Introduction to G.K. Chesterton and Distributism

[@davidwcooney]

Unimportant thing about distributism is that it is not a middle ground between capitalism and socialism. it is actually something completely different.

[@AngelaPickles1929]

Thank God!! I’m sick of both of them.

[@theoe354]

Distributist gang rise up

[@GarrettFruge]

Distributism was actually my first introduction to an argument against capitalism when I read "The Servile State" by Hiliare Belloc back in 2011/2012, and I'm not as familiar with G.K. Chesterton, but I think I once read some of his "Utopia of Usurers." I was a libertarian at the time and Distributism was a great framework to articulate a critique of capitalism which also appealed to an individualist property rights model that I held to at the time that was absolutist, but also enabled more people to become self-employed and not coerced into a wage system. However, as time went by, I became somewhat disenchanted with it as I began to read Socialist, Georgist, and Social Liberal theorists, and though I think there's a lot of merit to Distributism, I find a lot of Distributists' arguments against the left to be somewhat strawmanning and poorly-understood. Especially since I think Distributism actually has a fair amount in common with certain niche forms of socialism and the American Mutualists and Individualist Anarchists like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. Nowadays, I would consider myself more along the lines of a "Communitarian Socialist" than a Distributist, but I still think it has value as a means of presenting the idea of a more democratized economy in a way that's palatable for people who favor individualistic forms of property rights.

[@hippiechick73]

I found Chesterton incredibly difficult to read. For me, his writing is so dense, that each sentence is something you can mull over and ponder, and I couldn’t just read paragraphs or chapters without the feeling that I wasn’t really considering each statement as much as I should. It’s like each paragraph is full of side quests that must be done before proceeding. This is probably a defect in my own completionism.

[@naushadahmed8090]

Bane(Dark knight Rises) stole the ideas of G.K. Chesterton??

[@pilleater]

Richard Wolff would argue Mondragon is more aligned with worker cooperatives and early socialism than distributism. From what I understand, distributism is centrist thinking that hates on totalitarian ideology, yet respects some traits of capitalism, like individualism and liberalism. It tries to appeal to socialist who are anti-communist.

[@maurinacademy]

Others do place it in the distributist camp due to the philosophy of its founder, perhaps. Here's the type of thing I looked at that made me think Mondragon might be an example to consider: "Distributism has garnered increased interest of late, due among other things to the social commentary of Pope Francis. Notwithstanding its Catholic origins, many non-Catholics have also embraced distributism over the years. Dorothy L. Sayers, E.F. Schumacher, and Christopher Lasch were influenced by its ideas, as has been the Spanish worker cooperative Mondragón." From: www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/distributism-is-the-future/ But even if it is not a pure example, it might be instructive as to what can be carried forward, simply because it really seems to work.

[@koffeeblack5717]

I respect Wolff, but really he is just desperate for examples of anything vaguely in alignment to his market socialism (which he refuses to call market socialism and instead calls "new socialism"). Wolff is good at pointing out what's wrong with Capitalism, but his "new socialism" is really no more than a call to form cooperatives through legislation and voluntary association. What he lacks is a robust positive vision of an alternative, which is what Distributism offers, in my view.

[@GarrettFruge]

@@koffeeblack5717 Yes, I agree with you on Richard Wolff! I still follow his Democracy at Work channel, but I've really grown disaffected with him as a (relatively) high-profile socialism advocate. The videos he made regarding Titoism were the final straw for me, especially since that was something I'd been reading up on around the same time the first video dropped. I found his analysis glib and lazy, and he missed a great opportunity to discuss models of how a semi-planned system can coexist within a market structure, democratic management, and division of profits with the employees; all in all, he really dropped the ball on that one. Prof. Richard Wolff is fine as an introduction, but he's more about rhetoric and theory than propositions for a post-capitalist society.