Have you read Belloc’s Essay on the Restoration of Property?
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Tag Archives: Distributism
The Church and the Land
The Church and the Land is a collection of essays and articles by England’s famous Dominican Distributist. De facto “chaplain” to the Distributists and the Distributist movement, Fr. Vincent McNabb was in many ways the most passionate and fervent of those seeking reform of economic life in the name of truly human values.
In over 40 short essays, Fr. McNabb tackles subjects as diverse and yet unified as industrialism, morality and economics, working conditions, and the role of the state in shaping and defending the proper economic conditions.
Fr. McNabb’s is a common and yet unique voice within the Distributist tradition, for he represents the voice of the Church, with its characteristic concern for morality and the salvation of souls, in economic as well as all other aspects of man’s daily life. Originally published: London, 1926.
Available from Carmel Books and all good booksellers.
Make good use of the COVID-19 Lock-down
What a great opportunity to make a start to get back to the land. Practice some practical Distributism. There’s probably never been a better time to start that kitchen garden.
Flee to the Fields
Food is quickly disappearing from the supermarket shelves and being replaced with great difficulty (if at all).
The country can’t feed itself because most food is imported from foreign lands.
But coronavirus is locking down countries and preventing international trade, imports and exports.
The back-to-the-land, family farm, grow-your-own, small-is-beautiful, ethic of Catholic social doctrine is proven time and time again in times of crisis to be uncommon common sense in a nonsensical world.
Spring is coming. Get planting. Keep chickens and other small livestock if you can.
Fields, back-garden, front-lawn, window boxes, raised-beds, community wasteland. It doesn’t matter. Get planting and grow your own.
If not with coronavirus, starvation will inevitably come with a vengeance during some other crisis.
Get planting and flee to the fields.
The Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement
The Guild Alternative
At the beginning of the twentieth century G.K. Chesterton asked in one of most celebrated books: ‘What is Wrong with the World?’ In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, he would be forced to ask: What is Right with the World?
There can be few thinking people in the world nowadays who do not realise that we stand before an apocalyptic crisis. Everywhere one looks, one sees division, disintegration, decay. No aspect of our lives is left untouched, be it in the temporal order or in the spiritual order. No-one appears any longer to have any credible answers to the most pressing and vital questions of our age. One looks in vain to the clergy, to the politicians, to the pundits and thinkers of the ruling class for a semblance of a vision; they all seem content to utter platitudes and seek photo-opportunities.
Arthur Penty was a man before his time and one courageous enough to face reality head on. He was not afraid to say that something was radically wrong with the world; he was no afraid to say that our society had taken a wrong direction and that the only answer was to retrace our steps, however difficult materially and psychologically this might be, and set out on the path of salvation.
He knew that the world could only be saved by a wholesale return to those Christian beliefs and values which had made Europe the centre of world civilisation. He likewise knew that the spiritual revitalization of our society went hand-in-hand with its material transformation from a society based on greed to a society based on justice; from a society based on economics to a society based on morality; from a society based on material values to a society based on spiritual values.
In this truly astounding book he outlines where we went wrong, what we did wrong and where this path is leading us. Thereafter, he determines to show us what philosophy of life and what actions we must embrace if the world is to have any future beyond a lifeless and conformist world tyranny.
This book, originally published under the title ‘Guilds, Trade and Agriculture’, challenges ideas and principles. It provides analysis and guidance. It provides the philosophy and the practice that this age needs. It makes no claim to infallibility, but it does claim to point us in the right direction.
No honest reader will be left untouched by this book, for it does what so many tens-of-thousands of books published by the huge publishing corporations fail to do – it provides, just as it claims in its subtitle, ‘An Answer to the Chaos of the Modern World’.
To purchase a copy of this book please send a cheque or postal order for £10.00, payable to ‘The Saint George Educational Trust’, to: SGET, 225 Andover House, George Yard, Andover, Hampshire, SP10 1PB.
