/r/distributism

Photograph via snooOG

This is the place to discuss and ask about Distributism, an economic/social framework that offers a criticism of, and an alternative to, both capitalism and socialism.

This is the place to discuss and ask about Distributism, an economic/social framework that offers a criticism of, and an alternative to, both capitalism and socialism.

The goal of Distributism is for as many people as possible to own or have an ownership stake in wealth-producing property, rather than selling their labor for a wage. We propose that widespread ownership, and not the mere fact of property rights (which can concentrate property in the hands of a few), is necessary for human flourishing. We deny that there is a meaningful difference between constraints imposed on human life by non-ownership, whether they come from impersonal state bureaucracies, from landlords, or from employers who exploit the labor of those with no capital of their own.

The means of Distributism include economic and policy incentives designed to encourage worker-owned businesses, credit unions, co-ops and guilds, and to discourage non-owner corporations and traditional banks.

Submission Rules

  • Posts must focus on distributism.
  • “What do distributists think about X” does not make your post about X on topic here.
  • Read the Wikipedia article before asking questions about distributism.
  • Like socialism or capitalism, distributism is not a total political/religious platform. If it's not directly addressed by capitalism or socialism, chances are it’s not addressed by distributism either (and hence not on topic here).
  • No memes.
  • No flag designs. Flag designs produce discussion about flags, not about distributism. They should be posted to /r/Vexillology. Capitalism doesn’t have a flag. Socialism doesn’t have a flag. If you want a distributist flag, make your country a distributist country.
  • Rules that apply to both posts and comments:

    • No Soapboxing (coopting the sub to argue pet positions on other topics)
    • No personal attacks or abusive language
    • No spam, bots or novelty accounts

    →More About Our Rules

    /r/distributism

    5,128 Subscribers

    0

    Im a Distributist and all but I think Co-ops are really stupid and innificiant.

    Im just syaing that I like Distributism and call but co ops are really a bad way to run a business and just sucks in general.

    6 Comments
    2024/05/04
    23:26 UTC

    6

    How would entrepreneurship work in a destributist society?

    Lets say a woman works hard, saves up her money, and then uses said money to open her own bakery. She is the only employee at first. No problem. But what happens when she hires two helpers. Do the new employees each receive 1/3 voting power in how the bakery is run?

    If so, I have a difficult time seeing anyone put in the time and money to start a new business, just to lose control when employees are hired.

    Should every new business venture (that employs multiple people) be a pre-planed co-op?

    I guess my crux is, it seems like the ones putting in the initial investment would be getting a raw deal. No one would take the risk of starting a business when simply being hired gives one ownership power. Thus leading to a sort of entrepreneur stagnation.

    Or maybe I am missing something.

    12 Comments
    2024/05/03
    02:50 UTC

    13

    TIL about the Chiemgauer, a local currency in southern Germany that can only be spent at local businesses

    It also has a monthly five percent holding tax, to encourage circulation.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer

    2 Comments
    2024/04/18
    22:39 UTC

    6

    I have some questions but i also want to overall thank this community for everything they have done!

    Distributism as a political ideology has caught my attention recently, so i have researched about it and i gotta say it does sounds really good and before i start with my questions i want to thank this community as they had explained this concept quite good and in a clear way through various posts i have seen, and i also have encountered some interesting books that i certainly want to check out, so overall i am thankful to this community and what they stand for as it looks that it is in the correct path!

    So now that i have showed my gratitude towards this community, i will add that i still have some doubts that i think if cleared will make me see the true potential of Distributism.
    I will list my main questions below, but if you can or want to answer only some is perfeclty ok, afterall we are a community, and a lot of small contributions become a big contribution. So anyway, my main questions are:

    1-How would public companies work, as they are owned by the state and not by the workers themselves?
    2-How would public services like electricity, school, medicare, etc, work (similar to the first question)? Would the state be allowed to have a monopoly in these aspects?
    3-Let's suppouse i become an adult and have no work experience, and i decide to go and work in a supermarket or a fast food place for that matter, and i don't want to have the responsability of being a co-owner of say place, what could be done here? This also applies to, for expample, a group of workers that also don't want to have the responsability of managing the company where they work, would Workplace Democracy be applied here or any similar approach?
    4-Is a federal government needed for distributism to work or would, for example, a decentralized unitary government be useful?
    5-How would small and medium companies be affected by antitrust legislation? Would they be allowed to use the concept of Workplace Democracy (or any similar approch) instead of giving the workers full on control of the company or is that out of reach?
    6-Can communitarianism (the political view of it), and specially georgism (or just a LVT) be compatible with distributist ideas or are they not so similar as they seem? (this is the least important of these questions in my opinion, so no need to give very detalied answers as i would rather get them in the questions that came before)

    Some questions here are related to one another, so probably you can answer many questions in one.
    I would also like to add that english is not my main language so if something isn't clear or there are typos let me know so i can clarify my points.
    With all this being said i thank you a lot for reading this far and i would gladly check every answer and recommendation that is given in the comments, is the least i can do to be thankful for this community and everything you people have done, so thanks a lot in advancement!

