Distributism

      What is distributism?

      Distributism is the crazy idea that the means of production should be widespread as much as possible, instead of it being in the hands of an elite who owns capital nor the state.
      This could be done trought guilds, cooperatives, essops and of course enterprises. Local enterprises

      The origins of distributism can be traced to the catholic church, when Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum(New things) on May 15, 1891. In Rerum Novarum the Pope critiqued both capitalism and socialism seeing them as equally oppressive.It discusses the role of capital, labour and the state, emphasizing class colaboration, the right to private property,for labour unions and that one should do labour acording to ones biology.It is the foundation of modern catholic social teaching, therefore Christian to the core but it's also the basis for distributism and corporatism(not corporotocracy, its bassically a form of syndicalism)

      Why should the means of production be widespread?

      The means of production should be widepread beacuse that's the only way of achiving a truly free market in which the proletariat can influence the means of production or even own it in some cases(cooperatives).
      It is true freedom, you cannot have a decentrelized state witheout heaving an decentrelised economy, or an decentrelized economy whiteout a decentrelized state.If those conditions are not meet then one will dominate the other."Too much capitalism doesnt mean too many capitalists but too few"-G.K Chesterton

      Why not socialism or capitalism?

      We all know the problems with capitalism,the fact that multinationals rain supreme in most economies and exporting their profits to fiscal paradises, making in the procces the comunity poorer, the inequality and such, most people miss that we do not live in capitalism anymore, it is more of a tehno-feudalism but that is for another day to be discussed.Why not embrace it's oposition?Socialism.
      Socialism has proven itself to be inefective, always ending in brutal dictatorships or reverting back to capitalism/embracing some form of a market(China).
      Why not combine capitalism and socialism? Wouldn't market socialism solve the problem?
      Well not really market socialism was tried in yougoslavia and it only had a small succes in Slovenia. Market socialism sufffers from the same problem as socialism and capitalism, centralization.

      Why is centralization a problem?

      Well beacuse of the power dynamics it creates,it is not that the people in power are corrupt, but the power itself corrupts the people. In capitalism this manifests as, he who has enough capital could theoretically buy the world and sell it later for profit. Capital is the economic tool for domination it substitutes the ownership of private property with the ownership of itself.Socialism on the other hand goes THE step further and nationalizes all of private property and creates "personal property" in order for your tooth brush to not go to the state. This has it's problem, what if I use the toothbrush to make capital somehow?Would my tooth brush, now apart of the means of production go to the state? Do you see the problem with this? With centralization? Sure a totally decentrelized system would either colapse on itself or be conquered by another one.

      Wouldn't distributism revert to capitalism?

      The answer to this question would also show how distributism can be achived
      Distributism will not revert into capitalism beacuse of the principle of subsidiarity/problems shall be solved at the lowest socio-economical unit if possible. This in economics would translate into radical anti-trust legislation for multinationals and a tax of some sorts, bassically if the smaller producer is being bought by a bigger one, there shall be a tax proportional to the diference in size between the producers. Example:
      If a local bakery is being bought by a national or local coffetary chain then the tax would be around 4-8% of the value, if the local bakery is being bought by a multinational the tax could be around 20-50% of the value.
      This will disscourage the transaction and keep the means of production wide-spread.

      Wouldn't this lead to more expensive things?

      Well no, beacuse of competition, if there are multiple local bakeries in a city they would compete with eachother in order to give the smallest of prices. In order to achive distributism you will need some deregulation in the market in order to make the proces of creating an enterprise a lot more easier. This will lead to an natural equilibrium of some sorts in which there would be enough bakeries in order to have said competition beaucuse of supply and demand (really just free market theory lol)Now what if on the local market there would be two bakeries next to eachother, what if it would be more profitable for them not to compete?Then they should be able to form a guild.

      What is a guild?

      A guild is bassically a trade-union between economic entities, picture it like this, nestlee has a lot of children companies that it owns, what if the children companies owned nestlee?It is basically an asociation between enterprises or people and enterpises in order to cooperate.
      Example:
      Two local stores are on the same street next to eachother selling the same products, if the entrepreneurs decide that cooperation is more benefic, then they could form a guild, where they will both own an association/firm composed of their enterprises equally, sharing the profits. This could solve a big problem with the principle of subsidiarity applied to stores, an multinational/supermarket can offer smaller prices beacuse they can strike better deals with producers to buy let's say cheese. If you buy a bigger quantity of cheese from a local producer you can strike a better deal than if you buy a smaller quantity of cheese. This means you can sell it in your store for a smaller price. This would had been a problem if there were a lot of small stores scattered everywhere offering bigger prices beacuse they cannot strike a better deal, in a guild they can colectively buy a bigger amount of cheese striking that better deal a supermarket could, then sell the chese separately in their stores.Problem solved

      But what about the workers??

