The Praise of Impracticality

by Maciek Wąs

One of the main – and the oldest – charges raised against distributism is that it is “impractical”; at least as far as I know the case. In my personal experience I have encountered this obstacle hundreds and hundreds of times. In most cases, when I try to convince somebody to become a distributist (or at least start taking serious interest in the problem), it all works great, and everybody agrees with me, and just when I start to gain the upper hand and get “this close” to finishing the case, my interlocutor hides behind the great wall of “impracticality.” “How to do it? Did this Chesterton of yours ever say exactly how to deconcentrate property? Did he propose a bill to the parliament, did he form a political party (etc…). No? Oh, I see; because it cannot be done. It’s nice and all, but it cannot be done.” And usually just after that, the grand hit: “Socialism in theory is nice too, but it just doesn’t work.”

And no; we are not going to talk about the “niceties” of socialism.

George Weigel - Yet Again

by Thomas Storck

In a recent column the publicist George Weigel has weighed in on some of the dubious shenanigans surrounding the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the document that, to say nothing further, by its lack of clarity has confused so many about Catholic moral doctrine on marriage and the reception of the sacraments. Weigel notes the recent statement by Pietro Cardinal Parolin, the Holy See's Secretary of State, that Amoris Laetitia constitutes a "paradigm shift" for Catholic thinking on marriage and the family.

Witt and Richards on Belloc: Part 1

by Patrick Toner

Part One—The Distributist Paradox and State Power

In The Hobbit Party (Ignatius, 2014), Jonathan Witt and Jay Richards cover some of what they take to be the political/social meanings in JRR Tolkien’s work.  In Chapter 8—“The Fellowship of the Localists”—they talk a bit about Walmart and Joel Salatin and other such matters.  All very interesting.  But not what this piece is about.  They also talk about whether Tolkien was a Distributist.  Also very interesting.  But not what this piece is about.

Capitalists Against the Free Market

If you listen to the apologists of capitalism, there is one thing they consistently argue for when they rail against things like socialism or even distributism; the Free Market. They say that they believe that the Market should determine what products and services succeed and fail without artificial support or suppression from the government. Customers should be free to decide what products and services they want to buy and it is up to the producers and service providers to convince consumers to choose theirs instead of others. It is interesting to note those cases where they not only fail to support this idea, but actively work against it.

A New Book From ... Fulton Sheen!

  

By Dale Ahlquist

Publishing is often a pain and a drain, but it is not without a few pleasures. When I started ACS Books as an arm of the American Chesterton Society, it was fun to bring some titles into print that did not fall into any known category, which meant that nobody else was likely to publish them anyway. In general, writers are creative; publishers are not. Being a writer myself, I probably don’t think enough like a publisher. Which is why my publishing arm is part of a non-profit organization. And so I have had the privilege of publishing the firstever biography of Frances (Mrs. Gilbert) Chesterton, an annotated version of Hilaire Belloc’s oddball masterpiece TheFour Men (with notes provided by Deacon Nathan Allen, who along with three others, recreated Belloc’s famous fictional-factional walk across Sussex), a creative and unexpected explanation of the Catholic faith under the cover of TheCatechism of Hockey, and a hilarious piece of crime fiction called GetLouie Stigs about a low-level mob figure who gets convicted of fraud and sentenced to … a monastery. You should read them all.

An Economics of Justice & Charity

The Church has always concerned itself with issues of justice in society, and popes have taught extensively on the topic since the late 1800s. Unfortunately, many Catholics in our day are not aware of this teaching, or only consider it in regard to things like helping the poor. Helping the poor is a very important aspect of it, but the scope of the Church’s teaching on matters of social justice go much further. Any aspect of social life which involves questions of ethics or morality fall within the scope of this teaching. Thomas Storck’s new book, An Economics of Justice & Charity, is a guide that shows how the Church’s teaching is very clear, has never changed, and definitely applies to areas of social life like economics.