    4 Comments
    2024/04/18
    01:43 UTC

    0

    Distributism is the aufheben of capitalism and socialism, is it not?

    2 Comments
    2024/04/16
    08:55 UTC

    0

    LANDR didn’t get for me cover songs licenses

    should I try another distributor and buy cover songs licenses again?

    View Poll

    1 Comment
    2024/04/09
    18:46 UTC

    12

    A Land Value Tax is the Future

    9 Comments
    2024/04/09
    16:53 UTC

    0

    I'm 17, wanting to debate a teacher over Capitalism and what the US has done, but I really don't even know anything

    (Originally posted to r/TheDeprogram)

    So this teacher, he is an econometrics major who is teaching me macroeconomics. He is pretty alright, but he seems to put down socialism and communism. Honestly, I did not care about econ before taking his class, but when he mentioned that communism and socialism don't work because countries who adopt it either don't work or become capitalist, or because the pareto principle states that it doesn't work, it made me want to look into these ideas and look into these two econ ideologies.

    So, I have looked into communism, socialism, and actually, a bonus: Distributism. I know that not everyone here is Catholic of course, some are Arab Islamic, atheist, etc, but i think that I align myself most with this particular ideology. I got convinced to believe in a free market, libertarian (in the sense that the state should be as small as possible) form of distributism, and I believe that private property should be allowed, since the church believes that the right exists. I template-copied someone, basically.

    Though, I also have Anti American thoughts, and this mainly stems from anti communist coups that I know about (very vaguely) that happened in Cuba. I also have knowledge on the United Fruit Company that basically took of Guatemala. I saw a video over it all, and it genuinely made me cry a little. I really hated the us for doing this to my Hispanic brethren, as a Mexican.

    Though, I feel like I can really say much to refute this guys views. I'm not an econometrics major. I barely know stuff about communism, distributism and socialism, but I really want to tell him that he isn't right, these ideologies aren't perfect, but that capitalism has people that suffer immensely because of it. I'm quite pro Russia and Palestine. I have a class that would hear me debate him, but I am worried I will sound incompetent in a debate with him. I really don't want to be called a commie, but I want to stand for what is right. I also don't know what I would say to if he said "well, the USSR fell, and the vast majority of people want to leave cuba". I really don't know what I would refute back. If anyone could help me out with my situation, it would be of immense help. Have a good day!

    18 Comments
    2024/04/02
    20:07 UTC

    6

    Looking for comrades

    Hello, I live in the LHV of NY and am looking for others who would like to build a community on the model of the Catholic Worker. I think that the shift won’t begin here in the US but in societies that are still industrializing. Instead, we can only hope to disrupt globalist capitalism here at home and empower foreign workers to dedicate their remittances to building a cooperative economy in their home countries.

    3 Comments
    2024/04/01
    17:34 UTC

    3

    Viability in a Global World

    Hello everyone! I have a general question about the general viability of distributism in our modern world. I 100% believe that this system would work perfectly in a world that is deglobalized but I wonder if it would work in our modern world. For example if we tried to distribute resources and corporations to the masses wouldn’t corporations just leave our country and go to a different country that is more capitalist? For example when countries adopt policies to counter crony capitalist the corporations often leave in mass. How can we ensure this doesn’t happen if we set up a distributism system?

    4 Comments
    2024/03/26
    17:43 UTC

    6

    A dead Discord server that I want to bring back.

    https://discord.com/invite/qngsrXWC If someone has a Discord account feel free to join

    6 Comments
    2024/03/23
    23:26 UTC

    10

    Who does distributing?

    So I've been looking into this and I have to say I agree with most of distributism but I just want to know who does the distributing? Is it the government or the people? Because there are anarchists who are distributist like Dorothy Day (I think she was).

    16 Comments
    2024/03/22
    01:13 UTC

    6

    Will the west lose to China/Russia/Iran if it adapts distributism?

    So I learned that recently the minimum wage of Poland (ex part of the Soviet bloc) has now exceeded that of Portugal! Portugal is a country that probably is more "traditionalist"/distributism. Industries are tourism/fishing/etc. Lots of small businesses, barely any large ones.

