Distributism: a 12-Step Program
On March 2, 2011, we ran this story on the American Chesterton Society web page. With the OccupyWallStreet and OccupyYourTowns that are happening all over the country, we thought it might be a good time to take another look at what each of us can do to be a Distributist — and perhaps inject a little sanity into the counterproductive Capitalism vs. Socialism debate that fuels the protests. This editorial was written by Gilbert Magazine Literary Editor Therese Warmus.
Download a copy of the Distributist flyer that is making its way across the country!
Adapted from an editorial that ran in our December, 2009 issue:
Gilbert Magazine is inspired to give its readers a gift: a way to detoxify from Capitalism. In favor of what? Distributism, of course. Like that other “concept” found difficult and thus left untried, Distributism is often grossly misunderstood. Over the years, we have received letters claiming it is “foolish,” “impractical,” “backward,” and “unlikely”—strange words to describe the only economic scheme that functions for everyone and that can be sustained over time. Nothing but Distributism, we retort, is more likely to survive the current financial mess we find ourselves in—will enough of us realize it in time, and return to sanity? Toward this end we present the Twelve-Step Program for Distributism, a primer for the reluctant and a refresher course to help our readers kick the Capitalism habit.
Step One. Begin by thinking like a Distributist. A little-known but powerful idea called subsidiarity states that larger entities like states and federal authorities should not assume rights and responsibilities proper to smaller entities, especially the family. The principle works both ways, of course—a thirteen-year-old boy must not presume to switch around signs for the local county roads; neither should the county be permitted to determine whether the boy goes to bed without his supper for the prank. What are the undue influences in your own home? Act to remove these, and fight to keep them out.
Step Two. Look at your possessions. Which do you own and which own you? Possessions that give nothing and drain your checkbook are worse than worthless; get rid of them. Consider possessions as resources, and you will see them in a new light. One person stopped tossing cardboard, kitchen scraps, and old potting soil; he now mixes these with composting worms and grows vegetables and fruits no money can buy. All on his apartment balcony.
Step Three. A billboard appearing nationally displays several small infants with the caption: “Children, our greatest resource.” We cannot say it better. Married? Have a child. Have one? Have another. Find your joy in love of God and family. You’ll never regret it.
Step Four. Stop working for your boss. No, we’re not suggesting you quit your job—ready cash is a resource, after all. Rather, put your job and your boss in their proper place, after the family. Many people work long years for perks that, if they ever come, fail to satisfy. Awards won’t console you on your deathbed.
Step Five. Married? Get your wife fired. Many couples have no idea what a working wife and mother costs the family. Never mind the childcare; how many times a week do you eat out or buy take-home, not because you want to (or even have the money), but simply because mom and dad are exhausted and the kids are screaming? Is your freezer stuffed with “convenience foods”? Did you buy a boat that sits in the backyard ten months out of the year because “Suzy’s working and we can afford it”?
Step Six. Are you thriving, or just surviving? Ever run to the store for something only to discover its twin on the shelf when you got home? Can’t find clean socks? You’ve got a management problem. See Steps Two and Five.
Step Seven. Still working on Sunday when you don’t have to? Even God knew when to quit. Genuine recreation fixes friendships, saves marriages, and restores the soul—play is a serious matter; we can’t live without it.
Step Eight. Resurrect the fine old art of bartering. Yes, the government hates anything that can’t be taxed. But most barters have to do with the rare odd jobs we can’t do ourselves, like fixing a broken eave board on a second-story roof; your neighbor has the equipment; why should you buy them for a one-time job? Especially when he needs a new rotor cap for his old Ford and you have the part.
Step Nine. Learn to feed yourself. The price of food at the grocer’s is increasing out of all proportion to what it’s worth—shipping and packaging costs are responsible. Fresh vegetables are easy to grow in a small garden space or even under fluorescent shop lights. Take up hunting and fishing; study the art of foraging. And when you buy, make it local.
Step Ten. Children learn more by osmosis and less by lecture. Help them do the work proper to them by not stooping to do it yourself. Triumph through struggle is the mother of self-esteem.
Step Eleven. Do you home school or send your children to private school? Attend a local school board meeting anyway, and learn how your tax money is spent. Find out what’s happening at city hall, and hold elected officials accountable. You needn’t run for office—a boar in the ointment is worth at least one in the mayor’s chair.
Step Twelve. Tell a neighbor about Distributism. Tell another one. And another. Once upon a time we were all Distributists, for Distributism is nothing more than the economy of the family. It is, we must repeat, the only system that works. Sustainable business practices and agriculture, holistic management, the return of stay-at-home mothering: these are not mere escapism from a world that is falling down around us. They are attempts to restore something we had and must have again if we are to survive. Best of all, Distributism is free.
Go here for your own copy of the Society for Distributism’s flyer for Occupiers (see image at top right).
Nancy,
Thank you for posting this list! It will give my wife and I some great food for thought this weekend.
