gain at all. And even in commercial centers, financial opportunities tended to be more distinct acts, such as investing in a particular trading expedition, rather than ringing up one's broker and telling him to buy a certain security.<br /><br />The problem then comes back to our economy. We have allowed an incredibly complex economy to arise over the last several hundred years, an economy in which interest taking is simply routine. Some of this interest can doubtless be justified by one of the parallel titles to which Pope Benedict XIV alluded. But it is difficult to disentangle just interest from unjust. This is why, in my opinion, that in the first half of the nineteenth century the Church began allowing confessors to absolve penitents who took interest on loans. It was not because the Church's doctrine had changed, but because it became increasingly difficult to separate legitimate interest from usury. Most ordinary confessors, or even moral theologians, lacked sufficient knowledge of the workings of the financial system to do so. It was easier just to allow moderate interest taking and presume that in most cases there was some excusing title.<br /><br />What happened is that an economy had emerged in which morality played hardly any role - except for force or fraud both narrowly defined, the economy was more and more seen as a field where self-interest ruled. Indeed, early theorists of capitalism, such as Adam Smith, openly proclaimed this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. (<i>Wealth of Nations</i>, book I, chapter 2)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">And with this self-interest came Adam Smith's "invisible hand," for the economy was conceived as a vast mechanism with self-interest as the mainspring of its action. And, so the theory went, if the government interfered with this self-acting economy, this would hamper economic efficiency and ultimately generate waste and a lower standard of living - at least for the rich!<br /><br />How should Catholics in the twenty-first century approach the question of usury then? If we realize that interest taking is subject to the moral law, can we sufficiently distinguish between legitimate interest and usury? Just as in the early nineteenth century, so today, it would be difficult to examine each type of financial transaction for the presence of usury. But that does not mean that we must simply throw up our hands and acquiesce in our present capitalist system. There is another way.<br /><br />Easier than ferreting out instances of usury in the economy would be to try to establish an economy in which the need for constant interest taking, and hence the possibility for usurious transactions, would be less than at present. Such would be an economy in which production and consumption were, as much as is feasible, at the local level, and hence there would exist a closer nexus between production and consumption than under the complex system of exchanges that we live with today.<br /><br />What are some examples of this? Probably the best is farmers' markets, in which farmers can sell their produce directly to consumers. Here we have a truly local economy, and the simplest sort of economic transaction possible. For the more that goods are shipped long distances between their point of production and their point of sale, the more they change hands between producers, shippers and sellers, the more complex financial transactions will arise, and hence the more likely that interest taking, whether legitimate or not, will be seen as necessary. Any and every economic transaction that favors local production and consumption contributes in some degree to a healthy economy.<br /><br />But unless there is a profound change in the way that people view the economy, we are not likely to embrace such economic practices. If we ask ourselves why it is necessary for the human race to engage in economic activity, the answer is obvious: to supply ourselves with those goods and services which are either strictly necessary for human life or which enhance our lives appropriately. The economy is not a field for personal enrichment unconnected to the provision of real economic goods, nor does it operate in a mechanical way. The desire to support oneself and one's family by one's economic activity is entirely legitimate - as long as that activity consists in providing one's fellows with necessary goods or services. What is not legitimate is engaging in financial manipulation which provides no goods or services and has no purpose beyond the enrichment of the speculator.<br /><br />However far we are today from a Christian society or a Christian economy, the duty to seek "to impress the divine law on the affairs of the earthly city" (<i>Gaudium et Spes</i>, no. 43) is always present, and is always a worthy apostolate. Even in the worst of times we cannot give up on our task to make this world a more fitting offering to our Divine Lord.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oPyo0SfKgukGzlvAZtDbgbyC0gYYQzcY/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title photo, "The Brains" by Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly 1871. Public Domain</span></div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-64989414676739253552022-01-13T05:00:00.009-08:002023-02-13T11:04:20.228-08:00Is Distributism Socialism?<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhS9VpBvs0nsSxUvZMTgt5ZT3BP3xJb4qUsW_zyEfNuemINAh_S9ZOxzBiXd5aEiPgtmi50NgitVSrgwVyg3U4T1vQxro6KaKEyVGsPEDdhJGldu5HBhcMTL6iznGkdwoUCd8KOZ4PIdj8uF8KghrNPrfdcqONg169A6coRhuFhZPdv27diCQuQcc66oQ=s500" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhS9VpBvs0nsSxUvZMTgt5ZT3BP3xJb4qUsW_zyEfNuemINAh_S9ZOxzBiXd5aEiPgtmi50NgitVSrgwVyg3U4T1vQxro6KaKEyVGsPEDdhJGldu5HBhcMTL6iznGkdwoUCd8KOZ4PIdj8uF8KghrNPrfdcqONg169A6coRhuFhZPdv27diCQuQcc66oQ=s16000" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/" target="_blank">Thomas Storck</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">References to or discussions of distributism on the internet are not hard to find. This is gratifying, for I would hazard a guess that fifty years ago almost no one had even heard of distributism. But even though the situation today is in most respects an improvement, these online references to distributism are not necessarily favorable. I have not attempted to count whether favorable or unfavorable mentions predominate, but there seem to be some ideas that are common to those critical of distributism. One is that distributism is simply a form of socialism. Now those who make this charge usually have little understanding of what socialism is, and especially of the great variety of economic programs that go by that name. Socialism is simply assumed to be state ownership of property, at least of productive property. That socialists often advocate for modes of ownership such as worker-owned enterprises or cooperatives seems to be largely unknown to the public.<br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>While it may be excusable for the general public to be unaware of the varieties of socialist economic proposals, it is not excusable in a Catholic who attempts to write about Catholic social teaching or socialism or economics. As long ago as 1931 Pope Pius XI in his encyclical, <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> (no. 113), pointed out that "it cannot be denied that [socialist] programs often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers." This encyclical obviously is required reading for a Catholic, and any Catholic who writes on matters of society or economic policy and who is not familiar with its contents is hardly different from a Catholic who writes on marriage but has never bothered to read <i>Casti Connubii</i> or <i>Humanae Vitae</i>.<br /><br />All this is not written with the intention of justifying or rehabilitating socialism. Socialism is an evil, as I will explain shortly. But if socialism is an evil and socialists are hostile to Christian civilization, and hence in some sense are our enemies, we should recall our Lord's words that we must love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). And if some find this too difficult a commandment to obey immediately, perhaps they might begin by merely trying to be fair to their enemies. For if socialism is represented as always and everywhere simply a system of government ownership, this is a falsehood. No doubt socialists will usually call for more government ownership than both most supporters of capitalism and many distributists would like. And there can be legitimate debate among Catholics about the degree and nature of state ownership. But Pius XI makes it clear that the economic proposals of moderate socialists are not necessarily out of bounds. After the passage that I quoted above, he continues in this manner:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>If these [moderating] changes continue, it may well come about that gradually the tenets of mitigated socialism will no longer be different from the program of those who seek to reform human society according to Christian principles. <br />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. (no. 114)<br />Just demands and desires of this kind contain nothing opposed to Christian truth, nor are they in any sense peculiar to socialism. Those therefore who look for nothing else, have no reason for becoming socialists. (no. 115)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">If Pius XI's presentation of socialism is accurate - and a Catholic should hardly be in a position to question this - why is it that socialism is, as I said, an evil? It is, as Pius taught, because "it conceives human society in a way utterly alien to Christian truth" (117). That is, socialism has at bottom a materialistic and even atheistic view of the purpose of the human community and, thus, of human nature as well. As St. John Paul II wrote in <i>Centesimus Annus</i>, "the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature." Particular socialist economic proposals may or may not be just or wise, but each of them must be evaluated in accordance with the whole corpus of the Church's social doctrine. But socialism, as a system, as a philosophy of life, is wrong because it denies God, or at best ignores Him. We see, in fact, that in Europe many socialist governments, when they attain electoral power, often make their peace with capitalist corporate economic power, but seldom refrain from attacking the Church or Christian education or Christian marriage.<br /><br />Interestingly enough, John Paul goes on to note that as a <i>philosophy</i> capitalism shares in the same atheism as does socialism. "The atheism of which we are speaking is also closely connected with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, which views human and social reality in a mechanistic way" (no. 13.) It was of course, the thinkers of the Enlightenment, such as Adam Smith, who viewed the economy as a mechanism, about whom John Paul is speaking here. And from Smith's conception of the economy has descended the pervasive neoclassical form of economics which imagines it can capture the whole reality of economic transactions by means of graphs which view "human and social reality in a mechanistic way."<br /><br />After this long discussion of socialism, what about distributism? Am I attempting to rehabilitate socialism in order to gloss over the charge that distributism is simply a form of socialism? What I am attempting to do is to point out that distributism is <i>not</i> socialism and cannot be. Distributism does not conceive of human society, still less of human nature, as divorced from its divine origins. What distributists desire rather is that the economy, like all subordinate aspects of human social life, receive its proper place in that social hierarchy by which we are brought ultimately to eternal life. To quote<br /><i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> once more:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>If [the moral law] be faithfully obeyed, the result will be that particular economic aims, whether of society as a body or of individuals, will be intimately linked with the universal teleological order, and as a consequence we shall be led by progressive stages to the final end of all, God Himself, our highest and lasting good. (no. 43)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">The economy is generally regarded today by both capitalists and socialists as an independent module of human life, subject to its own laws, rather than, like any other sphere of human activity, essentially a field of moral choice. There are, it is true, economic laws, or better, tendencies in human nature, that it is unwise to simply ignore when formulating economic policies. These tendencies, however, do not operate in a vacuum. They are part of social life as a whole, which is why they operate differently according to diverse religious and cultural norms and legal systems. The human sexual drive, for example, although it is based on inherent tendencies in human nature, operates differently according to varying cultures and legal systems. No-fault divorce, for example, has tended to promote the breakdown of marriages, not because a law can change human nature, but because the tendencies of human nature function differently with different incentives of reward and punishment and varying ideals of conduct. If we are told that sexual fulfillment is a person's unquestioned right we will certainly end up with more disordered sexual activity than if we keep in mind the truth that God created us as sexual beings for the fundamental purpose of procreation and stable families. Similarly, a society in which there exists a robust recognition that the economy ought to serve the common good, and establishes laws and institutions designed to attain that end, will operate quite differently from one in which we are told over and over again that greed is the mainspring of economic action and getting rich is a praiseworthy goal of one's life.<br /><br />Distributism is not socialism. The repeated charge that the two are really the same simply misses the point. Yes, there may be some overlaps between some socialist proposals and the ideas of distributists, for example, cooperatives and worker ownership. Just as there are overlaps between distributism and capitalism, such as the institution of private property. But distributism is different from both, not merely in the details of its proposals for widespread ownership, but in its very spirit, a spirit which proclaims <blockquote>that particular economic aims, whether of society as a body or of individuals, [must] be intimately linked with the universal teleological order, and as a consequence we shall be led by progressive stages to the final end of all, God Himself, our highest and lasting good.</blockquote><p style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KjXtWuPvJ36IHaWQPC1bBovmBLUXcBs2/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a><br /></p></div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-87580033381075534492021-11-04T05:00:00.019-07:002021-11-19T10:00:18.190-08:00Distributism at the Catholic Economics Roundtable<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xaIZysflGxU/YYmixFqYsYI/AAAAAAAAC_Q/OV5HuORcHL43u2l6Mm8qsMbBvyWiV0NTACLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Distributism%2Bat%2Bthe%2BCatholic%2BEconomics%2BRoundtable.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xaIZysflGxU/YYmixFqYsYI/AAAAAAAAC_Q/OV5HuORcHL43u2l6Mm8qsMbBvyWiV0NTACLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Distributism%2Bat%2Bthe%2BCatholic%2BEconomics%2BRoundtable.jpg" /></a></div>The following opening statement was given at the “Catholic Economics Roundtable” livestream hosted by Michael Lofton on 23 January 2021. It can be viewed on the Reason and Theology YouTube channel<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1]</i></span> and is available as a podcast on The Tradistae Podcast on Podbean.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span> <br /> <br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>Hello, my name is Thomas Hackett.* I am a Catholic Worker, currently living and serving at Holy Family House in Lancaster, and a co-founder of Tradistae, a Catholic Worker organization devoted to the spread of Catholic Social Teaching. <br /> <br />I am also a distributist. To be clear, Distributism is not an adjustment to free-market capitalism. Nor is it simply socialism with a Catholic flavor. <br /> <br />Where socialism and capitalism are based on a modern, liberal, and false understanding of the human person, distributism is grounded above all in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Social Doctrine of the Holy Fathers, especially beginning with Pope Leo XIII in 1891. <br /> <br />Definitions are important, so I’ll begin by providing a simple definition: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">➔ Distributism is an economic system with widespread ownership of private property; in other words, a system in which working families own the means of production with which they are laboring. <br /></div> <br />Does Catholic Social Teaching really call for distributism? Absolutely. From Pope Leo, 130 years ago, to Pope Francis, who reigns gloriously today, distributism is a constant theme. <br /> <br />This tradition begins in <i>Rerum Novarum</i>, where Pope Leo XIII says: “The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners” (§ 46). <br /> <br />Forty years later, Pope Pius XI reiterated that a just wage must be paid so that workers “may increase their property by thrift” and emerge from the non-owning class. (<i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> § 61) <br /> <br />In 1961, Pope Saint John XXIII said it even more bluntly: “Now, if ever, is the time to insist on a more widespread distribution of property... It will not be difficult for the body politic.. to pursue an economic and social policy which facilitates the widest possible distribution of private property...” (<i>Mater et Magistra</i> § 115) <br /> <br />Pope Saint John Paul II, who saw capitalism as a perversion of the natural order laid down in Genesis, declared that “the principle of the priority of labour over capital is a postulate of the order of social morality” (<i>Laborem Exercens</i> § 15). He states also that ‘isolating’ capital and labor as ‘separate property’ is “contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession.” After calling for the “socialization... of certain means of production”, he clarifies that: <br /></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">...merely converting the means of production into State property in the collectivist system is by no means equivalent to "socializing" that property. We can speak of socializing only when... each person is fully entitled to consider himself a part-owner of the great workbench at which he is working with every one else. A way towards that goal could be found by associating labour with the ownership of capital, as far as possible... </div><div style="text-align: right;">(<i>Laborem Exercens</i> § 14) </div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">Finally, Pope Francis proclaims in <i>Laudato Si’</i> that “Every <i>campesino</i> [peasant] has a natural right to possess a reasonable allotment of land where he can establish his home, work for subsistence of his family and a secure life. This right must be guaranteed so that its exercise is not illusory but real” (§ 94). <br /> <br />Distributism is clearly demanded by Catholic Social Teaching. But what does it look like in practice? <br /> <br />What we can leave behind is obvious: no stock market, no usurious banks, no billionaires, and no multinational corporations. When Mammon is dethroned, we will have no need of these modern economic perversions. Distributists believe that the family is the foundation of society, so we naturally believe that businesses should operate on a family-scale. And when governments are needed to promote the common good, they should seek the flourishing of families and communities, instead of individual autonomy or the GDP. <br /> <br />What kind of world would this produce? <br /> <br />First, a society of solidarity. A more egalitarian distribution of the means of production means that workers will not be dependent on wage-slavery or the Welfare State. Workers can fully enjoy the fruits of their labor, as God intended. Furthermore, in a world not based on the profit-motive, the hoarding of the rich can be replaced with a Christian morality: one of hospitality and magnanimous gift-giving. We must both feed the poor <i>and</i> eliminate the cause of their dispossession. <br /> <br />Second, a society of subsidiarity. Political power requires economic power. So when ownership is concentrated in the wealthy elite, totalitarian governments—whether nationalist, neoliberal, or communist—are inevitable. Only by more widespread ownership is it possible to have a network of subsidiary temporal authorities, from global to local, as can be seen in the Middle Ages. <br /><br />Third, a sustainable society. As scientific evidence and natural catastrophes have shown—and as Pope Francis has authoritatively explained in <i>Laudato Si’</i>—our climate cannot keep pace with the unchecked growth of the Market. The Holy Father denounces “the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit” (§ 106). After robbing the medieval monasteries and the resources of the Third World, the atmosphere is the one “commons” left to be stolen and used for profit. Distributism, due to its agrarian roots, has always triumphed what Marxists have failed to see and what capitalists refuse to acknowledge: without a significant return to the land—along with an “ecological conversion” and a traditional view of our relationship to the natural world—we will destroy God’s Creation on which we all ultimately depend for our daily bread. <br /> <br />Fourth and finally, the return of an integralist society, ie, the social Kingship of Christ. Most would agree that we live in a deeply “secular” age. Saint John Paul II has taught that this is rooted in the “atheistic materialism” which is common to both capitalism and communism. We are all trapped in a bourgeois and acquisitive anti-culture. We are surrounded by wasteful consumerism, degenerate pornography, and unlimited streaming and scrolling—all for what? The increase of GDP, an idol which is the true god of this age. We need to return economics to its true purpose: supplying the physical needs and spiritual flourishing of mankind. For those who are committed to traditional culture, virtuous limitations, family values, living simply, and Christian community, distributism is the path forward. </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/17DTKdu9ATgiXA18ApEjGaurpzZgFvd2C/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>[Editors notes: The title picture leading this article has been updated. "Thomas Hackett" is the former pseudonym of Sean Domenic. <br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>It should be noted that the Catholic Church has never officially endorsed any specific system of economics by name. What the Church has done is clearly lay out the moral and ethical principles that should govern the economic and political spheres of society. These principles include calls for the widespread private ownership of property. Distributism is a practical application of those principles, and that is the sense in which we can say the Church calls for Distributism.]</i><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Notes:</div><div style="text-align: left;">1: “Catholic Economics Round Table with Trent Horn, Jose Mena and Thomas Hackett.” <i>Reason and Theology</i>, 23 January, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS4tdutleaw</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">2: “#36 – Catholic Economics Roundtable Discussion, Part 1/2.” The Tradistae Podcast, 26 January, 2021. https://tradistae.podbean.com/e/36-catholic-economics-roundtable-discussion-part-12</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title photo by David W. Cooney. All rights reserved.</span></div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-32091491793909271442021-10-14T05:00:00.029-07:002021-10-29T11:46:26.989-07:00The Breakdown of the Supply Chain<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O3C1xQCar0w/YWBXHSE8YWI/AAAAAAAAC-s/U17CT6i4_gAIeYFC0MjOOCvif-D27fK8QCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/The%2BBreakdown%2Bof%2Bthe%2BSupply%2BChain.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O3C1xQCar0w/YWBXHSE8YWI/AAAAAAAAC-s/U17CT6i4_gAIeYFC0MjOOCvif-D27fK8QCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/The%2BBreakdown%2Bof%2Bthe%2BSupply%2BChain.jpg" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">Not long ago, a cargo ship blocked a canal, causing international shipping to get backed up and a consequent shortage of supplies in many countries. As I write this, many cargo ships are gathered in the Pacific Ocean, waiting to get into the harbors for Los Angeles and Long Beach California. Apparently, there is a shortage of long distance truckers to take away the cargo already unloaded, which needs to be done to make room for the cargo on the ships that are waiting. There has been a lot of talk about the breakdown of the supply chain, but have these discussions actually addressed the real problem?<br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>Comments focus on things like California’s laws, restrictions put in place to protect people from the spread of COVID-19, and the consequent shortage of long distance truckers due to things like “vaccine hesitancy.” However, are these the real problems? Isn’t it a problem that we have made ourselves dependent on foreign producers, not only for many of the things on which our economic and personal lives depend, but also for some basic needs like food and medicine? Isn’t it a problem that we have segregated our urban and rural areas so that they are widely separated? It appears to me that these factors are not discussed much. In fact, despite the complete dependence of large urban areas on constant long distance trucking, there is talk in these areas about restricting trucks during certain times. I lived near Los Angeles in the 1980s, and I remember what happened when they tried it.<br /><br />1980s Los Angeles had horrific traffic congestion during the so-called “rush hours” at the beginning and end of each work day. The plan to relieve some congestion was to restrict certain types of trucks during those hours, forcing them to reschedule their delivery routes to comply with the new restrictions. Smaller trucks, independent truckers, and small businesses making deliveries would be exempt from these rules. You might think that, as a distributist, I would praise this. Keep in mind that while we distributists have our ideals, we also accept the reality of what kind of society and economic system we actually live in. In a truly distributist society, these rules would be unnecessary and, if enacted, would probably have very little impact. However, Los Angeles in the 1980s wasn’t anything close to a truly distributist society. <br /><br />It also needs to be understood that those enacting the new rule knew their dependence on the type of trucking that was going to be restricted. The mayor at the time, Tom Bradly, said, “No one doubts that truck shipments are vital to our economy. The old saying, ‘If you got it, a truck brought it,’ still largely applies.”1 The city leaders may have assumed that, because Los Angeles was the source of a lot of their business, these larger truck delivery services would acquiesce to the new rule and simply adjust their delivery routes. They were wrong. Some trucks refused to deliver at all. It was also speculated by some that others trucks lowered the priority of deliveries to Los Angeles. The result was not just shortages of incidental items, but also the beginnings of food shortages. In the end, the city quickly capitulated and removed the restrictions before things got too bad for the local community.