      The workers would be encouraged to start cooperatives, a cooperative is something that represents distributism the best.
      A cooperative is bassically an worker owned enterprise, ran democratically, there woulndn't be CEOs but there will be leadership, imagine if you could vote for your boss and have a say in your sallary.Now the romantization apart a cooperative on the truly free market would work like an enterprice in which you own shares to an equal amount with the rest of the memeber-owners of it. Your salary can basically be the divident you will monthly get from your shares, but I dont neceserally think it should be like this, the divident example should be more a comparing point to your salary, if you work harder you should be paid more, if your job is harder in the cooperative you should be paid more, in a idk lets say the people form a industrial tehnology cooperative, the engineer should be paid more than the guy who moops the floor (if thats the only thing he does in the cooperative). But even with the divident example and witheout it there will still be an incentive to do a better job beause if the cooperative has profits your salary by default gets bigger. This is the case especially in a essop.

      What is a essop?

      An essop or an Employee Stock Ownership Plan is bassically what the name tells, once you are employed in the enterprise you will have by deafualt shares in it , there will be an CEO, and there will be investors and it could be listed on the stockmarket, but you will have some say in the enterprise and you salary can basically be the divident you get from the shares you own in it.In my opinion if we are going to let multinationals employ people in our country, the multinationals should make a children company, lets say Lidl Romania that will follow the essop model, becoming an pseudo-local enterprise with fairer wages.

      How would the wages be fair?

      Very simple my friend, competition.

      The workers heaving many choices including a lot of local/small/medium/family enterprises, essops, guilds and cooperatives in which they have a say for their salary would lead to all of those enterprises competing for workers on the labour market. Why stay in a firm that pays you shitty when you can join a essop?Why stay in a essop that pays you shitty when you can join a guild?Why stay in a guild that pays you shitty when you can join a cooperative?Why stay in a cooperative that pays you shitty when you can leave for another?And if all of those enterprises pay you shitty why not take a loan and start a enterprise yourself?All of this will lead to an equilibrium between classes so much, soo much cooperation that the worker and the capitalist would become one solving the problem of Capitalism in the procces.

      Common critiques and missconceptions on distributism

    • Distributism is capitalism

      • It's not beacuse it wants to stop neo-imperialism of the neo-liberals by hitting their multinationals

    • Distributism is socialism

    • Distributism doesn't want the state to own the means of production for the workers to use, this is too centralised and leads to tyrany. Distributism also holds the right of private property as holy in comparison to socialism.Us distributist prefer a more direct aproach, why put a middle man betwen man and the means of production? Be it state or multinational, why not let him own it directly?

    • Distributism is isolationism

      • Distributism is not for a isolated economy, not even for tarrifs if theyre not neccesary, distributism is to favour the local producers to make the fighting field between them and the multinationals equal ,trought legislation, not necessarily giving them subsidies that will hook them to the state making the local enterprises inneficient(the mistake of socialism), achiving a local market and in the procces a truly free one.

    • Distributism is fascism

      • I have yet to hear an more idiotic statement than this one, I can understand the confusion with socialism and capitalism but this one is just ill intented.
      How can one understand fascism and distributism and come up with this conclusion? Fascism is a totalitarian ultranationalistic ideology that emphasizes peleogenesis, it's economy being one of totalitarian corporatism(not soo far off from socialism) in which the state can controls the private property and can nationalize it if it doesnt push for the state's goal. It is one of the most centralized ideologies, how can one even compare it with a decentrelized economic ideology like distributism?
      The single things that they might have in common is that both distributism and corporatism originate from Rerum Novarum and emphasize class cooperation, but the corporatism of the fascists is a perverted form of it, a totalitarian one, not to mention that corporatism is more of an system of organization that an economic one.
      The other similarity you could see perphaps but it's only a matter of perspective really is the paleogenesis. Now to say that distributism is fascist just beacuse of "paleogenesis", an syncretic concept is just ill intended, the fascist might want the folk to be reborn as the chud big bagguate blue eyed, gold haired, hyper-masculine aryan but the distributist, and this is just a matter of perspective would want the worker to be reborn as a worker-capitalist in order to eliminate the exploatation of the masses. In conclusion, NO , distributism is NOT fascism.

    • Distributism is combining capitalism and socialism.

      • Think of distributism like being on another scale than the left(socialist) and right (capitalist) spectrum, something outside the box.

    • Distributism is theft

      • This critique usually comes when thinking how would distributism , distribute the means of production? Well it would be a land-redistribution for sure firstly, now each distributist might have his own idea on how to achive it, but I personally think we should use georgism as a tool to achive that. Georgism is complementary with distributism.

    Thank you for reading, it means a lot, if I didn't convince you to become an distributist, maybe read one or two books about it, read more articles, watch some youtube videos on it and then take a side, I might had left out sommeeee things or I didn't explain it well enough, SEEEEEE YAAAAA.