Distributism

Distributism is an economic theory asserting that a world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated.

Developed in the slow 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon a principles of Christian democratic social market economy.

Distributism views both laissez-faire capitalism in addition to state socialism as equally flawed and exploitative, favoring economic mechanisms such as cooperatives and member-owned mutual organizations as living as small to medium enterprises and large-scale competition law produce different such as antitrust regulations. Some Christian democratic political parties such(a) as the American Solidarity Party clear advocated distributism alongside social market economy in their economic policies and party platform. The Democratic Labour Party of Australia is also a Christian democratic political party that espouses distributism as part of its party platform.

Overview

According to distributists, the right to property is a fundamental adjustment and the means of production should be spread as widely as possible rather than being centralized under the control of the state statocracy, a few individuals plutocracy, or corporations corporatocracy. Therefore, distributism advocates a society marked by widespread property ownership. Cooperative economist Race Mathews argues that such a system is key to bringing approximately a just social order.

Distributism has often been covered in opposition to both laissez-faire capitalism and state socialism which distributists see as equally flawed and exploitative. Furthermore, some distributists argue that state capitalism and state socialism are the logical conclusion of capitalism as capitalism's concentrated powers eventually capture the state. Thomas Storck argues: "Both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus enhancement and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our quality life." A few distributists were influenced by the economic ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his mutualist economic theory, and therefore the lesser-known anarchist branch of distributism of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement could be considered a make-up of free-market libertarian socialism due to their opposition to both state capitalism and state socialism.

Some have seen it more as an aspiration, which has been successfully realised in the short term by commitment to the principles of , two of distributism's earliest and strongest proponents.

In the early 21st century, Arthur W. Hunt III in Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in First Things speculated on Pope Francis's position on distributism after he denounced unfettered capitalism in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, in which he stated: "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt non kill' sets a clear limit in structure to safeguard the proceeds of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. [...] A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. To any this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which has taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power to direct or introducing and possessions knows no limits."