<br /><br />The point of relating this story from thirty years ago is that the fragility of our economic way of life has been known for a long time. It was well known when Los Angeles enacted the rule to reduce traffic congestion, but the city leaders were hopeful that those on whom they were dependent would play along. We have heard over the years, at least until recently, that our economy is strong and vibrant and growing. Have we asked according to what measure these conclusions were reached? If the economy of a major city, state, or country, can be crippled due to a “failure of the supply chain,” I would argue that it is not strong and vibrant, even if it is growing. In fact, continued growth under such conditions could mean that the economy gets weaker because of the increased dependence on outside communities. <br /><br />The people of Western society, especially in the United States, like to think of themselves as independent and free. If your local community can be brought to economic ruin by a foreign power stopping shipments to your country, or by other areas stopping shipments to your community, then you are not independent and free. I am not talking about isolationism or not engaging in trade with other countries or communities. Those things are fine as long as your community as a whole does not become too dependent on them. If the majority of your supply chain, particularly for the basic necessities of life and business is local, then you are unlikely to experience a failure in it except through incompetence, which is a possibility at any level of government. However, if a failure in the supply chain from distant and foreign suppliers would cause your community to have an overall collapse due to shortages of food and other basic needs, then you are neither independent nor free. <br /><br />So how do we change? Another problem we face in most of Western society is that we have been conditioned to look for that enlightened leader who will come in and impose the changes needed to make things all better. That won’t work because, contrary to an opinion that is growing in popularity, the leadership is not the main problem we are currently experiencing. We are. Those who look for the enlightened leader to save them are accepting a life of dependency. This is true both for those who look for an enlightened political leader and those who look for an enlightened economic leader. If you seek dependence, that is what you’ll get. Distributism, however, is for those who seek independence and, consequently, understand that pursuing that means accepting the risks that are inherently part of true independence and freedom. </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11bTtmlC5z_5qIVJHSwJGkJIGbsvjUwBh/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title photo by David W. Cooney. All rights reserved.</span></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-70494455634996075712021-10-07T05:00:00.015-07:002021-10-10T14:27:52.100-07:00Get Woke, Go Broke?<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mmRYlrgCtao/YOYQpop2QVI/AAAAAAAAC84/clLJPGn4jKsdubQtir95EowjQkAyrjNngCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Get%2BWoke%2BGo%2BBroke.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mmRYlrgCtao/YOYQpop2QVI/AAAAAAAAC84/clLJPGn4jKsdubQtir95EowjQkAyrjNngCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Get%2BWoke%2BGo%2BBroke.png" /></a></div>The phrase “Get woke, go broke,” has been around for about three years. It generally refers to the idea that businesses which acquiesce to the demands of the self-identified advocates of “wokeness” will suffer financial losses because those views are not what sells. Those who use the phrase point to Gillette's disastrous “The Best A Man Can Be” campaign, or the failure of movie and other entertainment franchises when they change popular established characters to fit the woke view, or many other examples to support their claim that wokeness just doesn't sell. They will tell you that the marketing executives foisting these changes are out of touch with the pulse of the people, and that is why getting woke inevitably means going broke. Is this claim actually true?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span><a name='more'></a></span>Getting woke generally refers to the idea that you have become aware
of social injustices and are now ready to stand against them. I
specified “generally” because wokeness actually only recognizes
certain social and political injustices; it actively ignores or even
perpetrates other social and political injustices. In other words,
wokeness and the phrase “get woke, go broke” refer to opposing
views of social justice. Interestingly, while it may be true that the
majority of those who adhere to the "get woke, go broke"
view are on the political right, a significant number of the more
moderate left are also known to be on that side, so there is no
strict political divide between the two sides. Since those who say
“get woke, go broke” include a wider range of views, you might
assume the claim that getting woke will, indeed, mean going broke.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">However, we need to look
further at the demographics of the opposing sides. Most of the
moderate liberals who oppose wokeness seem to typically be in their
mid-thirties or older. Yes, you can site hard liberals like Bill Mahr
and moderate liberals like Tim Pool on this side, but how many
younger people on the political left are actively opposing wokeness?
While it may be true that the younger marketing executives who drive
changes toward wokeness in business are in a social bubble, it can
also be argued that those saying "get woke, go broke" are
in a bubble of their own. I believe these young marketing executives
are looking at something their opponents are failing to see.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">Capitalism follows the
money, and it tries to predict the best way to obtain the most money
in the future. Today’s young workers were yesterday’s college
students, and will soon be tomorrow’s primary spenders. I believe
colleges have been indoctrinating students to woke ideology for a
long time. In other words, a significant majority of Generation X and
Millenials are woke, and they will soon be the market companies will
need to please. Therefore, it may be the case that, in a marketing
sense, these companies are guilty of nothing more than being too
early in their campaigns. Even that might not be true. It could be
the case that they are deliberately sacrificing today's non-woke
market to get in early on the emerging woke market.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">The problem with having an
economic system that is divorced from ethics and morality is that it
must follow something. Capitalists readily admit what that something
is for capitalism: money. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if the
claims of the woke are right or wrong, or if they uphold the common
good or are a public ill, capitalism and its marketing methods will
adopt whatever view is the most profitable. Some companies seem to be
looking a few years ahead and deciding the most profitable side is
that of the woke. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">Critics may argue that
they do not represent American values, but they are failing to see
the two flaws in that argument. Not only are American values clearly
changing, but capitalism only adheres to values according to how much
profit will be made by doing so. In other words, capitalism never
actually had any national or cultural values. The only thing it ever
truly serves is money and its pursuit. When commercials waved the
national flag and promoted national and cultural pride, or said
“proudly made in <<i>insert country name here</i>>,” it was
only because that was determined to be the most profitable thing to
do at the time. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>How
did we get to this point?</b></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">As a distributist, I am
neither conservative nor liberal in my political views. However,
since distributists only comprise a small minority of society, we
need to look to those two views to examine how our society got to
this point. Conservatives will claim that it is because the news,
education and entertainment industries have been “taken over” by
liberals or leftists, including many socialists, who indoctrinate our
children in school and the public in general through education,
biased news reporting and the underlying message of our entertainment
industries. There is an element of truth to this observation, but it
doesn’t really explain how they were able to accomplish all of
this.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">In my view, the blame for
that is mainly the conservatives themselves. It was the conservatives
who failed to learn the lessons of recent history. Every socialist
regime that has arisen in the last century has employed the same
tactics of taking over education, news and entertainment and ensuring
that only one point of view could be presented. Taking control of
educational institutions was always a high priority because the
socialists knew that they might not be able to change the minds of
adults, but that they could use schools to indoctrinate children to
believe things contrary to their parents beliefs and values.
Conservative capitalists knew that liberals and socialists were
“infiltrating” all of these arenas in our societies. We know they
knew it because they have spent decades complaining about it. Yet,
they did nothing significant to resist it. It is reasonable to ask
why. Why didn’t they, in the early days of this infiltration, make
sure that they maintained a significant representation among the
teachers, professors, and educational governing boards so that these
places would not become places of liberal indoctrination? Why, when
it was clear that these places were becoming places of liberal
indoctrination, did they continue to send their children to these
institutions from kindergarten all the way through college? It seems
baffling until you remember one thing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">Capitalism always follows
the money. Conservatives didn’t become teachers, professors, news
reporters, or entertainers because those professions, despite having
a huge influence on society and its values, don’t pay very well for
most who enter them. While conservatives focused on getting high
paying careers, liberals focused on these other professions. While
conservatives were focused on moving up corporate ladders, they sent
their children through young adulthood to be educated and trained by
people who had a completely different set of values and morals. They
knew this was the case, and did it anyway. Then they complained
about the fact that it was happening. This even extends to the
political realm. Consider that a lot of what is called moderate
conservatism today was considered quite liberal just two generations
ago. Now they complain about the erosion of or moral, legal, and
constitutional norms to politicians and judges who have been fully
trained by the other side.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">On a final note, some on
the "get woke, go broke" side are taking solace in the fact
that, according to some polling information, the so-called Generation
Z appears to be less woke than Millenials. I think this is mainly
because Generation Z is getting hit by the accusations Millenials are
making against society without the college indoctrination that the
Millenials went through. However, Generation Z is now in, or about to
enter college, where their indoctrination can be completed, so that
may change. Additionally, the news has also revealed that the
advocates of wokeness are moving beyond institutions of higher
education and are now teaching wokeness to society’s children
through the lens of “Critical Race Theory.” Is conservative
capitalism philosophically armed to confront this and provide a
solution? I don’t think so. Even if they get onto the school
boards, the backbone of the educational institutions, teachers and
educational administrators, are clearly ready and willing to
undermine efforts to change their plans.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">While the conservative
capitalists may successfully revolt and come up with a parallel
economy and maybe even a parallel education system, it won’t last
unless they can make their educational careers truly profitable.
Capitalism generally relies on a market system that is believed to be
separate from ethics; its only real god is money. Therefore, it is
most likely that any capitalist educational system will try to
provide education at a “low cost.” This means that, just like our
current educational model, it will become more centralized and won’t
provide a very good wage. Within a few generations, they will find it
difficult to attract teachers who agree with their views because
those who agree with their views will be seeking higher paying
careers. Therefore, the cycle is likely to start all over again.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">This is why we need a
return to localism in economic and political life, including more
localism in educational institutions and how they are funded and
managed and who gets to pick the educators. How can this be
accomplished? As I have often said, we are actually talking about a
fundamental shift in how we all view society. It is a shift at a
philosophical level that can only be accomplished if we share
distributist ideas with others who are dissatisfied with the status
quo. Most of all, we need to engage in lots of prayer!</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dQ_103ZOVG77X0byy7kYrqkcgTP0o9bj/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a> <br /></div>
David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-90234647079659394312021-09-22T19:51:00.013-07:002021-09-30T16:44:33.945-07:00Subsidiarity, COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates, and Testing Mandates<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cwVWCDko-I/YU0uKCiBJlI/AAAAAAAAC-U/pd5eFEffCHQfyEmKn8OZWSkcOHz7wxK3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Subsidiarity%252C%2BCOVID-19%2BVaccine%2BMandates%252C%2Band%2BTesting%2BMandates.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cwVWCDko-I/YU0uKCiBJlI/AAAAAAAAC-U/pd5eFEffCHQfyEmKn8OZWSkcOHz7wxK3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Subsidiarity%252C%2BCOVID-19%2BVaccine%2BMandates%252C%2Band%2BTesting%2BMandates.png" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">I would like to apologize for the delay in getting articles posted lately. There have been several factors for this. One of those will be the topic of this post. This article will consist of a series of letters between my employer and myself regarding a vaccine mandate issued by the governor of my state and my request to get a religious exemption and accommodation. I have redacted or initialized names for privacy, and removed any contact information, but the letters are otherwise as they occurred, including typos. How does this apply to distributism? It applies to the question of subsidiarity and the extent to which state (and federal) government can dictate medical procedures on individuals. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I realize that this is a very contentious topic, especially these days, but it is an important one as many states in the US and many countries around the world are implementing restrictive policies that very few would have dreamed were possible in February of 2020. Many are saying we are rushing headlong into totalitarianism. I think we are already there. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I would also like to state that nothing in the following is intended to be a judgment against anyone who chose to get the vaccine, including Catholics who came to different conclusions on these matters than I did. <br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>19 August, 2021</b>: My initial letter after the mandate was publicly announced.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">RG,<br /><br />I need to know what information is required when submitting for a religious exemption for this mandate.<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />David W. Cooney</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>19 August, 2021</b>: Response</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Good afternoon David,<br /><br />Thank you for your email. At this time, we are working closely with OSPI regarding the vaccine exemption process and forms. You will receive a response soon with next steps. Please also continue to monitor the <<i>staff website</i>> for the latest updates.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br /><br />RG</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>23 August, 2021</b>: Having received no further information, and being a little frustrated, I wrote again.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">RG,<br /><br />I know this isn’t your fault, but you are the person I have been told to contact regarding this issue. I find it hard to believe that a process for submitting a request for religious exemption doesn’t exist. Even if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t explicitly address this question, Washington State has had guidelines on this since at least 2008. The Washington State Human Rights Commission issued its <i>Guide to Religion and Washington State Nondiscrimination Laws</i> in March of 2008 and they were revised in 2015. Are you seriously telling me that OSPI has not developed a process to request a religious exemption in over 12 years? This process should have been in place and ready to be used before the mandate was announced.<br /><br />The governor has put me on a deadline here. I need to be able to submit my request so that I know whether or not it will be approved in a timely manner. I cannot afford to wait until the last minute here.<br /><br />Thank you for your attention to this very serious matter,<br /><br />David W. Cooney<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>26 August, 2021</b>: The staff website was updated, so I submitted a letter I had been preparing.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">RG,<br /><br />Please find attached my formal request for a religious accommodation regarding the mandate to get one of the Covid-19 vaccines. If anything else is required in regard to making this request, please let me know as soon as possible.<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />David W. Cooney</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">========== Here is the letter I submitted ==========</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">25 August, 2021<br /><br />To <<i>employer</i>>:<br /><br />I am a Catholic employee of the district seeking a religious exemption/accommodation from the requirement to get a Covid-19 vaccine as recently mandated by governor Inslee. I know that part of my responsibility for making this request is to work with the district on how an accommodation can be made without imposing an undue burden on the district in regard to the work I perform. As a <<i>job title</i>> for the district, all of my job functions can be done remotely, as they have been for more than a year, using the district assigned computer for secure access to the resources I need and to attend needed meetings using Teams. I believe that my direct manager, <<i>name</i>>, would approve of this accommodation. If continuing to work from home is not an option, I am certainly willing to discuss other methods of accommodation. <br /><br />The Catholic Church teaches that a person may be <i>required</i> to refuse a medical intervention, including a vaccination, if his or her informed conscience comes to this sure judgment. While I know there are Catholics who do not object to getting one of these vaccines, the State of Washington recognizes that “Someone from a particular religion may adhere to different practices and beliefs than someone else in the same religion,” as outlined in the Washington State Human Rights Commission’s <i>Guide to Religion and Washington State Nondiscrimination Laws</i>.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1]</i></span> While the Catholic Church does not generally prohibit the use of vaccines, and generally encourages the use of safe and effective vaccines that are not developed or produced using morally questionable means as a way of safeguarding personal and public health, the following authoritative Church teachings demonstrate the principled religious basis on which a Catholic may determine that he or she ought to refuse certain vaccines: <br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Vaccination is not morally obligatory in principle and so must be voluntary.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span></li><li>There is a general moral duty to refuse the use of medical products, including certain vaccines, that are developed, tested, or produced using human cell lines derived from direct abortions. It is only permissible to use such vaccines under certain case-specific conditions, based on a judgment of conscience.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[3]</i></span></li><li>A person’s informed judgments about the proportionality of medical interventions are to be respected unless they contradict authoritative Catholic moral teachings.<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4]</span></li><li>A person is morally required to obey his or her sure conscience.<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5]</span></li></ul></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">At the core of the Church’s teaching are the first and last points listed above: vaccination is not a universal obligation and a person must obey the judgment of his or her own informed and certain conscience. In fact, the <i>Catechism of the Catholic Church</i> instructs that following one’s conscience is following Christ Himself: <br /><blockquote>In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law: “Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; . . . [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[6]</i></span></blockquote> This moral requirement to obey his or her sure conscience is a teaching of the Church, and individual Catholics may reach different conclusions on the same medical treatment. Morally, the decision is up to the individual Catholic who forms his or her own conscience according to the Faith, even if his or her priest, bishop, or even the pope holds a different view on its acceptability. An individual Catholic’s right to religious objection is not subject to the approval of ecclesiastical authorities. Additionally, the recently published <i>COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement for K–12 School Employees: Guidance for Employers on Evaluating Religious Accommodation Requests</i> from Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction states that the judgment of whether a religious objections is sincere should be done “without requiring input from an outside source, such as a formal religious leader.”<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[7]</i></span><br /><br />A Catholic may judge it wrong to receive certain vaccines for a variety of reasons consistent with these teachings, and there is no authoritative Church teaching universally obliging Catholics to receive any vaccine. An individual Catholic may invoke Church teaching to refuse a vaccine developed or produced using abortion-derived cell lines. More generally, a Catholic might refuse a vaccine or other medical treatment based on the Church’s teachings concerning therapeutic proportionality. Therapeutic proportionality is an assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the undesirable side-effects and burdens in light of the integral good of the person, including spiritual, psychological, and bodily goods.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[8]</i></span> It can also extend to the good of others and the common good, which likewise entail spiritual and moral dimensions and are not reducible to public health. The judgment of therapeutic proportionality must be made by the person who is the potential recipient of the intervention in the concrete circumstances,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[9]</i></span> not by public health authorities or by other individuals who might judge differently in their own situations. <br /><br />Therefore, if a Catholic comes to an informed and sure judgment in conscience that he or she should not receive a vaccine, then the Catholic Church requires that the person follow this certain judgment of conscience and refuse the vaccine. The Catechism is clear: “Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. ‘He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.’”<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[10]</i></span> <br /><br />It is my firm and sincere religious conviction that making use of any of the available vaccines for Covid-19 constitutes a significant cooperation in, or implicit approval of, the moral evil of abortion due to the use of aborted fetal cells in the development, testing, or production of them.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[11]</i></span> Therefore, I request an accommodation that will not infringe on my religious beliefs in regard to the governor’s mandate to get one of these vaccines.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />David W. Cooney </div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Notes:</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>https://www.hum.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/99_Religion%20and%20non-discrimination.pdf</li><li>Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), “Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines,” December 17, 2020, n. 5: “At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”</li><li>See Pontifical Academy for Life, “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses,” June 9, 2005; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction <i>Dignitas personae</i>, 2008, nn. 34-35; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines,” nn. 1-3.</li><li>See United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), <i>Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services</i>, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: USCCB Publishing, 2018), n. 28. Hereafter “<i>ERDs</i>.”</li><li>“A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.” <i>Catechism of the Catholic Church</i> (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), www.vatican.va, n. 1790. Hereafter “<i>CCC</i>.”</li><li>CCC, n. 1777, citing John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk," V, in <i>Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching II</i> (London: Longmans Green, 1885), 248.</li><li>https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/communications/2021docs/Guidance-for-School-Districts-on-Evaluating-Religious-Accommodation-Requests-for-COVID19-Vaccine-Requirement.pdf</li><li>See <i>ERDs</i>, nn. 32-33; nn. 56-57; Part Three, Introduction, para. 2; Part Five, Introduction, para. 3.