We attended Dale’s talk on G.K.’s Distributism in Colorado Springs this week and we’re excited to begin taking the steps necessary to gain our independence from Hudge and Gudge.
You’re welcome, Zach, and good luck with your efforts!
-Sean
Who would’ve thought that my little garden would be a weapon in the revolution! Viva Los tomates!
Several of the problems with this set of ideas spring from the presumably Catholic sexism woven through it. We are told to rely on family, but some are not all
Oops, sent by mistake. Continuing: we are told to rely on family but some are disallowed from forming families authentic to their identity. We are scolded thst women should be at home, but there is no explanation as to why one gender rather than the other should do so. Again the source of this solution is the allegedly Pauline prescriptions on gender (probably misattributed by “Luke” but that’s another story).
The Catholic Church has little credibility on sexual politics or gender roles. Beyond this, there is simply no consistency nor any compelling logic in the Bibles’s various assertions about gender and family, largely because the “Bible” is a creation of the church not of Jesus. Faith in the unseen Christ I advocate and celebrate; faith in our small and prejudice affirming interpretations of collected texts leads to the kind of wooly and self serving ideas of justice encapsulated here.
Dear Ken,
Respectfully, there is no “Catholic sexism” anywhere in the Catholic faith, at least, I’ve never found it. The Catholic Church has the most fully thought out and respectful attitude toward the sexes that exists on this planet. It’s one of the reasons I am Catholic myself. The Church doesn’t bow to the current culture. It helps create authentic culture. And that teaching springs from 2000 years of studying the teachings of Christ.
The differences in gender have to do, specifically, with biology. Nature if you will. Science.
For example, nature made woman to bear children, and also to provide nutrition for them. Therefore the most natural person in the world to bear children and provide nutrition to them, especially when they are babies, is woman. Man can attempt these tasks, but so far I don’t think it’s worked out too well. This has nothing to do with sexual politics or gender roles. It has simply to do with nature, science, biology.
And we wouldn’t know Jesus if not for the Bible, so that’s a difficult argument to make about putting faith in our own interpretation of who Christ is. Ultimately, it comes down to belief. If you believe in Jesus, and don’t pick and choose which of His teachings to live by, what did He mean when He said to Peter, “You are rock, and on this rock I build my Church.”?
But back to family. Family is the foundation of society. The breakdown of the family means the downward slide of society into something less than it can be. Family begins at home, and forms at home. When it doesn’t, it is broken. That’s all we’re trying to say, what the ideal is. And even if you don’t agree, or if society doesn’t reflect it, or if policy doesn’t reflect that, the ideal remains.
Ken, how could you “advocate and celebrate” an unseen Christ if you could not first read about him in a Bible created by the Catholic Church? How would you even know about Jesus?
Anyway, “I would give a woman not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free.” –G.K. Chesterton
In fairness to Ken’s comments there are some historically valid documents that have ‘Jesus’ at the centre of their teaching but were excluded from the Bible, for reasons that were similar in my view for the eradication of all non-rabbinical Jewish religious practices, I.e. it didn’t fit with Rome, and in that I mean the empire rather than the Vatican.
I love the website and as an economist and a catholic, although one at some distress by the intolerance of the clerical church rather the nature of faith that has found expression down the years through God in the Eucharist and in others, I am struggling to bring a faith comparable modus operandi that would economically acceptable and robust in real world of people striving to pass on a better life to the next generation.
Re the comment above. The non-biblical sources of scripture suggest a Jesus that was much wiser and holistic than the Pauline Christ that he church has taught. Much more akin to the God in John’s writings in the Bible. The structure of Church would much different to what we have now I suspect. When an Archbishop says that his decisions are not about doing what is right for God but what is right or the Church then I wold suggest that spiritual seekers of Christ may well think that the Church lacks credibility. And without credibility it lacks authority of Christ, and hence relevance alas, when in reality there is a lot of wisdom within the Body but not when the defensiveness of a narrow strand needs to defend the structure as opposed to engaging in reality of the Passion of Christ in the poor and oppressed of the world.
To Lane:
I presume you mean the Gnostic Gospels. First of all, they were all written much later than the canonical gospels, so there is no particular reason to believe they give us a more accurate version of Jesus. Second, have you actually read them? Here’s a quote from the gospel of Thomas, which may be the earliest of the Gnostic gospels:
‘Simon Peter said to them, “Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.”
Jesus said, “Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.” ‘
And people say that Catholics disrespect women!
Well anyway, back to the subject of the article. I would love to try distributism, but one would need the circumstances to try it. We live in a townhome, no place for garden-growing (and besides, I’ve never done it–no clue how). No talents to trade with neighbors. Stuck as wage-slaves, for sure.
Townhome gardening. This isn’t any kind of official endorsement, it’s just what we do with our space and our abilities. In winter, we use Aerogardens, where we can grow lettuce for fresh salads inside. http://www.aerogrow.com/ And in summer, we use Earth boxes http://www.earthbox.com/
Just two ideas to get you in a distributist mood, even with a townhome