Distributism

Socialism or capitalism? It seems that few people are comfortable aligning themselves with either, although I have met a few people happy to wear a socialist badge. However, most seem to shun these terms, wary of the connotations and the checkered history that people baring these labels have done under these very labels. There is another label though, one that attempts to balance the practicalities of capitalism with the moral conscience of socialism: it is distributism.

Distributism doesn't deny ownership of property in the way socialism does, but at the same sees hugely wealthy individuals and monopolies controlling industry as a huge problem. Their middle-ground is that ownership of productive property (my understanding of this is that productive property includes anything that enables someone to be productive, whether it be tools, land or a computer) should be spread as widely as possible between the citizens of a nation.

In practice this would mean that people would be able to have ownership of their own company, business or simply way of providing an income without facing competition from mass corporations. I guess some sort of limiting law would have to be put into place to prevent companies expanding to non-competitive levels. The Middle Ages is seen as a time when distributism worked effectively with people earning a living through small ventures unopposed by corporate monopolies. If distributism returned to today's society, I guess huge supermarket chains would be replaced by small independent stores and companies offering computer support and services would be replaced by clever little men who understand the complexities of a motherboard - these would be amongst other shifts in our day-to-day working lives.

Distributism was formulated by Roman Catholic thinker G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc and has rather unfortunately been highjacked by the British National Party which seems an unlikely desired direction for Chesterton and Belloc. Genuine distributism doesn't seem to fit comfortably with any of the mainstream parties. David Cameron's 'Big Society' chat is perhaps the closest anything comes, but so far the practical outworkings of this don't seem to be hitting the distributism mark, not that that is what he is aiming for necessarily.

I'm not sure what I think. It sounds good: it gives people an ownership and a motivation and introduces a leveller playing field, but it is difficult to imagine Britain going in this direction. Would it be a good thing for the people on the bottom rung of society, which is always the crucial question? The answer is perhaps which is the answer to any unknown hypothetical situation I guess. I can see its strengths, but I'm not about to wear the badge.