</li><li>See <i>ERDs</i>, nn. 56-57. Both of these directives state that the proportionality of medical interventions is established “in the patient’s judgment.”</li><li><i>CCC</i>, n. 1782, citing Second Vatican Council, <i>Dignitatis humanae</i>, December 7, 1965, n. 3.</li><li>https://www.michigan.gov/documents/coronavirus/COVID-19_Vaccines_and_Fetal_Cells_031921_720415_7.pdf<br /></li></ol></div><div style="text-align: left;">I received a response to my letter the same day.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Good Morning,<br /><br />Thank you for your email. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has released a religious exemption form and we will have them finalized soon for distribution.<br /><br />Once the forms and information is finalized and published, we will post them on the Hub as well as email them to staff who we have received inquiries from.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br /><br />RG</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>30 August, 2021</b>: I received the official notice that the forms are finally available to request a religious exemption.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Good afternoon David,<br /><br />On August 18, 2021, Governor Inslee announced Proclamation 21-14.1 requiring all employees working for public and private K–12 schools to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 18, 2021. There is an accommodation for sincerely held religious belief, practice or observance. In considering accommodation requests, the Proclamation requires that school districts must “document that the request for an accommodation has been made and include a statement in the document explaining the way in which the requirements of this order conflict with the sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance of the individual.”<br /><br />Under federal and state law, "religion" is broadly defined. It includes traditional, organized religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. A religious belief may be individualistic, and it also includes religious beliefs that are new, uncommon, not part of a formal church or sect, or only held by a small number of people. Moral or ethical beliefs about what is right and wrong, which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views, may meet the definition of a sincerely held religious belief. However, social, political, or economic philosophies, or personal preferences, are not "religious" beliefs under the law.<br /><br />To request an accommodation under this order, please complete the attached form and return to me directly via email at <<i>email address</i>> or via fax at <<i>fax number</i>>.<br /><br />If you need to request this accommodation verbally, please reach out to me.<br /><br />You will be expected to participate in an interactive process with the Human Resources Department. This means that HR may ask you some additional questions and you should provide responses or additional information. Employees have an obligation to actively participate in the accommodation process and must cooperate with an employer's attempt to accommodate their needs under the Governor’s Proclamation.<br /><br />If your sincerely held religious belief prevents you from being vaccinated, you will be asking for an exemption from the vaccination requirement as a religious accommodation. The District reserves the right, depending on your position, to have additional requirements to ensure staff and student safety. After the review is complete, you will get a letter from Human Resources indicating whether or not a religious accommodation may be granted.<br /><br />If you are not eligible for a religious accommodation, you can get vaccinated and provide proof to your HR partner. If you choose not to get vaccinated, you can submit a letter of resignation effective no later than October 18, 2021. Otherwise, the District is required to terminate your employment effective October 18, 2021 under the Governor’s order.<br /><br />Please let me know if you have questions regarding this process.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br /><br />RG</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">======= Here are the questions on the form =======</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">I submitted the form on the same day. <br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">My answers were basically the contents of my letter.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">I answered No to questions 2a, 2b, and 2c.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">I answered "Unknown" to question 5. <br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">1. Below, describe the religious belief, practice, or observance that is the basis for your request for a religious accommodation.<br /><br />2. Does your religious belief, practice, or observance lead you to object to:<br /> a. All medical treatment – Yes/No<br /> b. All vaccinations – Yes/No<br /> c. Only the COVID-19 vaccination – Yes/No<br /><br />3. Briefly explain how your sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance conflicts with the COVID-19 vaccination requirement.<br /><br />4. Briefly describe the accommodation you are requesting.<br /><br />5. If the request for accommodation is temporary, please identify the anticipated date the accommodation is no longer needed:<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>31 August, 2021</b>: I received an acknowledgement that my form had been received.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Good morning,<br /><br />Thank you for submitting your request. You will receive information on next steps within 48 hours.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br /><br />RG</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>3 September, 2021</b>: I did not receive the information.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">RG,<br /><br />It has been 72 hours since I received this notice. I have not yet received any information on the next steps in this process.<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />David W. Cooney</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The response I got that same day seems to indicate that they had not yet started reviewing the forms, but that may be a misinterpretation.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Good morning,<br /><br />Thank you for your patience with us. We will be reviewing the requests that are currently on file today and sending an update soon.<br /><br />RG</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>7 September, 2021</b>: I had still not received any information on how to proceed.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">RG,<br /><br />I am very concerned about the apparent delays in processing the religious exemption requests considering the impending deadline and the very real threat of loss of employment. It has been five days since I submitted my request and I have not yet received any information on what comes next, even though I was told I would have that information by last Thursday, September 2nd. Therefore, in order to adequately prepare myself for the rest of this process, I am requesting a copy of all policies, procedures, and guidelines related to how the district is processing the requests for religious exemption including but not limited to:<br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>any time limits or restrictions for processing them</li><li>how the district is evaluating the answers to the questions on the official request form and how those answers will impact the process – particularly the answers to questions 2a, 2b, and 2c</li><li>any additional requirements beyond that form which will be used for the purpose of reviewing or otherwise determining whether or not religious exemptions and accommodations will be approved</li></ul></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><br />Thank you,<br /><br />David W. Cooney</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I received the following letter about an hour after sending the above.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Good morning David,<br /><br />I apologize for the delay.<br /><br />We have received your Covid-19 vaccine exemption request and supporting documentation. After engaging you in an interactive process, which included review of your documentation, the district has conditionally approved your medical/religious accommodation request and will be able to offer the following accommodation:<br /><br />You will not be required to provide proof of receiving the Covid-19 vaccination as a condition of your employment at <<i>school district</i>>;<br />In lieu of receiving the vaccine, you are required to meet increased safety protocols which may include, but is not limited to:<br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Required COVID-19 testing at the discretion of the district;</li><li>Possible job reassignment based upon safety (you will be notified if this applies); and</li><li>Strict compliance with District COVID-19 safety protocols including but not limited to masking, social distancing and frequent handwashing. Adherence to social distancing protocols while unmasked, for example during meals, will be especially important. </li></ul></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">This accommodation is subject to review and/or modification based upon a change of circumstances which may include orders from the Governor, OSPI or the Department of Health and also, if there is a change in the COVID-19 safety risks in the District including your failure to follow safety protocol.<br /><br />You are also expected to notify the District if your circumstances change. For example, if you decide to receive the vaccine or if, in the case of a medical accommodation, your medical condition or doctor’s advice changes.<br /><br />COVID-19 symptoms are changing as variants arise. We recommend that you isolate yourself and immediately get tested if you have any symptoms, even if they are mild. Please see https://www.tpchd.org/healthy-people/diseases/covid-19/testing-information<br /><br />If you have questions or concerns regarding this accommodation, please contact SD, <<i>job title</i>>, at <<i>phone number</i>> or <<i>email address</i>>.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br /><br />RG<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I sent this to my new contact within an hour of receiving the proposed accommodation.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">SD,<br /><br />I have just received the notice of approval for my religious exemption and accommodation from the requirement to get one of the COVID-19 vaccines. While I appreciate that the district has approved my request, I potentially have a religious objection to one of the accommodation requirements listed. If the district requires me to get tested for having COVID-19, particularly when I have no symptoms, I need to know how often that testing will be required. As clearly indicated in the documentation I previously provided, the judgment of the proportionality of any medical intervention is, according to my Faith, up to the individual who must undergo the treatment. I also made it clear that, according to my Faith, the question of proportionality includes more than just medical considerations. Getting repeatedly tested to see if I have a medical condition when I have no symptoms of that condition clearly falls into that category. If the district were to require testing that is disproportionate, that would also be a violation of my religious beliefs.<br /><br />I am also surprised by this aspect of the accommodation as it was widely reported that the governor specifically and deliberately did not provide getting tested as an alternative to getting vaccinated. If this is now being allowed, it should be made known for other staff who object to being forced to getting one of these vaccines. I know staff who only got vaccinated because of the threat of losing their job, but who might have agreed to getting tested as an alternative.<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />David W. Cooney<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My new contact responded within half an hour, and I sent a response thanking him for his prompt attention to the matter.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Greetings Mr. Cooney,<br /><br />Thank you for your response, please allow me a couple days to review prior to responding in further detail.<br /><br />In partnership,<br /><br />SD</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>13 September, 2021</b>: A week had passed without any further information on my religious objection to their proposed accommodation. Also, President Biden had just announced his federal mandate to either be vaccinated or get tested every week.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">SD,<br /><br />I understand that President Biden’s new mandate, once it is actually issued, may impact the question of my religious accommodation, but that is still unknown as is the question of whether the president’s mandate will succeed in the constitutional challenges that are already being prepared against it. Therefore, it seems that it would be prudent for me to continue to try and address the problem with the religious accommodation proposed by the district in the event that Governor Inslee’s mandate and its deadline of October 18 remains unaffected.<br /><br />It is unreasonable and untenable that an accommodation made to avoid forcing an employee to violate religious beliefs would be enforced it the accommodation itself also violates the employee’s religious beliefs. As I stated previously, my original letter explaining the religious grounds for objecting to taking any of the available COVID-19 vaccines included the aspect of my Faith that<br /><blockquote>“More generally, a Catholic might refuse a vaccine or other medical treatment based on the Church’s teachings concerning therapeutic proportionality. Therapeutic proportionality is an assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the undesirable side-effects and burdens in light of the integral good of the person, including spiritual, psychological, and bodily goods. It can also extend to the good of others and the common good, which likewise entail spiritual and moral dimensions and are not reducible to public health. The judgment of therapeutic proportionality must be made by the person who is the potential recipient of the intervention in the concrete circumstances, not by public health authorities or by other individuals who might judge differently in their own situations.”</blockquote>For the district to propose that I be subjected to medical tests at its sole discretion is clearly a violation of this teaching because it means that the judgment of therapeutic proportionality is being made by district officials and not by the person who is the potential recipient of the treatment.<br /><br />Since the district doesn’t seem to have been prepared for such a situation, and I accept my responsibility to work with the district to try and amicably resolve this issue, I would like to propose something for consideration that can, at least, serve as a starting point for working out a solution. I am also requesting a copy of all policies, directions, and guidelines that have been implemented that are governing the district’s process of evaluating the requests for religious exemptions and for determining what accommodations can be made. I previously requested this in regard to evaluating the requests for religious exemption, but I have not received them.<br /><br />If my previous proposal of working from home is still not something the district is willing to accept, I would like to replace the provision of getting tested at the district’s discretion with something like the following.<br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>If I develop symptoms of COVID-19 I will notify my direct manager, if I am at a district site, I will leave immediately. I will work with my medical provider to get tested and, if it is determined that I have COVID-19. I will notify my direct manager of that. I will work with my medical provider to get treatment.</li><li>If I have been directly exposed to someone who gets diagnosed with COVID-19 during the time that they were infectious, I will self-isolate for 14 days and, if possible, work from home during that time. If I develop symptoms during that time, I will follow the provision previously given for developing symptoms. If I do not develop symptoms, my self-isolation will be fulfilled at the end of 14 days.</li></ul></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">What is the procedure to return to work after being diagnosed with and recovering from COVID-19?<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />David W. Cooney</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It should be noted that what I proposed as an alternative above is basically the same procedure my employer has been using since March of 2020.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>17 September, 2021</b>: I had still not received any response to my religious objection to the proposed accommodation.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">SD,<br /><br />I would like to start this message by making my third request for a copy of the policies, procedures, and guidelines the district is using to evaluate the religious accommodation request forms including but not limited to:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>any time limits or restrictions for processing them</li><li>how the district is evaluating the answers to the questions on the official request form and how those answers will impact the process – particularly the answers to questions 2a, 2b, and 2c</li><li>any additional requirements beyond that form which will be used for the purpose of reviewing or otherwise determining whether or not religious exemptions and accommodations will be approved</li></ul>I am also making my second request for a copy of the policies, procedures and guidelines for evaluating the accommodations submitted on those forms and for determining what accommodations the district will offer. At the time of sending this message, I only have four weeks remaining to try and resolve the religious issues I have with the accommodation that was proposed by the district.<br /><br />I will not waste your time repeating what I already submitted in regard to the proposed accommodation because it is included below the signature of this message. I was not given any explanation of why my requested accommodation was rejected even though it would pose no burden on the district. As I explained in my original request, and in the letter of explanation I already submitted, my entire job can be done remotely and the district has had everything set up to allow for remote work since about March of 2020. I could understand the refusal of my requested accommodation if the nature of my job actually required me to be on site, but it does not. Instead, what the district proposed as an accommodation potentially poses a significant burden on me.<br /><br />I have also not received any reply about my proposed modification to the accommodation the district has offered in order to resolve the religious conflict I have with it. What I have proposed is at least similar to what the policy has been prior to the governor’s mandate. This point leads back to the issue I previously pointed out; the governor specifically excluded getting tested as an alternative to getting vaccinated, so why is it now being proposed as the alternative by the district instead of something similar to what I have proposed which has been an accepted and apparently successfully procedure up to now?<br /><br />It seems to me that there is no good argument to require those who get an exemption from vaccination to be subjected to testing “at the district’s discretion” while the vaccinated are not. </div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> </div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">The CDC and other organizations have already confirmed that the vaccinated can still get COVID-19 and pass it to others, especially with the Delta variant.<br />“preliminary evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people who do become infected with the Delta variant can spread the virus to others.” (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html#:~:text=Fully%20vaccinated%20people%20should%20be,isolate%20if%20they%20test%20positive).<br /> </div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Regarding an outbreak of COVID in Massachusetts, the CDC reported that the level of infection is approximately the same in the vaccinated as in the unvaccinated, meaning they pose a similar risk to others.<br />“Approximately three quarters (346; 74%) of cases occurred in fully vaccinated persons (those who had completed a 2-dose course of mRNA vaccine [Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna] or had received a single dose of Janssen [Johnson & Johnson] vaccine ≥14 days before exposure)."<br />"Real-time RT-PCR Ct values in specimens from 127 fully vaccinated patients (median = 22.77) were similar to those among 84 patients who were unvaccinated, not fully vaccinated, or whose vaccination status was unknown (median = 21.54).” (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w).<br /> </div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">The CDC has also confirmed that there is no evidence of asymptomatic transmission.<br />"We observed no transmission from asymptomatic case-patients..." (https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/4/20-4576_article) There was evidence of presymptomatic transmission, which is why the CDC recommends temporary isolation for both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.<br /><br />Since the district cannot possibly know if a vaccinated employee has been exposed and infected unless they actually develop symptoms, what reason is there for excluding them from testing? Since, as has been widely reported, one of the principle benefits of the vaccine is to reduce symptoms, it appears that the vaccinated may actually pose a higher risk to others than the unvaccinated because the vaccine might hide symptoms of infection that are not hidden in the unvaccinated. This could result in the vaccinated not knowing when they have become infectious and not isolating themselves. In light of this information from the CDC, it is hard not to conclude that the requirement to undergo repeated testing “at the district’s discretion” is nothing other than a punitive measure to discriminate against those who do not submit to vaccination. If it was to protect the health of others, then the vaccinated would have the same requirement. In light of these facts, it seems that my initial request to work from home, or even my proposed modification to the accommodation the district offered, is quite reasonable.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />David W. Cooney</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">About three and a half hours after sending the above, I received the following message.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Greetings Mr. Cooney,<br /><br />My apologies on any delays you are experiencing, we are working within our team to address your questions in detail. I need to ask for your continued patience for a couple additional days, we will have a response back to you by Tuesday end of day at the latest.<br /><br />Again, thank you for your understanding as we collectively navigate these uncharted waters,<br /><br />SD</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>21 September, 2021</b>: I received a phone call from SD explaining that my religious objection to their proposed accommodation was something being diligently examined by both the Human Resources and Legal departments and that it was something that they were unsure how to handle in a way that respected the religious objection and still complied with the governor's mandate. SD also said the call was to explain that, since they still did not have an answer, they needed more time before giving me an answer regarding my religious objection to their proposed accommodation. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Since I had still not received the policies, procedures, or guidelines I requested about this process, I cannot comment on this claim because I don't know how the accommodation I originally suggested, or my proposed modification to the accommodation they offered, would violate the governor's mandate - which was reported to have not provided for testing as an alternative to getting vaccinated.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>23 September, 2021</b>: </div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">SD,<br /><br />Thank you for the phone call last Tuesday explaining that HR is still working with Legal to try and determine a solution for the religious issue I have with the accommodation proposed by the district. As I am not involved in any of these discussions, and I still do not know what policies, procedures, and guidelines are being applied, I think it is understandable that I have some concern on the continued lack of solution since there is definitely a lack of clarity from the district on what is wrong. At this point, I basically need to know this;<br /><br />Since we are actively working on a solution to my religious objection to the accommodation the district proposed, what will my employment status be if a solution is not achieved by October 18?<br /><br />Keep in mind that I have not refused to get tested, in fact I included getting tested as part of my proposed alteration to what the district proposed. My religious objection is specifically to the idea that I must get tested “at the district’s discretion,” especially when the district appears to be unwilling to say how often or under what conditions it would make that demand. This is the specific aspect of the district’s proposed accommodation that goes against my Faith.<br /><br />I am basically down to three weeks to get this issue resolved. I honestly feel that I have reached out to the district many times with constructive proposals, but all I have received in response is being told that I have to wait for an answer. Other than that, I have heard nothing and no official from the district has communicated with me about any details of the issue.<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />David W. Cooney</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A couple of hours after that message, I received this reply.</div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Greetings Mr. Cooney,<br /><br />Thank you for checking back in with me, my apologies again on any delays you are experiencing, we appreciate your patience as we collectively navigate these uncharted waters in an effort consider your request. I assure you, a response is coming.<br /><br />Thank you again for your continued patience.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br /><br />SD<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The final result of all this was that my employer is required to enforce a vaccine mandate by our state governor, who is not a medical professional, and the masking requirements set by our county health department. I know there are lots of people who approve of these measures, but remember that giving various levels of government this type of authority is only agreeable to you because they are doing something you like. It will also give them the authority to do something you don't like in the future. History has proven this to be true. