Jerry Pournelle: Distributist
Science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle wrote a nice description and defense of Distributism on his blog on Friday. He writes, in part:
“Distributism is not Marxist socialism/communism, and is worth debating or at least understanding. It comes from Hillaire Belloc, an uncompromising enemy of the ever more powerful state, The Servile State, and from Chesterton, and from Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. It was pretty well approved by Jane Jacobs because it promotes subsidiarity. The premise is that there will always be gaps between rich and poor, and there ought to be, but very great disparities are dangerous to liberty and should be eliminated: neither institutions nor individuals ought to be too big to fail, or so large as to dominate. The Swiss Republic is often held up as an example (or was in the heyday of Distributism) of a Republic that had relatively mild disparity between rich and poor (or at least relatively mild apparent disparities; the reality was not so clear).”
Go check it out!
P.S. Pournelle, in the same post, plugs the novel Declare by fantasy writer Tim Powers, who I cannot recommend highly enough.
I am rather intrigued by distributism but I am uncomfortable with the proposition that it is the only morally licit position for a Catholic to hold. I have heard this proposition advanced by several distributists. It seems perfectly licit to me to support free market capitalism as long as one’s intentions are for the advancement of the general welfare.