We’ve noticed an
upswing lately in the number of people who claim to be Chestertivists or
distributonians (or whatever incarnation they’re in right now), who are
starting to give ear to some capitalists, and are evidently forming some kind
of synthesis between socialism and capitalism.
At the same
time, the level of vitriol directed against other capitalists and
non-socialists/non-capitalists remains high, as does the ostensible rejection
of socialism. Not to put too fine a
point on it, but this is getting confusing . . . or (more accurately) more confusing than usual.
Okay, as we
understood it, “distributism” is a policy of small, distributed property with a
preference for small, family-owned farms and artisan-type businesses. When an enterprise must be large, the workers
should own the business on shares. Both capitalism
and socialism are bad, but socialism is worse.
That’s not
verbatim, but it’s what Chesterton and Belloc said, more or less. So why are the Chestertivists and the
distributonians so enamored of socialism?
A quick trip around various “distributist” websites, etc., reveals a fascination with the
programs promoted by the Fabian Society, e.g.,
the works of Arthur Penty — who invented an offshoot of Fabian socialism
(itself a combination of an expanded georgist agrarian socialism and theosophy)
he called “Guild socialism” — and E.F. Schumacher, whose book, Small is Beautiful (1973) is today
listed under “Buddhist Economics” and was originally marketed as “The New Age
Guide to Economics.”
Penty, by the
way, was the mentor of Richard Orage, whose magazine New Age gave the name to the movement. Chesterton’s foreword to one of Penty’s books
is one of the most remarkable things the Apostle of Common Sense ever wrote: he
managed to say absolutely nothing about Penty’s ideas other than that they were
“important” and “interesting.” Not good
or bad, just “important” and “interesting.”
It’s one of the few times (if only time) Chesterton ducked an issue.
So what are
capitalism and socialism, and why can’t they be combined?
Strictly
speaking, capitalism is concentrated private ownership of capital, while
socialism is State ownership — keeping in mind that ownership and control (not
necessarily legal title) are the same in all codes of law. Capitalism thus
distorts natural law, while socialism nullifies it.
Capitalism
— strictly speaking — is based on an individualistic rejection of man’s social
nature. Socialism is based on a
collectivist rejection of man’s individual nature. Rather than the correct, Aristotelian-Thomist
understanding of man as “a political animal” — an individual and a social
nature — neither capitalism nor socialism have it right.
As
far as the propertyless wage worker is concerned, however, there is little
difference between capitalism and socialism. The two inevitably merge into what Hilaire
Belloc called “the Servile State.”
Of
course, to Belloc, the aim of the Servile State was to force people to work at
wage system jobs whether or not they wanted to, while today's Servile State,
having destroyed small ownership, is desperately trying to “create” enough jobs
to redistribute income, but the servile character remains. This may account for today’s distributonians
and Chestertivists pushing for the extension of the wage system instead of
expanded capital ownership.
In reality, the only alternative to both capitalism and socialism is
widespread capital ownership. This,
however, cannot be attained until the method of financing new capital formation
shifts from past to future savings, as explained by Louis Kelso and Mortimer
Adler in The Capitalist Manifesto
(1958) and The New Capitalists
(1961), based on the work of Harold G. Moulton in The
Formation of Capital, his 1935 counter to the Keynesian New Deal.
It’s
something to think about.
#30#