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Put government in charge of education, and as a parent you lose your right to direct the education of your own children. Put the government in charge of your retirement, and it will dictate what you must do for retirement. Put the government in charge of your health care, and you will find that it can force you to get the treatments it wants, treatments that your own doctor might think are wrong for you, and punish you either financially or by forcing some other, unpleasant, medical treatment on you. There are those who say that the government is only "following the science," but there are lots of other medical experts with credentials just as good as the ones the government has chosen who say that what the government is accepting is wrong. The "science" isn't settled, and it never really is.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Remember that government was only "following the science" when the United States implemented its eugenics programs and started involuntarily sterilizing "undesirable" elements of our human population. A program that was hailed as the best implementation in the world by the Nazi government. Remember that the "experts" used to recommend cigarettes as a cure for asthma, came up with baby soothing lotion that contained opium, used to practice phrenology, and refused to accept that doctors should wash their hands after working on corpses before starting to treat living patients. It is true that we have learned a lot in the field of science since those days, but you should not believe that human pride and greed have been eliminated from the human race, not even among scientific experts.<br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-4071690805028181272021-06-29T13:12:00.004-07:002023-02-13T11:02:13.166-08:00Where Are We Headed?<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJ8cHNkr8y0/YNOxYZmdB5I/AAAAAAAAC8U/O8FqPMMp2ZgmmCsAzGPm5gYESxFQjmdtQCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Where%2BAre%2BWe%2BHeaded.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJ8cHNkr8y0/YNOxYZmdB5I/AAAAAAAAC8U/O8FqPMMp2ZgmmCsAzGPm5gYESxFQjmdtQCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Where%2BAre%2BWe%2BHeaded.jpg" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Western democracies like to consider themselves as the bastion of freedom, especially the United States. Even beyond that, people in Western democracies are taught and believe that Enlightenment Liberalism introduced freedom to society as never before, again, especially in the United States. Ironically, an actual examination of the pre and post revolutionary governments reveals that this was never actually true. As libertarian, John Attarian, points out, "... by every measure, our government is more tyrannical towards Americans than King George's at its worst."<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1]</i></span> From its beginnings, our federal government had more power to trample our freedoms than the English monarchy. As the English parliament gained more direct power over government, it also increased the power it had over the English people. While we have not (yet) gone quite as far as the Soviet Union, China, and other socialist regimes, Western democracies have relentlessly increased their totalitarian powers over their subjects. As we move further away from any form of subsidiarity dispersion of power in our societies, we should ask ourselves where we are headed.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>In the last year, this trend toward the centralization of power to a tyrannical level has become plainly evident. While many people are still wondering if we can ever "get back to normal,"<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span> we need to recognize that our society is based around strong centralized authorities that can dictate policies and ruin livelihoods with impunity, and it has been that way for some time. This change has been incremental, mostly consisting of small increases of power here and there over the last century. As citizens, we have become acclimated to relying on the highest levels of government to address our problems, even if they are essentially local ones. There is hardly an aspect of our daily lives that is not subject to some form of control from state and federal authorities. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If we look back at the health scare we've been through for the last fifteen months, we can also see how the majority of our society has passively accepted the idea of turning over their lives to "authority figures." Even when the individuals don't have any real authority, we have been conditioned to treat them as such. Just looking at the scientific argument that was attempted, it became clear that only those scientists who went along with other accepted authorities would be accepted. Equally credentialed scientists who disagreed, and attempted to present evidence to back their claims, became lumped in with "the deniers." As "deniers," they became ostracized, banned from news and social media platforms. And the majority of our societies just accepted it. I don't deny that there was a significant portion who didn't, but it is undeniable that, at the same time police powers were used to crush our freedoms, there were also a lot of citizens who were more than happy to report anyone who didn't comply with those authorities. The commissars of the Soviet Union would be proud. Is it any wonder that there are some who now refer to the United States as the USSA? </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We were initially told to lock down for fifteen days to slow the spread of the virus so our health care facilities would not be overburdened. As that fifteen days came to an end, the lock down was extended "just to be safe" because the virus was still our there and work had begun on a vaccine. As fifteen days became three months, the reason we remained locked down was that no vaccine was yet available. After nine months of being locked down, vaccines were getting emergency approval. This means that they had not been fully tested, and some of these were types of treatments that had never been given to humans before, but we just need to trust our authorities, the politicians and their scientist partners who govern us. Over the course of nine months, it became increasingly clear that our government was not going to let us go on with our lives until at least the majority of us had submitted to these vaccines. Discussions were had, and are still being had, about issuing "vaccine passports," where citizens would need to prove their vaccination status on demand anywhere they go, in order to prove they were allowed to do whatever they were doing. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Vaccinations are generally accepted in society, but there are some who don't want them. People who refuse to get vaccinated do so for various reasons. Some for religious reasons, some because they don't trust them because they are only really tested by the corporations who make them and have a large financial interest in getting them approved, and still others believe that ingredients in the vaccines cause other health issues. Naturally, the officials say that this has been discredited, but it also seems that parental testimony on the sudden changes in the behavior of their children is just being ignored as "unscientific." Regardless, these people are in the clear minority because we are just so trusting of our central authorities. However, many who are very accepting of vaccines have reservations about these specific ones that were developed in a rush and have yet to be fully tested. Unfortunately, the drive to get as many people vaccinated as possible as quickly as possible is likely to interfere with the standard method of testing. They are eliminating the "control group" that is an essential part of clinical trials. While this is going on, government is continuing to exert authoritarian power over its subjects. If you had tried to convince people at the very beginning of 2020 that governments would be doing what they have been for the last fifteen months, they would have laughed at you and called you a crazy conspiracy theorist. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>The state of Oregon currently requires churches to either have everyone masked,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[3]</i></span> or to verify the vaccination status of those attending in person. The same requirement applies to businesses.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[4]</i></span> In Washington state, the guidelines not only seem to require employers to use some sort of vaccine passport, but if the various distancing and masking rules were actually implemented by any organization, they would result in the involuntary revelation of vaccination status, which should be a violation of federal HIPPA laws.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[5]</i></span> April Moss, an on-screen personality for CBS News has gone public about
this. She claims that her station's policy of segregating employees based on vaccine status had the effect of revealing her vaccination status.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[6]</i></span> She tried to work through the corporation's human resources department to no avail, so she decided to go public. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Lawmakers and media are actively warning people that they can get fired if they don't get vaccinated. This essentially makes businesses proxy agents of the government to enforce what the state may not be legally able to do itself.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[7]</i></span> As distributists have said for 100 years - big business and big government go hand in hand. It is getting clear, as some have said all along, those who don't submit to vaccination are being reduced to second-class citizens, not allowed full participation in the freedoms of society.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[8]</i></span> On the other hand, both government and businesses are telling people that having proof of vaccination will be needed. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">There is also a strong social pressure being exerted to convince people to get vaccinated. This social pressure includes government, businesses, news organizations, entertainers and sports figures. This social pressure is being exerted at all levels.
Washington state has implemented a lottery to bribe people to get
vaccinated - only the vaccinated are eligible to win.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[9]</i></span>
Some businesses are offering perks and rewards to those who can
show proof of their vaccination.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[10]</i></span>
Nick Laughlin shows us how desperate we should be to get vaccinated with a song called "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Vaccine Appointment),"<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[11]</i></span> calling on Joe Biden to hear our prayers for vaccines as, apparently, the only means of deliverance from wearing masks and being locked down. James Corden, Ariana Grande, and Marissa Jaret Winokur team up to show us how wonderful life will be when we're vaccinated, praising Joe Biden and Anthony Faucci for making it possible for us to be free and finally be able to hug our families with a song called "No Lockdowns Anymore."<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[12]</i></span> News and Variety shows make sure to show us celebrities and public figures who get vaccinated.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[13]</i></span> <br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Why is all of this being done? Because in "the land of the free" we can tolerate many things, but not the refusal to comply with our masters. So, for example, when there are a large number of health care workers who refuse to follow directions and get injected with an untested vaccine, as reported in the New York Post in January of 2021,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[14]</i></span> something, anything, and everything must be done to get compliance, even if it means firing them or leaving them no choice but to quit like the hospital workers in Houston, Texas.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[15]</i></span> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is where we are headed. There is a strong effort to enforce compliance. The pressure is coming from the highest levels of government, from the news media, and from all kinds of public figures. This is only possible because the political and economic power of our societies has been increasingly centralized. This is not a problem of just one of the two major political parties in the US. The lock down was implemented during nine months of one party's administration and has continued through the six months of the other party being in charge. Governors of both parties enacted and maintained the lock downs in their states. In Ireland, all of the major parties are in lock step on this issue. In the United Kingdom, both of the major parties are in agreement. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The only real solution to this is subsidiarity. The decentralization of government authority all the way down to the local communities. We can stand up to our local city council if it tries to shut down our livelihoods. The only reason that cities got away with it over this last year is that they knew they had the political and law enforcement backing of the state and federal governments. As I explained in the article, <i>Is Small Government the Worst Government?</i>,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[16]</i></span> you have much more voice and impact on your local government than you do over state and federal governments. What we need, is distributism. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-I9CCo95tkWvLJ50u1HnIvaX1DIdVV1b/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Notes:</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">[1] John Attarian. "Hurrah for King George!" <i>LewRockwell.com</i>, 4 July, 2003. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2003/07/john-attarian/hurrah-for-king-george/</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">[2] David W. Cooney. "Can We Return to the 'Old Normal?'" <i>Practical Distributism</i>, 15 March, 2021. https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/03/15/can-we-return-to-the-old-normal/</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[3] Oregon Health Authority. "Interim Guidance for Fully Vaccdinated Individuals." 18 May, 2021. https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/DHSForms/Served/le3727.pdf</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[4] "New OHA guidance: Businesses must review proof of vaccination to drop mask, distance requirements." <i>KTVZ News Channel 21</i>, 18 May 2021. https://ktvz.com/news/coronavirus/2021/05/18/new-oha-guidance-businesses-must-review-proof-of-vaccination-to-drop-mask-distance-requirements/</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[5]
Mark Harmsworth. "Inslee administration to require vaccine passports in the workplace; to be enforced by business owners." <i>Washington Policy Center</i>, 24 May, 2021. https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/inslee-administration-to-require-vaccine-passports-in-the-workplace-to-be-enforced-by-business-owners</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[6] "CBS 62 Insider goes public exposing network's forced vaccination rhetoric and bias." <i>Bitchute, Project Veritas</i>, 23 June, 2021. https://www.bitchute.com/video/0GkXCYsfY_8/</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[7] Sarah Kopit. "Workers Refusing Covid Vaccine Could Lose Their Jobs." <i>Insurance Journal</i>, 5 May, 2021. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2021/05/05/612771.htm<div style="text-align: left;">Andrew Keshner. "Can you be fired for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine? America is about to find out." <i>Market Watch</i>, 5 May, 2021. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-you-be-fired-for-refusing-to-get-a-covid-19-vaccine-america-is-about-to-find-out-11620237075</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">[8] Harmeet Kaur. "How feasible is it for businesses to require proof of vaccination? Experts are split." <i>CNN Business</i>, 23 May, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/us/proof-of-vaccination-enforcement-businesses-trnd/index.html</div><div style="text-align: left;">Reagan McCarthy. "New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy Hints That 'Vaccine Card' May be Mandated For Public Events." <i>Townhall</i>, 19 March, 2021. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/reaganmccarthy/2021/03/19/phil-murphy-n2586555<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sean Davidson. "Ontarians could face restrictions if they refuse to get COVID-19 vaccine, health minister says." <i>CTV News</i>, 8 December, 2020. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontarians-could-face-restrictions-if-they-refuse-to-get-covid-19-vaccine-health-minister-says-1.5222009</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[9]
Debbie Cockrell. "Get a COVID shot and possibly win $1M? It’s one of many WA state incentives available." <i>Tri-City Herald</i>, 3 June, 2021. https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/coronavirus/article251857973.html</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[10]
Suzanne Rowann Kelleher. "Keep Your Covid-19 Vaccination Card Safe - You’re Going To Need It." <i>Forbes</i>, 27 March, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/03/27/keep-your-vaccination-card-safe---youre-going-to-need-it/?sh=36e4b1a4648b</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[11] "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Vaccine Appointment) - A Sour Pickles Music Parody." <i>YouTube, Sour Pickles TV</i>, 6 April, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v509w85NGOc</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[12] James Corden. "No Lockdowns Anymore w/ Ariana Grande & Marissa Jaret Winokur." <i>YouTube, The Late Late Show with James Corden</i>, 15 June, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7TarriXFME</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[13] "Celebrities get vaccinated at USC, encourage everyone to get one." <i>YouTube, Fox 11 Los Angeles</i>, 24 March, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcawF1NiZ2Q </div><div style="text-align: left;">"Here’s every public figure who has gotten a COVID-19 vaccine so far." <i>YouTube, Good Morning America</i>, 12 March, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0rdgTyj2sg </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">[14] Kenneth Garger. "Alarming number of US health care workers are refusing COVID-19 vaccine." <i>New York Post</i>, 1 January, 2021. https://nypost.com/2021/01/01/alarming-number-of-us-health-care-workers-are-refusing-covid-19-vaccine/</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[15] Naledi Ushe. "153 Houston Hospital Workers Were Fired or Quit After Refusing to Get the COVID Vaccine." <i>People</i>, 23 June, 2021. https://people.com/health/153-houston-hospital-workers-quit-or-were-fired-after-they-refused-to-get-the-covid-19-vaccine/</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[16] David W. Cooney. "Is Small Government the Worst Government?" <i>Practical Distributism</i>, 2 October, 2014. https://practicaldistributism.com/2014/10/02/is-small-government-the-worst-government/)</div></div></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-25446033599940988632021-06-09T12:08:00.004-07:002023-02-13T11:00:12.795-08:00A Road Not Taken<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iao_ymkNHEI/YMETE5xmATI/AAAAAAAAA9k/q4vbj2-nN_EwCR0Kr8YvxctoFJMMz-eCwCNcBGAsYHQ/s750/A%2BRoad%2BNot%2BTaken.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iao_ymkNHEI/YMETE5xmATI/AAAAAAAAA9k/q4vbj2-nN_EwCR0Kr8YvxctoFJMMz-eCwCNcBGAsYHQ/s16000/A%2BRoad%2BNot%2BTaken.JPG" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/">Thomas Storck</a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">On Sunday May 8, 1949 <i>The New York Times</i> published a short article entitled "Vatican Paper Assails 'Atheism' in Capitalism." Consisting of only three short paragraphs the article refers to an article just published in the Vatican's newspaper, <i>L'Osservatore Romano</i>, and written by that paper's editor-in-chief, Count Giuseppe Dalla Torre. The <i>Times</i> quotes Dalla Torre that "capitalism `is atheistic in its structure: gold is its God,'" and goes on to say that the article "defines capitalism as substantially greedy and says its aim is to dominate because it is never satisfied." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><a name='more'></a></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Such an article appearing in <i>L'Osservatore Romano</i> during the reign of Pius XII - conventionally classified as a conservative - might surprise some readers and even lead them to wonder if this could really have happened. But it did occur, and the article in question, "La Chiesa Cattolica e il Capitalismo" appeared on page one of the May 8, 1949 edition.<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]</span></i> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Those familiar with the social teachings of the Roman pontiffs from Leo XIII on, and even previous to him, know that the Church has never accepted the postulate of most modern economic theories that the economy, instead of being an important but subordinate part of the social organism, must be seen as independent, governed by its own immutable laws, such as supply and demand and the alleged universal desire to buy cheap and sell dear. The <i>L'Osservatore</i> article, though expressed in a more hard-hitting manner than sometimes, differs in no essential respect from other expositions of the Church's doctrine. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Dalla Torre begins by referring to the upcoming anniversary of <i>Rerum Novarum</i> on May 15 and notes that although the Church has been called "an ally of Capitalism," in fact capitalism is a "social disease" (<i>morbo sociale</i>). He defines capitalism as "the dominion of capital as represented by money and by market value" and as "the separation of those who provide the capital and those who contribute to production exclusively by their labor." Capitalism is a </div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>true and real cancer of the economy and society (<i>vero e proprio cancro dell'economia e della società</i>), whose diagnosis is exactly identical to the physiological one: an atypical cellular proliferation, given to continuous and progressive growth, whose action and structure follow its own laws, different from those of normal tissue [and] parasitical and lethal. </blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">Dalla Torre continues by tracing the Church's stance against greed and economic sins, beginning with the earthly ministry of her Divine Founder.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Faithful to these principles and to similar positions, the Church has long fought through the centuries against this one human passion, the craving for wealth, no less than it has fought against ambition and the abuse of power....</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">He talks about the despoiling of the working class in the early modern period, about "the peasant and the artisan" who "longed for the lands and the workshops which were under the protection of abbeys, bishoprics and dioceses, free from unbearable princely greed." Then he summarizes the attempts of Catholic thinkers during the nineteenth century to elaborate a Christian program of society. "All of these [efforts] made the Catholic banner stand in open and irreducible conflict against capitalism...." </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">He concludes his historical précis with these words.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Such is the spirit, the doctrine and the conduct of the Church toward Capitalism, which for Christianity constitutes a sin against nature...like the limitation of births. Capitalism ensnares, takes over and dries up wealth; that is, it limits the number of those who benefit from it, it impedes the multiplication and equitable distribution of goods, thus interfering with the providence of God who has bestowed them liberally for all men. </blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">Then follow the writer's most severe strictures against capitalism.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>[E]ven Communism as an economic system, aside from all of its philosophy, is not the antithesis, is not the opposite, is not against the nature of Christianity as much as Capitalism is. Communism also becomes this when it professes and practices atheism. But this is a error within an error.... Capitalism [on the other hand] is atheistic in its very structure. Its god is gold, not He who has proclaimed gold as accessible to everyone, be it harvested from the earth or from the factory, from property or from work. Capitalism is atheistic, not in a philosophy, which it doesn't have, but in its praxis which ...is its entire philosophy: a praxis of insatiable wants, of plunder, of avarice, of arrogance and of domination. </blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">To say that this article is a vigorous attack on capitalism would be an understatement. But in addition to highlighting the fundamental incompatibility between the capitalist and the Catholic spirit and understanding of society, it also highlights the sad fact that a realization of the opposition between these two visions of society was not widely diffused throughout the Church; certainly it was hardly known by Catholics in the United States, where the Church's opposition to Communism was often seen as an unqualified endorsement of capitalism and all its works. And this is unfortunately still largely the case. The idea that the Church has anything of importance to say about the social order is foreign both to most Catholics and to those outside the Church, whether they would be apt to welcome such a Catholic contribution or not. There is even a substantial group of Catholics who explicitly reject the notion that the Church should speak out on questions of economic morality, especially if her voice sounds too "socialistic." Pope Francis' strictures against free-market economics in <i>Evangelii Gaudium</i> or <i>Laudato Si'</i> seemed to these Catholics a socialist outrage, even though in comparison with Leo XIII, Pius XI or Pius XII, not to mention Giuseppe Dalla Torre, they are rather mild. One can only dream, however, of what would have been the result had Catholics in the 1950s been as motivated to champion the Church's social doctrine as they were to oppose lascivious movies. I mean nothing against this latter apostolate, and in fact the sexualization of American society was as much the result of capitalist avarice in exploiting human weakness in order to sell its products as it was of Hollywood's distorted notion of artistic freedom. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">But unfortunately this was a road not taken by the Church, an opportunity missed that probably won't come again soon, a chance to stand outside the conventional and ultimately incoherent political divisions of our society, and to offer something so unexpected that it just might have interested people who didn't even have the Church on their radars. But if Catholics ever decide to promote the entire range of Catholic teaching, if we ever tire of being pushed into the box of "conservatism" or of conventional religiosity, then, whenever that might occur, there is always the possibility that, as Peter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, <a href="http://www.easyessays.org/blowing-the-dynamite/" target="_blank">put it</a>, we might <i>blow the dynamite of the Church</i>.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xLtZ0OeTx9oA1vDyJ8l0qsG9KmBga9S4/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Notes:</div><div style="text-align: left;">[1] Since the <i>Times</i>' piece is datelined, Rome May 7, and the article in question appeared in the May 8 edition of <i>L'Osservatore Romano</i> it might seem that there is some confusion here. It is definitely the same article since the material quoted by the <i>Times</i> can be found in it. Probably <i>L'Osservatore's</i> May 8 edition came out sometime on Saturday the 7th, early enough for the story to be cabled to New York and included in the next morning's edition of the <i>Times</i>. Given the time difference between Rome and New York this seems quite likely. Someone familiar with journalistic practices of the era could probably clear this up.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">[2] http://www.easyessays.org/blowing-the-dynamite/</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Title photo by David W. Cooney. All rights reserved.</span><br /></div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-39991637772844646502021-03-15T05:00:00.007-07:002021-03-15T05:00:01.942-07:00Can We Return to the "Old Normal?"<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iTuKi0DL4hc/YEzpTAGRcLI/AAAAAAAAC54/HSgEGGyhhQIz1DZUoR-vZGs322C-DCvwwCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Can%2BWe%2BReturn%2Bto%2Bthe%2BOld%2BNormal.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iTuKi0DL4hc/YEzpTAGRcLI/AAAAAAAAC54/HSgEGGyhhQIz1DZUoR-vZGs322C-DCvwwCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Can%2BWe%2BReturn%2Bto%2Bthe%2BOld%2BNormal.JPG" /></a></div>Now that we have reached the one year point of "two weeks to flatten the curve,"<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1]</i></span> some states in the US are starting to reopen their economies. This is considered to be a great relief for many who have struggled to maintain a living during this time. Even for those whose livelihoods were wiped out, there is a sense of relief that they can finally try to rebuild and restart a "normal" life. Their hope is that they will finally be able to return to how things were before the "lock down" started. For some, this is bringing to the surface a question that others have been asking for several months; can we return to the "old normal?" After such a great and lengthy disruption, can our lives truly get back to the way they were?</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>During this past year, many commentators have been arguing that the real purpose of the lock down has been to condition us, to beat us into such a level of desperation that we will be happy to accept previously unacceptable demands by government authorities as a condition of "freedom." I particularly recommend the commentary of Dave Cullen of Ireland on this topic.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span> At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I believe there is a lot of truth to this claim. On the other hand, another result of that desperation to which we have been subjected is that we may have forgotten the real problems that were part of the "old normal." </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I believe this is a real danger. Because it is less obvious, it is possibly a greater danger. We would like to think that going back to the old normal means that we are escaping government tyranny and returning to freedom, but isn't it really the case that the old normal made us so passive to centralized authority that we didn't adequately fight back against that tyranny when confronted with it? What I mean is this. Even the most conservative and libertarian pundits I have heard still say that our agreement to the original request, to lock down for two weeks to flatten the curve, was not unreasonable. We were dealing with a new strain of virus that seemed extremely dangerous. There was a reasonable concern that our medical facilities would be overwhelmed. This was the reason for that two weeks. It was not about waiting for a vaccine. It was not about "saving even one life." It was only about slowing the spread of the virus to make sure our medical facilities were not overwhelmed. We were told that, if we all agreed to the lock down for just fifteen days, millions of lives would be saved because our medical facilities would not be too overwhelmed to treat those at most risk from the virus. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">We, who live in the most technologically advanced countries of the world, like to believe that we are free. We like to believe that our democracies have preserved that freedom and that, because we are free, we will not succumb to the type of tyranny that has been the result of socialist governments. Just how naive are we? The distributist idea is that government exists to serve the needs of families living in community, those specific needs that go beyond the natural authority of the individual family. Each higher level of government exists to serve the specific needs that are beyond the natural authority of the lower levels. The socialist idea is that individuals exist to serve the needs of society. This is the primary and fundamental fault of all forms of socialism. It is this aspect of the socialist ideology that makes it an inherently unjust system, both politically and economically. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you still believe that we who live in Western democracies have not succumbed to the socialist idea, you really need to consider how passively we accepted the lock downs for the past year, what many of us are still accepting right now and for an indeterminate time into the future. This reopening is not occurring in all of the United States, but only in some of them. This reopening is opposed by our federal government. There are also many other Western democratic countries that are opposed to reopening. I am not specifically talking about the concern over a virus, but the powers governments have claimed and
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underline }</style> the fact that our societies actually went along with those claims. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Consider the things that really happened and that were really proposed by our governments during this time. After passively agreeing to a two week lock down to prevent the overwhelming of our medical facilities - "flattening the curve" - our governments proceeded to define what businesses were "essential" and what businesses were not. The essential businesses would be <i>allowed</i> to remain open while the rest <i>would not be allowe</i>d to do so. Essential in what sense? This is a very important question. Western democratic governments claimed the right to declare what aspects of the economy were and were not essential and, by doing so, the right to shut down significant portions of the economy. It wasn't about what was essential to every day people in being able to provide for their living. The governments of the "free" world claimed the right to control the entire structure of the economy for what they determined to be "the good of the state." This is exactly the position of communist and fascist governments. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The fundamental problem with all forms of socialism is that it reverses the natural relationship between the state and its subjects; instead of the state existing to serve the greater society as needed
without interfering with the rights and responsibilities of its
subjects<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underli</style>, the subjects exist to serve the needs of the state. The livelihoods of the people can be destroyed by the state if the state deems it necessary. We can be denied the right to socialize with each other, even to exercise our religion, if the state deems it necessary. We can even be essentially imprisoned in our homes simply because the state deems it necessary. We may want to think that this is an abnormality caused by the claim of a pandemic, but the reality is that no pandemic of the past, even ones far worse than this one, was considered justification for the level of totalitarian power currently being exercised by the so-called free world. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">This is not a sudden change; we have simply been asleep to the fact that we have been gradually acclimated to incremental increases of totalitarian power. These increases have actually been taking place over a very long time, setting the stage for what happened in the last year. Americans like to think of themselves as rebels against tyranny. Even if that was once true, today we are clearly passive subjects to an increasingly tyrannical government, a government that now openly laughs at the idea of constitutional limitation. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The question shouldn't be whether or not we can return to the "old normal." The real question is, should we be satisfied with returning to it? If we mean returning to what was considered "normal" a year ago, the answer should be no. Instead, we should insist on the decentralization of government power, not just from the federal level to the state, but even decentralization of the current power of the state government according to the principle of subsidiarity. That, from a distributist perspective, would just be the start.
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underline }</style></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ajM3qeH8EXL0jM4IHqAaiHhiRn-V22cG/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Notes</i>:</div><div style="text-align: left;">[1] <i>What does it mean to "Flatten the Curve?"</i>, KHOU 11 News. 18 March, 2020.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcxmcThVPuA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcxmcThVPuA</a> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[2] Dave Cullen's Computing Forever channel, <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/channel/computingforever/">https://www.bitchute.com/channel/computingforever/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cover picture is public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=360842</span> <br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-34151542763694196192021-02-27T05:00:00.022-08:002021-02-27T05:31:51.963-08:00They Don't Really Believe in the "Free Market!"<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nw3w3ZR9bDQ/YBSBKIWk8SI/AAAAAAAAC4Q/xM3mVvS3mvcvfX9EROkOdQ53xrMdfn5eQCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/They%2BDon%2527t%2BReally%2BBelieve%2Bin%2Bthe%2BFree%2BMarket.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nw3w3ZR9bDQ/YBSBKIWk8SI/AAAAAAAAC4Q/xM3mVvS3mvcvfX9EROkOdQ53xrMdfn5eQCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/They%2BDon%2527t%2BReally%2BBelieve%2Bin%2Bthe%2BFree%2BMarket.png" /></a><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">It might be assumed that those who believe in the "free market" would be happy and supportive when people engage in that market. You might think this would especially be the case when average people engaging in the market are successful and look like they are going to make a lot of money. After all, isn’t one of the claims in defense of capitalism that anyone can succeed and that it is supposedly the first economic system that allowed people to improve their state in life? Recent events make it clear this is not the case, at least not for those who are already “big players” in the market and who wield significant economic, and therefore political, power. <br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>Of course, I am referring to the GameStop investment strategy of the members of a Reddit group called WallStreetBets. This article will not delve into the question of the GameStop investment itself, but give a general sense of the situation and the people involved. WallStreetBets is not an actual investment group, like financial institutions or hedge funds. It is a forum primarily consisting of ordinary citizens who are sharing their opinions about potential investments in the stock market. Reports I have read about the group indicate that members understand that none of them are actually acting as financial advisors in any professional sense. They are just sharing and debating their reasons for their stated opinions about potential investments. Now, most capitalists I know would have no problem with this. Whether or not GameStop was or was not a good investment isn’t really the issue because the general motto of the stock market is “let the buyer beware.” It is, after all, essentially a huge gambling casino. You place your bets and you might win or lose. <br /><br />A member of the WallStreetBets group named Keith Gill was carefully examining GameStop’s position in the stock market and the company itself. While the conventional “wisdom” of the market “experts” was that GameStop was a company on its inevitable way to failure, Mr. Gill disagreed. He felt that, not only was the prediction of the company’s demise premature, but that GameStop still had both time and the resources to adjust its business to keep going for a good while. He saw that hedge fund investment groups were “short selling” GameStop far beyond what was reasonable even if the company was in trouble, resulting in the stock price being artificially low. He shared and defended his position to the Reddit group, and many members became convinced that he was correct. Acting individually, the members began buying GameStop stock as fast as they could. You might think this would not have much impact, but WallStreetBets had a huge number of members and the number of purchases they made resulted in raising the price of the stock at what was considered an unbelievable rate. <br /><br />On the other side of this equation were the hedge funds. Now, to participate in a hedge fund, you have to already be wealthy. A hedge fund is essentially a pool of money contributed by wealthy people who allow the managers to invest on their behalf. The hedge funds involved had bet heavily on GameStop’s failure through a market practice called a short sale. Short selling involves borrowing a stock today with a promise to return it later. This transaction only involves the stock itself regardless of the price. The hedge funds, believing the value of a given stock will drop, borrow large amounts of shares of that stock so they can sell it at the current price. Of course, this large scale selling of a given stock will result in the price going down. In other words, they are not merely “betting” that the value will go down, they are actively engaged in driving that value down. It is generally known that they will also go on financial talk shows and write articles defending their position that the value will drop, which is likely to result in members of that audience who own the stock selling their shares, driving the value even further down. When the stock is due, the hedge funds must buy the stocks back at whatever the new current price is. If the price is less than when they sold it, they make a profit. However, if the price is more, they lose, Since the price can go up much farther than it can go down, the potential for loss is much higher. <br /><br />So there is the situation. The hedge fund investors wanted the value of GameStop to decrease and the WallStreetBets group wanted the value to increase. The WallStreetBets group was winning and winning big. The value of GameStop stocks were skyrocketing, and it was all according to the established rules of the market. Anyone could buy or sell the stock as they chose as long as they followed the rules. It looks like the average people were going to win; until they were prevented from freely participating in the market.<br /><br />As financial news reports were accusing the WallStreetBets group of essentially being insurrectionists, and accusing them of being no better than those who had rioted in the U.S. Capitol on the day the electoral vote was officially being counted, the company whose app was primarily being used by the WallStreetBets group prevented all transactions of GameStop and several other companies in which the group had heavily invested. A day or two later, the app was updated again so they could sell, but not buy, shares in those companies. In other words, the app would only allow activity that would result in the price going down – like the hedge fund investors wanted. Now, you can only sell a stock if someone can buy it, so this group was prevented from buying while others participating in the stock market were still allowed to. <br /><br />In other words, the WallStreetBets group were not allowed to participate in what the Wall Street insiders would argue is the greatest example of the free market in the world today. The same changes were made on other personal investment apps, revealing that this was a coordinated effort to force a particular change to the market that would be advantageous to wealthy insiders on Wall Street and would disadvantage average people trying to participate in the market. This is the important fact of this incident. It doesn’t matter if GameStop or the other companies were actually good investments. These people were following all of the established rules of the market. They had entered the casino and all placed their bets. Because they were winning, the casino chose to shut them down. <br /><br />There are investigations going on about what happened. Mr. Gill even had to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives. Because of the financial (and therefore political) power of those involved “behind the scenes,” and the willingness of the media to back their side, I think it is unlikely that the real perpetrators will have any significant negative consequence to their actions. Instead, the common citizens in the WallStreetBets group are being vilified and essentially treated like criminals when they did nothing illegal. <br /><br />If you want to check for further information on this incident, I have included several resources below.<br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dFMjyhvupvM7ewi0W1Bl9oSiObwmT9RX/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Resources:<br /><br />VivaFrei: From GameStop to Robinhood class action lawsuit? <br /><a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/6nEtElSMPSk">https://www.bitchute.com/video/6nEtElSMPSk</a><br /> <br />Forbes Breaking News: Gamestop Investor Keith Gill’s testimony to Congress<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLN3N3otz0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLN3N3otz0</a><br /><br />CNBC: Jim Cramer: Reddit’s ‘WallStreetBets’ is targeting short position<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZHTm0N59Rc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZHTm0N59Rc</a><br /><br />Fox Business: Payne sounds off on Wall St over GameStop: All of this whining is making me sick<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzojHqzm3TU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzojHqzm3TU</a><br /><br />MarketWatch: GameStop and AMC trading restricted by TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Robinhood, others<br /><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gamestop-amc-trading-is-now-being-restricted-at-td-ameritrade-11611769804">https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gamestop-amc-trading-is-now-being-restricted-at-td-ameritrade-11611769804</a><br /><br />Tim Pool: Wall Street in panic mode, trading on GameStop and AMC halted as plebs NUKE elite’s hedge funds</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/kz2xDpZoz3o">https://www.bitchute.com/video/kz2xDpZoz3o</a><br /><br />Tim Pool: Robinhood bans stock buying for Gamestop and others, media cronies smearing WSB as Alt-Right<br /><a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/vtYRmSPKNqY">https://www.bitchute.com/video/vtYRmSPKNqY</a><br /> <br />Daily Caller: Class action lawsuit against Robinhood <br /><a href="https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/28/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-robinhood/">https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/28/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-robinhood/</a><br /><br />Newsweek: Robinhood app blocks GME stock trading, is flooded with 1-star reviews<br /><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/robinhood-app-one-star-reviews-gamestop-stock-trading-announcement-1565171">https://www.newsweek.com/robinhood-app-one-star-reviews-gamestop-stock-trading-announcement-1565171</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-77774888701451339682021-02-18T05:00:00.104-08:002023-02-13T10:58:34.051-08:00On the Foundations of Distributism: Property, Family, Politics, Economy. Part 4<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xqiAEtjfVpA/YAXEcWatPMI/AAAAAAAAC1s/j0hfOgUWErMKN8YdR8yIdkYyAVbHgd-WQCPcBGAYYCw/s500/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xqiAEtjfVpA/YAXEcWatPMI/AAAAAAAAC1s/j0hfOgUWErMKN8YdR8yIdkYyAVbHgd-WQCPcBGAYYCw/s16000/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/" target="_blank">Thomas Storck</a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The following is the English version of part four of an article/interview by Thomas Storck, “Sui Fondamenti del Distributismo: Proprietà, Famiglia, Politica, Economia,” published in Bollettino di dottrina sociale della Chiesa, July/Sept. 2020, pp. 73-84.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">For information on the Italian publication, see <a href="https://www.vanthuanobservatory.org/ita/il-distributismo-famiglia-vita-cittadina-solidarieta-economica-e-uscito-il-bollettino-32020/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span><a name='more'></a></span>Part 3 can be found <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/02/06/on-the-foundations-of-distributism-property-family-politics-economy-part-3/" target="_blank">here</a>.</i> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Political parties and democratic party representation are in crisis all over the world. Distributism considers the corporativism principle the only valid tool on which to base democratic political participation. Can you please articulate further this concept?</b> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In all or nearly all democratic countries today representatives in the legislative body are chosen by voters according to the district or province in which they live. This is in accordance with the fundamental principle of eighteenth-century liberalism, that the political community is simply an assemblage of citizens, and that any smaller or lesser groupings in society have no political significance.<br />This is in contrast with the medieval understanding of the political community as a community of communities, or <i>corporations</i>, meaning corporate bodies of various kinds, in which individuals had significance and exercised powers and functions as members of these smaller and lesser communities. But these lesser communities, guilds, municipalities, universities conceived as corporate bodies, other social or economic sectors, have largely vanished or lost their character and powers as real corporate entities. As Pius XI put it, with the disappearance of "the highly developed social life which once flourished in a variety of prosperous and interdependent institutions" nothing remains but "only individuals and the State" (<i>Quadragesimo Anno</i>, no. 78). Each citizen is nothing more than an equal atom in a largely undifferentiated mass of other atoms.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The corporativist political principle, on the other hand, takes seriously the fact that citizens are naturally members of smaller groups, groups with their own interests, needs and insights. Hence in the legislature representatives are chosen not simply by single individual voters differentiated only by locality, but may represent groups, usually economic or professional groups. So, for example, in the national legislature there may be deputies chosen by, say, the grocers guild or the mechanics guild or the physicians guild or the agricultural sector. In a bicameral legislative body, one chamber may be chosen according to the corporatist principle, while the other may be chosen simply by voters by locality.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The Irish legislature operates in part according to such a principle, the upper house or seanad (senate) is composed of representatives of various social sectors and graduates of specific universities. Article 18 of the Irish constitution provides for three members of the seanad to be elected by the National University of Ireland and three by the University of Dublin. In addition the following social and economic sectors receive representation:</div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>National Language and Culture, Literature, Art, Education and such professional interests as may be defined by law for the purpose of this panel;</li><li>Agriculture and allied interests, and Fisheries;</li><li>Labour, whether organized or unorganized;</li><li>Industry and Commerce, including banking, finance, accountancy, engineering and architecture;</li><li>Public administration and social services, including voluntary social activities.</li></ol><div style="text-align: left;">But in the case of Ireland the corporativist principle is considerably diluted, since the seanad has merely advisory powers, with the ability only to delay legislation.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The reasons for thinking that the corporativist approach to representation has desirable features are two, one more theoretical, the other more practical. On the theoretical level, it makes concrete the fact that people are more than simply undifferentiated citizens of a political entity, that they have other identities, interests, needs, experiences and knowledge. The body politic, as was widely recognized in the past, is more like a real living body, with different organs performing different functions, all necessary to the smooth operation of the whole, but no one of which can be reduced to another.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The second reason is that in actual fact, various sectors of society or the economy do need to have an effective voice in the national legislature, to make known their needs and special problems. In a legislature constituted solely according to the liberal understanding of the body politic, individual representatives or deputies may not understand or may not wish to make known all the needs and problems of all sectors of their constituents. A legislature of the corporativist type is more likely to provide an opportunity for every sector's voice to be heard.