Easy Economics
Hilaire Belloc’s classic introduction to the basics of economic theory, ‘Economics for Helen,’ offers a constructive approach to economic education by defining terms and introducing key concepts without using special jargon and complex theories.
The fundamental questions about why the economy fluctuates and how small farmers, small business people, families, consumers, and innovators are affected by these fluctuations are considered.
Serious Catholic alternatives to modern economic theories are explained, with attention to the realities that have been largely unchanged through the last century.
The remaining stock of this book is very slightly damaged due to damp and therefore we are offering copies at the bargain price of £6.00 each including postage.
Please send a cheque or postal order, payable to ‘The Saint George Educational Trust’, to: SGET, 225 Andover House, George Yard, Andover, Hampshire, SP10 1PB.
G.K. Chesterton died 81 years ago
One of England’s giants of literature, Catholic apologetics and social criticsm (with solutions).
Réquiem ætérnam dona ei, Dómine,
et lux perpétua lúceat ei.
Requiéscat in pace. Amen.
Deadly Duo
Capitalism had arisen through the misuse and exaggeration of certain rights, notably the right of property — the basis of economic freedom — and the right of contract, which is one of the main functions of economic freedom. Therefore, even under Capitalism, so long as the old principles were remembered it was possible to recall the principles whereby Society had once been sane and well ordered. But as a Godless greed pursued its career from excess to excess, it provoked a sort of twin hostile brother, equally Godless, born in the same atmosphere of utter disregard for the foundational virtues of humility and charity. This hostile twin brother of Capitalism was destined to be called Communism……..
– Hilaire Belloc
Economy of Common Sense
“It is imperative in the cause of civilization, that we save the small producer and the small distributor. . . . . He is all-important to human society and, under a scheme of properly distributed property, though his property would not be large it would be sufficient for this independence, his dignity and the security of his livelihood”.
– Hilaire Belloc
The Catholic Moment has Arrived
“After the Brexit vote, Britain’s politicians are scrambling around for ideas. They should begin with Pope Leo XIII’s masterpiece Rerum Novarum”.
Apart for the nonsense about Christian Democracy – i.e. in historical practice it was Social Modernism and Liberalism – of which Pope Leo XIII gave warning and which Pope Saint Pius X had to suppress [ “Moreover, Christian Democracy must have nothing to do with politics, and never be made to serve political ends or parties ; this is not its field….” ] this is a very worthwhile article.
Read more at The Catholic Herald………
The Essence of Distributism
Widespread ownership of the means of production and distribution as opposed to concentration in the hands of Big Business and Oligarchs or The State and Party Bosses.
Pro-Life or Anti-Abortion?
The following was written principally for an American audience but it is universally applicable.
Political debate is often a matter of controlling the terms, since the names we call things often dictate the way we feel about them. For example, those who support abortion want to be known as “pro-choice” rather than “pro-abortion.” The preference is interesting in that it reveals that, even among its supporters, abortion is not really something worthy of support. “Choice,” however, sounds a lot like “freedom,” and hence is worthy of our highest support. Of course, since the “choice” is the choice for abortion, there is not really a functional difference between the terms; it is merely a matter of marketing.
By the same token, the anti-abortion movement would prefer to be known as “pro-life.” Here the situation is completely different, because while being pro-life means being anti-abortion, being anti-abortion doesn’t necessarily mean being pro-life; the different names really do designate different things. One can be anti-abortion on narrow moral grounds, on political grounds, or just out of certain fastidiousness. But families do a lot more than just give birth, and life is more than just its beginning. A true pro-life movement could be—and should have been—the foundation of a new Catholic politics. This is crucial because after the Second Vatican Council, Catholic politics in America severely deteriorated. What had been a strong presence dwindled so that there was very little difference between the Catholic voter and the rest of the population. The strong pro-worker bias of Catholic politics became bifurcated into radical divergent wings and highly partisan. But a pro-life party could have found areas of agreement between the factions and become a true “centrist” movement.
What would a pro-life agenda look like?
There are remarkable parallels between the ideas set forth by Solzhenitsyn and the ideas espoused by Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc fifty years earlier.