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Having said this, and while I think that this kind of representation has much to recommend it, and indeed should probably be embodied in some way in one legislative chamber, I would not say that distributism requires such representation or considers it as the only correct method of democratic politics. Here much depends on the political culture and traditions of a country. Many European and Latin-American nations have some historic experience with corporativist forms of government, or at least knowledge of what the term means. On the other hand, in the United States not only has there been no historical experience of them, but hardly anyone, except specialists in European politics or history, is even cognizant of their existence or meaning. In fact, the term itself, corporation, is generally understood in the United States to mean a limited liability business entity, a <i>società anonima</i>. Of course the question of nomenclature could probably be overcome, but the idea itself would be seen as simply bizarre, especially given the uncritical devotion of so many Americans to their Constitution, a document which knows of no principle of representation other than that of place, by state or district.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The finance system seems today to hold much more power than the political system. Distributism has always stated that money and finance should be subjected and oriented to the common good and managed by the legitimate political power for the interest of all citizens. What do you think could be the contribution of distributism in such delicate and important matter?</b> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">As long ago as 1931, Pius XI recognized the key place which finance holds in a modern economy. In <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i>, no. 106, he wrote,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>This [economic] power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying so to speak, the life-blood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of the economy, so that no one dare breathe against their will. </blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">According to Catholic social teaching the financial sector, like every other sector of the economy, ought to be subject to the common good. One obvious way to do this would be to have it be controlled directly by the state, either by the central or local or municipal authorities. And probably none of these arrangements would be unjust. In <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> Pius XI spoke of "that type of social authority, which, in violation of all justice has been seized and usurped by the owners of wealth," and which </div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>in fact belongs not to the individual owners, but to the State.... 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. (no. 114)</blockquote> Certainly a good case could be made that the financial sector belongs here, since it supplies "the life-blood to the entire economic body." But distributism, which advocates decentralization as much as is reasonable, suggests another approach.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[i]</i></span> To understand this we must look again at a subject I have spoken of more than once, the guild or occupational group.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">A guild is made up of actual producers or suppliers of products, those who are engaged in the primary economic activities for the sake of which the economy exists. For it is the production of real goods and services that the economy is primarily for. Finance, on the other hand, is a subordinate activity, whose function is to facilitate production. Finance should be subordinate to production and financiers should be subordinate to producers and suppliers. A distributist method of accomplishing this would be for occupational groups to have their own financial institutions, similar to credit unions (cooperative banks), which would exist for the sake of necessary financing for that trade or industry or profession. Belloc wrote on this point, "...there should be fostered the spread...of these properly chartered co-operative banks, connected with the guilds of every description."<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[ii]</i></span> If a particular occupational group was too small to have its own financial arm, it could easily join or work with another occupational group. This would also have the benefit that finance would not see itself as a separate interest, apart from or even superior to actual production, and so would not assume unwarranted power in the economic or political system. These financial institutions could also take care of the need for consumer credit or that could be accomplished by ordinary credit unions not connected with occupational groups, but subject to local or municipal regulation.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Distributism seeks for well-distributed property as a safeguard for the family, but also as a safeguard for society. The greater the concentrations of property and wealth, the more easily can those possessing that property and wealth misuse it and even seek to divert the political process in their favor. The more divided and distributed property is, the less likely is this to occur. A distributist approach to the financial sector is simply another example of how distributism desires as much as is feasible to make the economy work for families, for the common good and for the welfare of all.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lnups04NCK8Omx7o58PTA1H7jjCXtwwx/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Notes:</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">[i] On decentralization, compare the important principle of subsidiarity, originally stated by Pius XI in <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> (no. 79) as follows: "...it is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry. So, too, it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and a disturbance of right order, to transfer to the larger and higher collectivity functions which can be performed and provided for by lesser and subordinate bodies. Inasmuch as every social activity should, by its very nature, prove a help to members of the body social, it should never destroy or absorb them."</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">[ii] <i>The Restoration of Property</i>, p. 144.<br /></div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-67869257119462521762021-02-11T05:00:00.195-08:002023-02-13T10:57:40.564-08:00LOCALISM! My thoughts on a new name.<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yH-3eUGGxLs/YBxCRAmC_pI/AAAAAAAAC4k/5AeopUBQq30xdyYBiqu4PzxDYhNx0wV5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Localism.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yH-3eUGGxLs/YBxCRAmC_pI/AAAAAAAAC4k/5AeopUBQq30xdyYBiqu4PzxDYhNx0wV5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Localism.jpg" /></a></div>In December, the <a href="https://www.chesterton.org/" target="_blank">Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton</a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1] </i></span>revealed what they propose as the new name for Distributism: Localism. This reveal was made simultaneously in the society's magazine, <i>Gilbert</i>, and on its podcast, <i>Uncommon Sense</i>. Prior to its announcement, the society did reach out to other distributists for reaction and input regarding the proposed name change. Thomas Storck and I wrote reactions that were included in the same issue of <i>Gilbert</i>. Adrian Alquist and I also discussed the topic on a later episode of their Uncommon Sense program, which can be found on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRsuG5NI3js" target="_blank">YouTube</a>.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span> The problem with doing a live interview is that you can go into it with certain points and statements you intend to make, and then find that the course of the conversation went in a direction where you didn't actually say something you intended. In listening to the interview, I found that this was the case for me. I agree with everything I said, but there was one thing I intended to say, but didn't.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>The society also issued a challenge to those who completely object to the change: Don't just reject their proposed name, suggest something better. Since this is an activity going on within the wider distributist community, I am presenting here my own thoughts on the idea, not just on the proposed new name for distributism, but also on the idea that the name must be changed. To summarize my position at the beginning, when it comes to the idea of using the name, localism, <i>in the context of</i>
distributism, I agree. However, I don't actually
agree with the idea of completely replacing the name, distributism, with localism. This is what I intended to say during that interview and this article will explain my entire position. I am also very interested in your thoughts, so please comment on this topic.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Does distributism need a new name? Even the founders thought it was not a good name. I don't know the history of the transition from the original "Distributivism" to Distributism, but it is basically true that throughout its entire history, the distributist movement has acknowledged that the name has issues. The primary issue being that the general population doesn't have any idea what it means. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Even if they are not entirely correct about them, most people think they know what the terms capitalism and socialism mean. These are words they believe they can grasp. Distributism is not. Add to that the similarity in sound to "redistribution," and the average person will assume that distributism is some form of socialist system to have government redistribute wealth. This puts us at a large disadvantage when trying to introduce the distributist ideas to a large segment of the population. Tell them that you are a distributist, and then spend the next 60 minutes trying to explain how you are not a socialist rather than explaining what distributism actually is. Some may consider this sufficient reason to change the name. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">If you manage to get past that point, once you explain that we believe the best way to achieve distributive justice in society is to bring about greater economic and political independence by ensuring the structure of the law supports the widest practical distribution of private ownership of land and productive property you are basically back to square one. Remember that, for most of them, there are only two choices: capitalism and socialism. Is it possible that making this same argument associated with the name localism will alleviate that problem? <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I think it will, <i>but only to a certain extent</i>. This is because localism is a term already widely used in society, but those who use it don't mean quite the same thing as a distributist does. If you were to discuss localism with someone on the political "left," they will likely be in favor of it, but for many of them, localism implies little more than supporting local small businesses rather than corporate outlets or franchises. However, they are generally more in favor of centralized <i>government</i> authority. The idea of decentralized government authority according to the principle of subsidiarity is not included in their understanding of localism. On the other hand, someone on the political "right" would certainly support the idea of the locally owned business, but for them that idea includes franchises controlled by distant corporations, and local locations of large businesses. Opening an Amazon warehouse, a Walmart Super Center, or a franchise restaurant in the community would be, for them, supporting the local economy. When it comes to government, many on the right think they are in favor of local government, but in reality, their idea of decentralized government authority truly stops at the state level. Even then, they are actually in favor of more centralized government power when they believe it will serve their economic goals. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Even with those issues, the term localism is likely to be a more acceptable introduction to our ideas than distributism, but once we start to move past their own ideas of localism, we will be facing the same issue we currently face. Simply changing the term we use won't change the underlying philosophical differences between the various sides in this discussion, and these are the very heart of what we need to get to. It seems to me that the proposed name change will only overcome a minor hurdle along the path. Is that small hurdle enough to justify changing a name that has been in use for over 100 years? </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In his book, Orthodoxy, Gilbert Chesterton wrote about how some words are a shock to the system such that they make people take notice. I think distributism is such a word, even if it isn't a short one. Because of this, I think we should not consider abandoning the name of distributism. Instead, for me, localism is best looked at as an introduction, a more acceptable opening to a subject that will actually challenge many fundamental assumptions about society, government and economics. When it comes to that reality of our views, distributism remains, for me, a much better word. I don't believe those who would ignore us, assuming we are just socialists, will suddenly be more open to our fundamental ideas based on a name change. They are unlikely to really examine our positions until they have to, hopefully because they are becoming more popular. I'm not convinced that "distributism" automatically turns away those who are open to at least learning about alternative ideas. Again, localism is a good opener for the former group, but it may be too comfortable a word to open them up to the challenge of ideas we are truly presenting. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another problem with changing the name is it looks like we're breaking from our own past. It will likely be portrayed by our adversaries as an attempt to deceive people into accepting our ideas. "What," they will ask in an accusing tone, "are the distributists trying to hide?" If distributists were to completely "rebrand" ourselves as "localists," people searching for localism might be led to our own writings, but they won't be led to the founders of the distributist movement (except, maybe, through our writings.) Now, I may suffer from common human vainglory about my own writings, but I don't think I am in any way a replacement for those who founded distributism and presented its case for over 100 years before I joined the bandwagon. After all, those presentations worked for me using the name distributism, so they can work for others as well. If, on the other hand, we emphasize the idea of localism in our own writings on distributism, if we include localism in our tags and descriptions, then people searching for localism will be led to this idea called distributism and conclude these ideas are somehow linked. I believe they would be prompted to search for that unfamiliar term, distributism, and discover the writings of both the founders and the current distributist movement. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I
do believe that we will never separate ourselves from the name of
distributism, and I don't think we should really try. It is not only a
tie to the founders of the movement, but it is also a tribute to them.
Do we honestly think that, when they were debating what name to give
the movement, the original distributists never thought of localism? I
don't really know, but these were truly brilliant people who emphasized local economics and government, so I doubt it.
They struggled with the name for quite a long time and eventually
settled on distributism knowing it would be both clumsy and
misunderstood. Yes, let's emphasize localism and do so by that name;
especially in this time of increased centralization of economic and
political power. Do not, however, completely abandon the name of
distributism.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></div><div style="text-align: left;">In conclusion, I really do like the idea of using the term localism and trying to link that idea with distributism. I think it would be appropriate to use the term as an introduction for those new to the overall distributist idea that there actually is something other than the capitalist/socialist dichotomy; a door opener, if you will. That is, after all, the greatest problem with the name, distributism. I believe this term will help us forge ties with other localist groups like the Strong Towns movement, local farmers groups and cooperatives, and other localist organizations, who likely think of localism in a more limited way than we do. Maybe we can change that perspective and gain more allies. Some may think this is unlikely. To them, I answer with an article by Douglas R. Fox from the Fall 2013 edition of <a href="https://www.mofga.org/resources/local-food/distributism/" target="_blank"><i>Maine Organic Farmer and Gardener</i></a> where he proposed to that community that they seriously consider distributism.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[3] </i></span><br /><i></i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FzYcW8v8qFA7EAIw-vEEWT2U1hggiteZ/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Notes:</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">[1] Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.chesterton.org/">https://www.chesterton.org/</a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[2] Uncommon Sense interview <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRsuG5NI3js">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRsuG5NI3js</a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[3] Distributism and the Local Organic Farm Community</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2016/03/28/distributism-and-the-local-organic-farm-community/">https://practicaldistributism.com/2016/03/28/distributism-and-the-local-organic-farm-community/</a><br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-43008482854492995132021-02-06T05:00:00.004-08:002023-02-13T10:56:29.975-08:00On the Foundations of Distributism: Property, Family, Politics, Economy. Part 3<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xqiAEtjfVpA/YAXEcWatPMI/AAAAAAAAC1s/j0hfOgUWErMKN8YdR8yIdkYyAVbHgd-WQCPcBGAYYCw/s500/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xqiAEtjfVpA/YAXEcWatPMI/AAAAAAAAC1s/j0hfOgUWErMKN8YdR8yIdkYyAVbHgd-WQCPcBGAYYCw/s16000/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/" target="_blank">Thomas Storck</a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The following is the English version of part three of an article/interview by Thomas Storck, “Sui Fondamenti del Distributismo: Proprietà, Famiglia, Politica, Economia,” published in <i>Bollettino di dottrina sociale della Chiesa</i>, July/Sept. 2020, pp. 73-84.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">For information on the Italian publication, see <a href="https://www.vanthuanobservatory.org/ita/il-distributismo-famiglia-vita-cittadina-solidarieta-economica-e-uscito-il-bollettino-32020/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Part 2 can be found <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/01/21/on-the-foundations-of-distributism-property-family-politics-economy-part-2/" target="_blank">here</a>. </i><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The natural family based on marriage between a man and a woman is one of the founding paradigms of distributism. Can you elaborate further what is the role of family in distributism?</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">For G. K. Chesterton and most of the proponents of distributism during its "classical" period, this connection with the natural family was one of its most outstanding characteristics. Chesterton was a fierce upholder of family life and saw property as one of its prime supports. It was this fierce devotion to ordinary family life, domestic life, that fueled much of Chesterton's advocacy of distributism.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>As every normal man desires a woman, and children born of a woman, every normal man desires a house of his own to put them into. He does not merely want a roof above him and a chair below him; he wants an objective and visible kingdom; a fire at which he can cook what food he likes, a door he can open to what friends he chooses.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[i]</i></span></blockquote><i></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">And he drew a parallel between concentrations of property and attacks on the family. In a striking passage he wrote,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>I am well aware that the word "property" has been defied [defiled?] in our time by the corruption of the great capitalists. One would think, to hear people talk that the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; but other people's.... It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[ii]</i></span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">Hilaire Belloc similarly stressed the family's place in distributism, "When so great a number of families in the State possess Private Property in a sufficient amount as to give its colour to the whole, we speak of `widely distributed property.'"<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[iii]</i></span> And in the best formal definition of distributism, one offered by Cecil Chesterton, younger brother of G. K., one sees the same emphasis on family:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>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....<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[iv]</i></span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">This connection with the family is based on the fact that most of the early English distributists, notably both the Chesterton brothers and Belloc, were Christians. Naturally they sought the establishment of an economic system that would safeguard and foster the family, the natural and fundamental cell of society.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In a purely economic sense distributism protects the family because it allows economic decisions to be made while taking into account non-economic factors. Under capitalism labor costs are simply an expense item for owners of capital. But what for capitalists are labor costs, for workers is a living, their living and that of their families. Moving a factory to a cheaper location may make perfect financial sense for someone who merely supplies the capital necessary for production and whose own livelihood will not be affected, but it can hardly make sense for someone who depends on that factory for the job that supports himself and his family. When ownership of the means of production is distributed among workers and families, then other factors besides the purely economic enter into every economic decision. In an economic downturn, for example, workers who are at the same time owners will naturally look upon themselves and their families as more than mere "labor costs," and hence consider other options besides simply layoffs or plant closings. They will see the economic factors as part of a complex of factors which necessarily impact much more than questions of money. Each person's family, immediate and extended, his friendships, his parish, his attachment to his own locale, and so on, are quite as relevant considerations as the level of profit that can be made in any particular place. But as long as the capitalist economic structure is in place, the mass of workers will not even have the opportunity to consider such non-economic factors or make these kinds of decisions. But whether distributist owners are proprietors of their own micro businesses, or members of worker cooperatives that jointly own larger enterprises, they will be able to take into account more than simply profits. In making their own decisions, all of the interests of workers and their families will generally be considered in any decision of this kind. Workers will be more than merely entries on the debit side of the capitalists' account books. They will be real people with families.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In fact, if we look at distributism in its broadest sense, we will see that it is much more than an economic system or arrangement. I once heard distributism characterized by Fr. Ian Boyd, editor of <i>The Chesterton Review</i>, as a "different rhythm of life." Thus at its best it is an entire way of life, a way of life in which God, family, community, intellectual and cultural goods, are valued much more than is usual in modern society. The external goods necessary for human life will be given their due place, to be sure, but hardly the most important place. The benefits of this will be immense, beyond support for religion or family life. A general decrease in the fevered pace of twentieth-century life, including in our globalized economy, would be of considerable help in many areas, for example, in promoting consumption of local food and other goods and in contributing to environmental health. The complex structure of today's globalized economy is poorly equipped to confront disasters or catastrophes of any kind, whether environmental, economic or military, because it presupposes political stability and the smooth functioning of economic activity everywhere in the world, and depends upon fragile supply chains which can be easily disrupted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Given the many advantages that a distributist economy would bring, one could imagine an attempt to isolate the purely economic principles of distributism, such as well-distributed property, and implement it in a society which had forgotten the necessity of the natural family for its well-being and was not interested in any fundamental alterations in its way of life. This would be akin to what John Paul II in <i>Laborem Exercens</i> identified as <i>economism</i>, the error "of considering human labor solely according to its economic purpose" (no. 13). In other words, if we opt for distributism solely because of the economic and social benefits which can flow from it, we fall into the trap of treating human labor, and the economy as a whole, as simply a means of supplying us with goods and services, as something apart and separate from the rest of human society and culture. It is true that the economy has as its proper purpose the production of necessary and truly useful goods, but always in subordination to the overall goals of human life and society, both in time and in eternity. For even though society and state have as their primary end goods of this world, this does not mean an entire separation from the goods of the next life. As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in his <i>De Regimine Principum</i>, "It seems moreover to be the purpose of the multitude joined together to live according to virtue...the virtuous life therefore is the purpose of the human community," and adds that "the ultimate end of the multitude joined together is not to live according to virtue, but through virtuous living to attain to enjoyment of God,"<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[v]</i></span> Or as Pius XI wrote with specific reference to the economy,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>If [the moral law] be faithfully obeyed, the result will be that particular economic aims, whether of society as a body or of individuals, will be intimately linked with the universal teleological order, and as a consequence we shall be led by progressive stages to the final end of all, God Himself, our highest and lasting good. (<i>Quadragesimo Anno</i>, no. 43)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thus the economy does not exist by or for itself, but must be embedded in social life as a whole, and must not hinder the society from achieving its own proper goals both temporal and eternal, of which our economic welfare is an important, but not the most important part.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In order to understand this better we might look at two other economic systems, socialism and capitalism, and see how each of them, in different ways, fails to subordinate the economy to society as a whole, and thus very often harm family life and the intangible goods which family life needs.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Let us begin with socialism. Contrary to what many people think, the Church's well-known condemnation of socialism is based not on the specific economic proposals of socialists, but on its fundamental anthropological outlook, its philosophy of human nature and society.<br />The most thorough treatment of socialism by the Church's magisterium occurred in Pius XI's encyclical <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i>. He pointed out in the first place that socialism had undergone profound changes since the days of Leo XIII.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>No less profound than the change in the general economy, has been the development occurring within socialism since the days when Leo XIII contended with this latter. At that time socialism could be termed a single system, generally speaking, and one which defended definite and coherent doctrines. Today, indeed, it has for the most part split into two opposing and hostile camps. (no. 111)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">One section is Communism, clearly hostile to Christian faith, advocating "merciless class warfare and the complete abolition of private ownership" (no. 112). But the other portion of socialism, what Pius called "moderate socialism" has abandoned many of the doctrines against which Leo XIII contended.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">The other section, which has retained the name of "socialism," is much less radical in its views. Not only does it condemn recourse to physical force: it even mitigates and moderates to some extent class warfare and the abolition of private property. It does not reject them entirely. It would seem as if socialism were afraid of its own principles and of the conclusions drawn therefrom by the communists, and in consequence were moving toward the truth which Christian tradition has always held in respect; for it cannot be denied that its programs often strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reformers. (no. 113).</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The war declared against private ownership has also abated more and more. In such a way that nowadays it is not really the possession of the means of production which is attacked but that type of social authority, which, in violation of all justice has been seized and usurped by the owners of wealth. This authority in fact belongs not to the individual owners, but to the State. If these changes continue, it may well come about that gradually the tenets of mitigated socialism will no longer be different from the program of those who seek to reform human society according to Christian principles. (no. 114)</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">Because of this, some Catholics at that time wondered whether it would be possible for a Catholic to be a socialist. Pius's reply is a firm no, but the reasons for this will come as a surprise to some: "the reason being that it conceives human society in a way utterly alien to Christian truth."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>According to Christian doctrine, Man, endowed with a social nature, is placed here on earth in order that he may spend his life in society,...and that, by fulfilling faithfully the duties of his station, he may attain to temporal and eternal happiness. Socialism, on the contrary, entirely ignorant of or unconcerned about this sublime end both of individuals and of society, affirms that living in community was instituted merely for the sake of advantages which it brings to mankind. (no. 118)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">Hence the definitive judgment of this Pontiff, "No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist." But this is because socialists have elevated the material side of man over the spiritual side and made the production of goods the organizing principle of society. Socialism is condemned because it has never abandoned its roots in a materialistic philosophy, ultimately grounded in atheism. And as long as it remains really socialism it will always have that cast to its principles. Incidentally, this is why European socialist parties have so often jettisoned their distinctive economic programs, but do not abandon their general hostility to the Church, to protection of unborn life, to Christian marriage, and so on. The atheism and anti-Christian ideology that lies behind all true socialism remains, even when socialist politicians have found they can live with many of the exploitive economic practices of capitalism.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">John Paul II repeated this judgment about the errors of socialism in his 1991 encyclical <i>Centesimus Annus</i>. He stated that</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. (no. 13).</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">And he pointed out what is at the root of these socialist errors: "we must reply that its first cause is atheism." The important thing to note about the teaching of both Pius XI and John Paul II is that neither focuses on socialist economic practices. Indeed, Pius XI explicitly approves of some of these practices, and both pontiffs identify an essentially philosophical error as the real reason why no Catholic can be a true socialist.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Before we examine the relevance of this to the question about distributism and the family, let us look similarly at capitalism. After pointing out that atheism is at the root of socialist materialism, John Paul notes the following:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>The atheism of which we are speaking is also closely connected with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, which views human and social reality in a mechanistic way. Thus there is a denial of the supreme insight concerning man's true greatness, his transcendence in respect to earthly realities...and, above all, the need for salvation.... (<i>ibid</i>.)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">Clearly when John Paul speaks of "the rationalism of the Enlightenment, which views human and social reality in a mechanistic way," he is referring to the eighteenth-century theoreticians of capitalism, such as the Physiocrats in France or Adam Smith in Scotland. Without necessarily being actual atheists, their mechanistic philosophy of man and society suffers from the same defects as does socialism. This is why, as John Paul further explains, some capitalist countries, in their struggle against Communism after World War II, embraced a vision of man that fundamentally was no different from that of atheistic socialism or even communism.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Another kind of response, practical in nature, is represented by the affluent society or the consumer society. It seeks to defeat Marxism on the level of pure materialism by showing how a free-market society can achieve a greater satisfaction of material human needs than Communism, while equally excluding spiritual values. In reality, while on the one hand it is true that this social model shows the failure of Marxism to contribute to a humane and better society, on the other hand, insofar as it denies an autonomous existence and value to morality, law, culture and religion, it agrees with Marxism, in the sense that it totally reduces man to the sphere of economics and the satisfaction of material needs. (no. 19)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">The point of all this is that historically both socialism and capitalism have looked at the economy as something apart from, and even superior to, society as a whole, have championed their particular approaches simply as means to "achieve a greater satisfaction of material human needs" than any other economic system. If distributism is looked at in such a manner, as simply a better way to achieve economic growth or avoid the social pathologies created by inequality, then the connection it has with genuine family life is lost. Therefore distributism cannot simply take for granted that it is immune from being hijacked from its proper role in creating an economic system that serves the overall purposes of human family and social life, and becoming simply a mechanism for producing and supplying material goods.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Part 4 can be found <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/02/18/on-the-foundations-of-distributism-property-family-politics-economy-part-4/" target="_blank">here</a></i>. <br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12-rlsC4MTmR-M-yN8ggGJ6lLMovhyBoc/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Notes:</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">[i] <span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>What's
Wrong With the World</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">
(San Francisco : Ignatius, [1910] 1994), p. 49</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i> </i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"></span></span>
</div><div style="text-align: left;">[ii] <span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>What's
Wrong with the World</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">,
p. 42.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">[iii]</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i> The
Restoration of Property</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">,
p. 17.</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">[iv]</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> Cecil
Chesterton, "Shaw and My Neighbour's Chimney," </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>The
New Witness</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">,
May 3, 1917, p. 13. Quoted in Race Mathews, </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>Jobs
of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">,
(Distributist Review Press : Irving, Texas, 2d ed., 2009), p. 101.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"></span></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">[v]<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> I,
14. This work is also known as </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>De
Regno</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">.</span></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-44232099109233312402021-01-21T05:00:00.180-08:002023-02-13T10:55:11.659-08:00On the Foundations of Distributism: Property, Family, Politics, Economy. Part 2<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RjzW3gaTlXM/YAXEqAED57I/AAAAAAAAC1o/uEq5MWw5TFQIKoMeI7WwIQskg-ikHAw6ACLcBGAsYHQ/s500/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RjzW3gaTlXM/YAXEqAED57I/AAAAAAAAC1o/uEq5MWw5TFQIKoMeI7WwIQskg-ikHAw6ACLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/" target="_blank">Thomas Storck</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The following is the English version of part two of an article/interview by Thomas Storck, “Sui Fondamenti del Distributismo: Proprietà, Famiglia, Politica, Economia,” published in Bollettino di dottrina sociale della Chiesa, July/Sept. 2020, pp. 73-84.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />For information on the Italian publication, see <a href="https://www.vanthuanobservatory.org/ita/il-distributismo-famiglia-vita-cittadina-solidarieta-economica-e-uscito-il-bollettino-32020/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /><b><span><a name='more'></a></span></b><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Part 1 can be found <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/01/05/on-the-foundations-of-distributism-property-family-politics-economy-part-1/" target="_blank">here</a>. </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> </i><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Can you explain in more detail how distributism implements or realizes the fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching?</b><br /><br />If one had to articulate the most basic principle of Catholic social teaching it would be that the economy is part of the whole complex of human activities that must be subject to the law of God and must contribute, or at least not hinder, the attainment of our last end, eternal life with God. From this fundamental axiom flow a number of others. Since the economy is part of a hierarchy of activities, it cannot be conceived as something operating solely under its own laws as a self-regulating mechanism. In fact it exists to serve the human race, and if it results in actions that harm more important human goods - such as the "creative destruction" of capitalism usually does - then something is awry. Likewise, given the fallen nature of mankind, the acquisition and possession of material goods is often a source of temptation, a temptation to acquire more than we reasonably need and to manipulate the entire economy for our own behalf and the behalf of our family, friends and associates.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Catholic social teaching recognizes that there must be regulation of the economy, regulation that is able to enforce its rules, but at the same time it understands that simply to centralize power in the organs of the state is not wise. Hence the need for intermediate groups. Finally, the Church knows well that man is weak and easily yields to the temptations that abound in the economic field. Thus the need not only for prudent regulation and sound institutions, but for a reform of morals, for without virtuous men the best systems are capable of manipulation and corruption.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">All those versed in social matters demand a rationalization of economic
life which will restore a sound and true order. But this order, which We
Ourselves desire and make every effort to promote, will necessarily be
quite faulty and imperfect, unless all man's activities harmoniously
unite to imitate and, as far as is humanly possible, attain the
marvelous unity of the divine plan.</div><div style="text-align: right;">(<i>Quadragesimo Anno</i>, no. 136)</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">How does distributism seek to make these aspects of Catholic social doctrine concrete? The two chief points of distributist theory are well-distributed property and the correct use of property within the economy so that it contributes, according to its own proper nature and function, to the common good.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I have already discussed the idea of well-distributed property, doubtless the most well-known doctrine of distributism. It rests on several fundamental distributist principles. One is that without widely distributed property, individuals and families will be at the mercy of owners of capital, who will usually make decisions based solely on what will benefit them financially. Secondly, large accumulations of property allow their possessors undue influence on the political process, and, perhaps most importantly, tend to corrupt the culture itself, creating a commercial or consumer culture, in which everything is valued or measured in terms of money. One example of this is how, in the United States, education, and especially higher education, is regarded most often as merely an economic investment. Since, at least till recently, those with degrees generally earned more money than those without degrees, this is pretty much the only justification for higher education even offered. Education as initiation into the world of learning and into our intellectual and cultural heritage, as enabling one to be free of the prejudices of one's time and place and learning to truly think - these are seldom mentioned, and for the most part higher education is evaluated solely in terms of the financial benefit for the individual.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />With regard to the right use of property in an economy, both Catholic social teaching and distributism recognize that economic freedom in the sense of free competition is not a sane or just way to run an economy.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[i]</i></span> But if the idea of a self-regulating economy ruled solely by competitive forces is rejected, then the question becomes: Who exactly is to do the regulating? Many socialists and other types of statists argue or simply assume that this is to be done by the central government. An extreme form of this was undoubtedly in the Soviet Union, where government officials would set detailed quotas for factory production, and generally manage the entire economy in the most minute manner. As everyone knows, this was productive of much inefficiency and waste, but the fact that the Soviets engaged in economic regulation in a poor way does not negate the necessity of some kind of regulation. In the Middle Ages this regulation was performed by the guilds, private associations yet with public responsibilities, and whose rules would be enforced, when necessary, by the municipal authorities. While the guilds gradually died out or became impotent beginning in the sixteenth century, in the nineteenth century, when Catholics looked about for some way of addressing the growing injustices brought about by capitalism, they spontaneously turned to the medieval model as a guide. Leo XIII in <i>Rerum Novarum</i> recommended and described in some detail organizations very similar to guilds,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[ii]</i></span> and Pius XI, in <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> and especially <i>Divini Redemptoris</i>, explicitly called for a revival of guilds, adapted to modern conditions and modern technology.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[iii]</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">What would the functions of these guilds be? Msgr. John A. Ryan, one of the greatest of the Church's twentieth-century theologians on the Church's social doctrine described them as follows:</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">The occupational group [guild] might be empowered by law to fix wages, interest, dividends, and prices, to determine working conditions, to adjust industrial disputes, and to carry on whatever economic planning was thought feasible. All the groups in the several concerns of an industry could be federated into a national council for the whole industry. There could also be a federation of all the industries of the nation. The occupational groups, whether local or national, would enjoy power and authority over industrial matters coming within their competence. This would be genuine self-government in industry.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Of course, the occupational groups would not be entirely independent of the government. No economic group, whether of capitalists or laborers, or of both in combination, can be trusted with unlimited power to fix their own profits and remuneration. While allowing to the occupational groups the largest measure of reasonable freedom in the management of their own affairs, the State, says Pius XI, should perform the tasks which belong to it and which it alone can effectively accomplish, namely, those of "directing, watching, stimulating, and restraining, as circumstances suggest or necessity demands...."<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[iv]</i></span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">The guild-principle recognizes that those engaged in the same trade or profession are not rivals or enemies, each seeking as much market share as possible, hoping in fact to put the others out of business. In the Middle Ages practitioners of the same trade or profession saw themselves as engaged in a cooperative project to provide the public with a needed good at a just price, all the while, of course, expecting that they themselves would receive a reasonable remuneration for their work. The guilds thus were more than economic institutions. They were true fraternities and celebrated the feasts of their patron saints and sponsored masses for deceased members and their families. They aspired to cultivate a spirit of harmony, cooperation and charity among practitioners of the same trade and to foster an attitude of justice toward others, such as suppliers of raw material or the consuming public.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Although the role of guilds in distributist theory is often overlooked, in fact Chesterton, and especially Belloc, were quite clear this point. Belloc wrote, for example,<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>The safeguarding of the small unit, the seedlings of re-afforestation, the delicate experiments in the reconstruction of property, must take the form of the Guild: not the unprotected guild arising spontaneously (for that would soon be killed by the predatory capitalism around it) but of the Guild chartered and established by positive law.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[v]</i></span></blockquote></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i></i></span>The guild or occupational group has always been a key element in a Catholic approach to the economy, as it clear from its place in both distributist and solidarist theories.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I have already mentioned Pius XI's insistence that a Christian attitude must accompany any reform of institutions. What we must strive for, along with the concrete institutional and legal changes which distributism calls for, is an attitude toward riches which differs from that existing in the modern world.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>We can, therefore, lay down as the first principle of mediaeval economics that there was a limit to money-making imposed by the purpose for which the money was made. Each worker had to keep in front of himself the aim of his life and consider the acquiring of money as a means only to an end, which at one and the same time justified and limited him. When, therefore, sufficiency had been obtained there could be no reason for continuing further efforts at getting rich,...except in order to help others....<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[vi]</i></span></blockquote></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i></i></span>It is difficult to stress too much how the modern world, in some places more than others to be sure, has departed from its Christian past in its attitude toward economic activity.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[vii]</i></span> As the economic historian, Richard Tawney, wrote,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote>The idea that there is some mysterious difference between making munitions of war and firing them, between building schools and teaching in them when built, between providing food and providing health, which makes it at once inevitable and laudable that the former should be carried on with a single eye to pecuniary gain, while the latter are conducted by professional men who expect to be paid for service but who neither watch for windfalls nor raise their fees merely because there are more sick to be cured, more children to be taught, or more enemies to be resisted, is an illusion only less astonishing than that the leaders of industry should welcome the insult as an honor and wear their humiliation as a kind of halo. The work of making boots or building a house is in itself no more degrading than that of curing the sick or teaching the ignorant. It is as necessary and therefore as honorable.... It should be at least equally free from the vulgar subordination of moral standards to financial interests.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[viii]</i></span></blockquote></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span>It should be clear from this that the creation of a distributist economy is not the work of a moment. It would require vast changes, yet at the same time, every small step toward such a state of affairs can be helpful. It is not necessary to wait until we have everything in place. We must do what we can right now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Part 3 can be found <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/02/06/on-the-foundations-of-distributism-property-family-politics-economy-part-3/" target="_blank">here</a>.</i> <br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vX6pPqrTejcoCfhr8aTbEMlv8D2EFsZw/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Notes</i>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">i:<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">
See Pius XI's explicit statement that "free competition
...cannot be an adequate controlling principle in economic affairs."
</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>Quadragesimo
Anno</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">,
no. 88.</span></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">ii: See nos. 48-61<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">iii:</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> For
papal statements, see especially </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>Quadragesimo
Anno</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">,
nos. 81-87 and </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>Divini
Redemptoris</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">,
nos. 32, 37, 53-54.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">iv:</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i> Distributive Justice</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">
(New York : Macmillan, 3rd ed., 1942), pp. 340-41.</span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">v:</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i> The Restoration of Property</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">,
p. 136 emphasis author's. See also pp. 35, 75, 136-140.</span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">vi:</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> Bede
Jarrett, </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i>Social
Theories of the Middle Ages </i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">(Westminster,
Md. : Newman, 1942), pp. 157-158.</span></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">vii:</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> This
is not to mention the attitude of Holy Scripture toward riches and
moneymaking. Most notable is St. Paul's warning in I Timothy 6:8-10.
"...if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be
content. But those who desire to be rich fall in temptation, into a
snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into
ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils;
it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the
faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs." But see also,
Proverbs 23:4; Micah 6:12a; Matthew 19:24; Luke 1:53b, James 5:1-3a.</span></span>
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; so-language: zxx; text-decoration: underline }</style></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> <br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">viii:</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"><i> The
Acquisitive Society</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">
(New York : Harcourt, Brace & World, [1920] 1948), p. 96.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"></span></span></div><br />Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-53448091625585879762021-01-08T09:48:00.005-08:002023-02-13T10:53:47.518-08:00Reflecton on the US Election<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-76Xm_ordlik/X_iXxBpFUSI/AAAAAAAAC1Q/0swC5eI-_C8ekC5CoM2mBHhMQsUoRQWfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Reflection%2Bon%2Bthe%2BUS%2BElection.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-76Xm_ordlik/X_iXxBpFUSI/AAAAAAAAC1Q/0swC5eI-_C8ekC5CoM2mBHhMQsUoRQWfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Reflection%2Bon%2Bthe%2BUS%2BElection.png" /></a></div>In March of 2020, the United States, along with most of the rest of the world, entered a new and dark phase. It was a phase that not only revealed the ideas driving the globalist movement, but the weaknesses in the very fabric of modern societies. It has been a time of even greater division and tension between two different world views struggling for dominance. Another thing that was revealed is that our population is not clearly on one side or the other in this struggle; the split is roughly even. A lot of things happened over the last ten months, and people on both sides will rush to defend the positions and actions of their own side while denouncing and blaming the other side. This article is not going to address those claims because the point of Practical Distributism is to present the ideas of distributism to a world desperately in need of something better than what we currently have, and <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2014/07/17/is-distributism-liberal-or-conservative/" target="_blank">distributism is neither a liberal nor a conservative idea</a>.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[1]</i></span> Therefore, I would like to address what I think is, from a distributist perspective, one of the greatest lessons of the last ten months, and especially the events related to the US presidential election that just came to a tumultuous end.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>When this site addresses political positions or candidates, the intent is not to advocate for them but to examine them in the light of distributist principles. Therefore, I will start off by stating very clearly that I am not a member of any political party, and have not been since 1996. I mention this so that it is clear that, when addressing the two major parties in the US, I am not taking sides. I am merely stating the facts as I understand them, and one of those facts is that the positions of both of them are woefully inadequate when it comes to protecting the common good of society. I do believe that one is markedly worse than the other, but anyone with a distributist outlook would be foolish to pin his hopes on either one. As someone very dear to me said just a few years ago, "A pox on both their houses. Release the Kraken!" </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The main point I want to look at is the fact that the hopes of the majority of people in the US, regardless of what side they were on, were firmly pinned to the outcome of the election for the highest political offices in the land. As a society, the United States, like most of the "developed" world, has become subject to what can only be described as a totalitarian central government with almost unlimited power over its citizens. <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2015/04/27/whos-looking-out-for-you/" target="_blank">This is the true position for both major political parties</a>,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[2]</i></span> despite claims to the contrary. King George III is surely rolling in his grave with laughter at what we tolerate from our central government today while still justifying our breaking away from his government on the grounds that he was a "tyrant." Compared to what some Americans call the "last hope" for freedom in the world, his was a true small government that responded to the concerns of its subjects. I am sorry to point out, again, to any readers who still think the contrary, but the United States basically gave up on the idea of <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2014/10/02/is-small-government-the-worst-government/" target="_blank">limited central government</a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[3]</i></span> some time ago. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In my opinion, nothing reveals this better than the events of the last ten months and, in particular, this last month. It has been a time of social and political despair in the United States. It has been a time where communities completely failed to band together to support each other to help each other through a time of crisis. It has been a time where we allowed ourselves to be subject to dictators who were blatant hypocrites, failing to observe the restrictions they supposedly imposed on us "for public safety." It has been a time when those responsible for protecting the common good allowed rioters to go unchecked while law abiding citizens suffered. It has been a time when even constitutionally protected rights were blatantly tossed aside and the free exercise of religion was banned while shopping and, in some cases, going to bars was allowed. It has been a time when even our religious leaders seemed to cave to the political pressure, leading to accusations that they care more about their precious tax-exempt status than proclaiming the teachings of God. To what did the overwhelming majority of people turn to find a solution to all of this? The federal government. In this time of despair, it seems that all hopes were pinned on the outcome of the federal elections. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To those who firmly believe that the 2020 election process was corrupted and the end result was false, I say that the corruption has existed for many decades and, I believe, was practiced by both sides. To those who believe that, with this last election, the American experiment with limited self-government has finally failed, I say that it failed long ago but too many of us failed to notice. To those who think the riot in the Capitol building proves the corruption of the sitting president and those who support him, I say that you're a big part of what caused that riot and only your most blind followers will forget that you ignored or even encouraged rioters for the last six months. To those who think the riot in the Capitol building was justified, I say that all you did was embolden those who won and made the country even more dangerous for your side than ever because they will point to your riot, and your defense of it, to justify whatever they choose to do to punish anyone who doesn't step in line with their plans. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What is the solution to all of this? The social Kingship of Christ is the only answer that I can give. Pray more fervently than you have ever prayed before that it gets established for it is our only hope. Society must apply <a href="https://www.angelicopress.org/an-economics-of-justice-and-charity" target="_blank">Catholic Social Teaching</a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[4]</i></span> throughout the land. Help people understand that this teaching forms the <a href="http://thebp.site/167644" target="_blank">principles</a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[5]</i></span> on which a truly just and prosperous society is founded. Clearly, what has been tried for the last 245 years has completely failed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mQ5oX9qxitHK6_kGk3p8KBp5wOTa0SZo/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Notes:</div><div style="text-align: left;">1: https://practicaldistributism.com/2014/07/17/is-distributism-liberal-or-conservative/</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">2: https://practicaldistributism.com/2015/04/27/whos-looking-out-for-you/ <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">3: https://practicaldistributism.com/2014/10/02/is-small-government-the-worst-government/</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">4: <i>An Economics of Justice and Charity: Catholic Social Teaching, Its Development and Contemporary Relevance</i>. https://www.angelicopress.org/an-economics-of-justice-and-charity</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">5: <i>Distributism Basics: Foundational Principles</i>. http://thebp.site/167644<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-17148882767022957502021-01-05T04:13:00.002-08:002023-02-13T10:50:25.384-08:00On the Foundations of Distributism: Property, Family, Politics, Economy. Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AGsA6QR_DrE/X_RSB2YZR-I/AAAAAAAAA5w/2M2yXYxW42EpI6ilKQMPyQvLfsBYBCDygCNcBGAsYHQ/s500/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AGsA6QR_DrE/X_RSB2YZR-I/AAAAAAAAA5w/2M2yXYxW42EpI6ilKQMPyQvLfsBYBCDygCNcBGAsYHQ/s16000/On%2Bthe%2BFoundations%2Bof%2BDistributism%253A%2BProperty%252C%2BFamily%252C%2BPolitics%252C%2BEconomy.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">by <a href="http://practicaldistributism.com/thomas-storck/" target="_blank">Thomas Storck</a><br /></div><div><p></p><p>The following is the English version of part one of an article/interview by Thomas Storck, “Sui Fondamenti del Distributismo: Proprietà, Famiglia, Politica, Economia,” published in Bollettino di dottrina sociale della Chiesa, July/Sept. 2020, pp. 73-84. <br /><br />For information on the Italian publication, see <a href="https://www.vanthuanobservatory.org/ita/il-distributismo-famiglia-vita-cittadina-solidarieta-economica-e-uscito-il-bollettino-32020/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><b>The root of distributism can be traced back to the Social Doctrine of the Church, nevertheless distributism is not the Church's social doctrine. Can you clarify what is the relationship between these two realities?</b><br /><br />To put the matter simply, distributism is an attempt to give a more concrete application to the Church's social doctrine, an application which is at the same time entirely faithful to it. There are two related reasons why such an effort to give a more precise application to Catholic social doctrine, is necessary, or at least desirable.<br /><br />The first stems from the fact that the Church's social doctrine, elaborated over one hundred years and addressed to the entire world, necessarily must have a certain indefinite quality. The economy of rural Ireland or Spain, say, in 1891, the year <i>Rerum Novarum</i> was issued, is not the economy of contemporary Germany or the United States. Yet the encyclicals and other documents of the Church's social magisterium must be able to speak to the very different conditions of all these economies. And this it does very effectively, both by laying down fundamental principles of economic justice, as well as by more specific proposals, even if these latter may need further adaptation to varying circumstances. But all of this social doctrine requires intelligent study and application in light of circumstances of time and place, something which Leo XIII himself called for.<br /><br />Of course, it is important to recognize that Catholic social teaching cannot be reduced to a few platitudes, such as Be just, or Help the poor, as some contemporary neo-liberal publicists try to do. But it does mean that one cannot simply pick up the encyclicals and extract a set of proposals which a political party could offer at the next election. Even the more specific policies which the popes have advocated, such as the establishment of occupational groups or guilds, something which both Pius XI and Pius XII especially stressed, require a concrete legal and institutional structure which necessarily will differ from country to country. The rather complex German system of co-determination (<i>Mitbestimmung</i>), for example, which following a specific suggestion of Pius XI, provides for significant worker participation in the management of corporations and very effectively embodies the spirit of Catholic social teaching, could probably not just be replicated simply anywhere without important modifications that reflect the varying legal systems and work cultures of different nations.<br /><br />The second reason why some kind of concrete application is necessary is because of the abundance of matters which the pontiffs have treated in their social documents. For example, the fundamental principle of distributism was enunciated by Pope Leo XIII in <i>Rerum Novarum</i>, "The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many people as possible to become owners" (no. 46). Yet how this should or could be done, and what relationship such small property ownership ought to have to the economy as a whole - for example, to enterprises that by their very nature require large workforces and intensive capital investments - is left an open question which will require political prudence in order to implement it in any specific society.<br /><br />The popes were primarily laying down moral principles for the economies actually existing at the times they wrote. Thus Pius XI devotes a section of <i>Quadragesimo Anno</i> to evaluating Italy's then fascist economy, obviously something of chiefly historical interest now, while in <i>Centesimus Annus</i> St. John Paul II discusses in depth the global capitalist economy in light of the recent collapse of the Soviet bloc. Thus while the fundamental moral principles of economic justice are timeless, the popes were not engaged in writing theoretical treatises on economic morality. Even Pius XI, who exhibited perhaps the most interest of any pope in offering a systematic presentation of the functioning of a just economy, was primarily interested in responding to the grave crisis of the Great Depression and the threat of Communism. But distributists are seeking to set forth an economic system or a set of economic proposals which are more than a commentary on or a critique of present conditions, and which can compete intellectually with the capitalist paradigm. Our intent is to offer proposals which, while requiring adaptation to the widely varying conditions of different continents and countries, is based on fundamentals, on man's need for external goods and services, and hence on the necessity of economic activity to supply these goods and services, and on the principles of justice and political prudence which allow economic activity to work for the common good and common prosperity. Distributism stresses certain elements of Catholic social teaching, not because it disregards or neglects other aspects, but in order to formulate a more concrete plan which could be translated into an economic and social program.<br /><br />If we examine the other serious attempt to apply modern Catholic social teaching we can see the necessity for this more clearly when we note the obvious similarities between it and distributism. This other attempt was <i>Solidarism</i>, a system formulated by a remarkable German Jesuit, Heinrich Pesch (1854-1926). As a young seminarian Pesch spent the years 1885 to 1888 near Liverpool in England because Bismarck's <i>Kulturkampf</i> had driven religious orders out of Germany. In England Pesch witnessed the exploitation and degradation of the working class by industrial capitalism which made him resolve to devote his life as a priest to the social apostolate. He authored a number of works on the social question, his chief work being the monumental <i>Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie</i>, which appeared in five volumes between 1905 and 1923.<br /><br />Both solidarism and distributism were formulated in response to the new social and economic order created by capitalism and industrialism that had triumphed in Europe and elsewhere during the nineteenth century. What was unique in capitalism, or more correctly, in the classical liberalism that stood behind capitalism, was the notion that the economic order was divorced from its place in the hierarchy of values that had hitherto been seen as the organizing principle of all of social life. Economic life, and consequently greed for gain, were now seen as legitimate and free from all but the most rudimentary ethical restraints. Prohibitions against force and fraud, narrowly defined, were pretty much the only misdeeds which the apologists of the new order recognized.<br /><br />Both distributism and solidarism, on the other hand, since they are rooted in Catholic social thought, perceive that the economy must serve mankind as a whole and that economic activity must be part of the hierarchy of human goods, not an independent thing divorced from its place in social life, to be pursued according to the desire and cleverness of each individual economic actor, motivated solely by a desire for unrestricted gain. Pesch stated this principle at the outset of the <i>Lehrbuch</i>, when he wrote that "man must always and everywhere be the subject and end of the economy."<span style="font-size: small;"><i>[i]</i></span><br /><br />If solidarism and distributism are compared one will find that the differences between them are chiefly a matter of emphasis. As such, they both witness to the fact that all serious attempts to apply Catholic social doctrine will resemble each other much more than they will differ. Both systems take their program from Pope Leo's <i>Rerum Novarum</i>, the solidarists from the passage "capital cannot do without labor nor labor without capital," (no. 19), and distributists from the passage I have already cited, "The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many people as possible to become owners" (no. 46). But just as there is no contradiction in the mind of Leo XIII who wrote both these statements, so there is little contradiction in the fundamental thought of Pesch on the one hand, and of Belloc and Chesterton on the other. In fact, there is a clear convergence with regard to how both systems treat important economic points, such as property or employment and wages. With reference to property, for example, Pesch wrote of "the need to do away with the individualistic concept of private property,"<span style="font-size: small;"><i>[ii]</i></span> and that "property is not an end in itself...but it is only a means designed to provide for mankind in a manner appropriate for the well-being of the individual, the family, and political society."<span style="font-size: small;"><i>[iii]</i></span><br /><br />Although the original distributists placed great emphasis on private property and the freedom which property ownership affords to families, likewise the distributist understanding of property was fundamentally the same as that of Pesch. The limits on private property for the sake of the common good which Belloc and Chesterton, as well as contemporary distributists, have championed, presuppose that property ownership is a right only when it is consistent with the common good. Property has a purpose, the support and sustenance of families, and indirectly of the whole society; it is not a free-standing right to amass as much as possible with no reference to the common good. Because of this understanding, distributists have suggested a variety of means to break up large concentrations of property, such as Hilaire Belloc's suggestion to use graduated taxation to force the division of large concentrations of property.<span style="font-size: small;"><i>[iv]</i></span> And of course this is hardly alien to Pesch's thought. There are even passages in Pesch which could have come from the pen of Belloc or Chesterton: "While socialism calls for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, the motto of solidarism is: <i>increase the number of owners</i>!"<span style="font-size: small;"><i>[v]</i></span><br /><br />Another crucial point where the two systems can be compared is the question of employment and wages. Here Pesch considered that for the most part the employer/employee relationship would continue even in a just economy. He was concerned to insure that workers received a just wage and that owners and workers were bound together by solidarity, both in spirit and in concrete institutions such as occupational groups which sought to embody the spirit of justice and charity fundamental to Catholic thought on society. Belloc and Chesterton, for their part, often spoke as if they thought that every worker would become an owner, so that the owner/worker relationship would disappear. But as we saw above Pesch could go so far as to say that "the motto of solidarism is: <i>increase the number of owners</i>!" And on the other hand, Chesterton and Belloc recognized that it was likely impossible to do away entirely with large entities requiring large workforces. In <i>The Outline of Sanity</i>, when Chesterton wrote about possible means for achieving a distributist economy, he included "the gradual extension of profit-sharing [or] the management of every business...by a guild or group...."<span style="font-size: small;"><i>[vi]</i></span> Neither he nor Belloc were absolutists in insisting that every individual or family must own its own small farm or small business.<br /><br />The point of this is to show that Catholic social teaching does require a fleshing out, an elaboration, to make clear how its chief points can be translated into actual policies and institutions, and secondly, to show that every attempt to do so, every attempt, that is, which takes the Church's social doctrine seriously, will exhibit many more similarities than differences and as a result make clear that social doctrine does have a solid content and that specific proposals can be deduced from it which translate into real world economic policy.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Part 2 can be found <a href="https://practicaldistributism.com/2021/01/21/on-the-foundations-of-distributism-property-family-politics-economy-part-2/">here</a>.</i><br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dVB6aez_RcL1FJ5tB54Ot8sRmcvjX_a5/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><i>Printable version</i></a><br /></p><p>Notes:</p><p>i. vol. 1, book 1, p. 18. All references to Pesch are to the translation of the Lehrbuch in ten volumes made by the late Dr. Rupert Ederer and published by Edwin Mellen Press as Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie/Teaching Guide to Economics, c. 2002.<br /><br />ii. vol. 2, bk. 1, p. 264.<br /><br />iii. vol. 1, bk. 1, p. 277.<br /><br />iv. See Belloc's The Restoration of Property (New York : Sheed & Ward, [1936] 1946), especially pp. 69-72, 93-118.<br /><br />v. Pesch, Lehrbuch, vol. 4, book 2, p. 299. Emphasis in original.<br /><br />vi. In The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, vol. 5, Ignatius Press, 1987, p. 97. Belloc in The Restoration of Property makes similar proposals. See p. 88.<br /><br /></p></div>Practical Distributismhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05726967836523471352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2778743155448259302.post-4627712040369376982020-08-20T05:00:00.008-07:002021-01-08T12:28:02.166-08:00Distributism Basics: Foundational Principles<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M2ACrynVR1c/XzrdgqqNRHI/AAAAAAAACyE/Vp4yDmGpErsTQnQb4ONgq8FHr5fBlOovACPcBGAYYCw/s761/Distributism%2BBasics%253A%2BFoundational%2BPrinciples%2B%2528500px%2529.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="761" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M2ACrynVR1c/XzrdgqqNRHI/AAAAAAAACyE/Vp4yDmGpErsTQnQb4ONgq8FHr5fBlOovACPcBGAYYCw/s640/Distributism%2BBasics%253A%2BFoundational%2BPrinciples%2B%2528500px%2529.png" /></a></div><p>I am happy to announce the publication of my new book, <a href="http://thebp.site/167644" target="_blank">Distributism Basics: Foundational Principles</a>. This is an exploration of some of the core principles underlying the distributist idea. </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>My previous Distributism Basics series of articles<i><span style="font-size: small;">[1]</span></i> was a very generalized introduction to the historical background of the modern distributist movement, with some explanations of how distributism differs from both capitalism and socialism. This book is a more detailed introduction to distributism for those who would like a better understanding of it. <br /><br />The topics covered include:<br /><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The relationship of politics and economics</li><li>Different kinds of Capitalism</li><li>Different kinds of Socialism</li><li>What the name, Distributism, really means.</li><li>Private Property</li><li>Subsidiarity</li><li>Regulation of Businesses</li><li>Preference for Local Economics</li><li>Rights and Responsibilities</li><li>The Social Responsibility for Charity</li><li>The Social Responsibility to Work</li><li>The Social Responsibilities of Business</li><li>Ethical Employment</li><li>Ethical Competition</li><li>Ethical Finance</li><li>Implementation</li><li>Distributism in the Age of the Internet</li><li>Innovation</li><li>Nationalism and Global Trade </li></ul><p>This book is available in paperback and e-book formats from The Book Patch (<a href="http://thebp.site/167644" target="_blank">thebp.site/167644</a>). The paperback is $13.00 plus shipping and handling. I am recording an audio book version and will announce when it becomes available. Thank you for your continued support!</p><p><br /></p><p>Notes:</p><p>[1] Also available in book format at <a href="http://thebp.site/63699" target="_blank">http://thebp.site/63699</a><br /></p>David W. Cooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447605091816577300noreply@blogger.com0