    Poland adapted neo liberalism and the rest is history. Big center for multinationals. Actually my old finance job got outsourced to Poland.

    So we're in Cold War 2 now. A loose alliance of Russia, Iran and China are coming at the west.

    There's a lot to like about distributism. I like it a lot and I follow this subreddit every so often to see if there are any recent developments. I just don't think it's a smart thing to do right now?

    What's your vision how in a realistic view of the world it can be implemented?

    2 Comments
    2024/03/16
    13:49 UTC

    3

    Will the capitalist class be supported under distributism? [Question from socialist]

    Capitalists are people who 'earn' money from investing (stealing value from others), while workers earn money from their labour.

    40 Comments
    2024/02/27
    14:16 UTC

    29

    I'm a 17 year old Catholic Mexican-American that's kind of interested in Economics, and have found Distributism.

    I was initially pulled into the idea of communism, and how it can give a good alternative to capitalism, and I was honestly hyped to be part of an 'underdog' community and wanted to start looking into communism. However, I find out that communism does not allow for religion to be a part of society. This put me off immensely.

    Now, I was also looking into whether there are perhaps different versions of communism/socialism that are Christian/religious, and I found this

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism

    But I found out about the decree against communism and also rejected socialism. I have to be honest when I say I got sad. Capitalism wins :(

    But then, I found out about Distributism through r/catholicism. I don't think I've ever heard of it, but it seems to be an alternative to Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism and also Catholic-approved.

    Though, I think I am too dumb to understand a lot of this stuff. I am in an economics class, and the teacher tells my class that free market capitalism is the best economic form and that communism and socialism never work because of the Pareto principle, its failure in some countries, etc. I have been daydreaming in that class, and the teacher is teaching through Google Meet. I have a hard time concentrating in this class

    It also confused me that places like Bolivia and Venezuela are socialist, even though they're pretty catholic.

    Should I perhaps question him on Distributism? He is a Baptist, so I think he might not like the idea of distributism, though I know you don't have to be a catholic to be a distributist.

    I am also confused by stuff like Acts 2:44-45 (I have not gotten to numbers yet, but saw these verses online), can this also be used to argue for Distributism?

    I would also like to mention that I was interested in the USSR, and learning about the economy of it, as it is preached about how good it was, but I want to look into Distributism now. I also am learning Russian, but not because of Communism.

    As for learning about general economics, I want to major in math and not in economics (though I'm kind of bad and a little uninterested in math). I want a job at a hedge fund.

    So yeah. Now I know about Distributism. I'm hyped to be part of this small community. I might try to read Chesterton's work and make something out of it, but I want to learn something about this economics stuff.

    24 Comments
    2024/02/23
    17:10 UTC

    12

    Opinion on Georgism?

    Title says it

    15 Comments
    2024/02/22
    20:37 UTC

    7

    Worker control

    Does distributism support worker control over means of production?

    I am still new to distributism and I have seen some people say that distributism, like socialism, supports worker control.

    4 Comments
    2024/02/16
    12:48 UTC

    9

    Could distributism and corporatism be applied at the same time?

    The two economic systems have caught my attention a lot, and I am curious to know if both could be used at the same time, since both were proposed based on Catholic thought.

    20 Comments
    2024/02/14
    20:42 UTC

    16

    Under distributism, how would large/nation-wide projects and the like be implemented without big businesses?

    I was having a conversation with my dad (probably irrelevant but he runs a fairly decent and democratically organized engineering company) about economics; he brought up the point that without big businesses, projects and economic endeavors (e.g. infrastructure projects at the national level) cannot be undertaken. Is this true?

    Additionally, what would happen to big businesses under distributism, anyway?

    9 Comments
    2024/02/14
    13:53 UTC

    5

    How will distributists protect their company or country?

    What should we do if those capitalists feel threatened and try to use their assets and armies to eliminate distributist businesses and parties? Should we put aside our prejudices and temporarily join forces with revolutionary communists or even anarchists to jointly fight the oligarchs, or should we try to imitate the Red Army and build our own "Yellow Army"? If the Yellow Army is established, how should the problems of soldiers be solved?

    If a mercenary cooperative is established and soldiers hold shares, how can we ensure that this cooperative will not use force to carry out reaction and betrayal for their benefit and become a new capitalist oligarch? It is even possible that this mercenary cooperative will become a tool of evil similar to that in the late Soviet Union controlled by bureaucrats who betrayed their ideals.

    If we try to ask the cooperative alliance or the government to strengthen supervision of this mercenary cooperative, does it violate our concept of auxiliary government?

    Or perhaps we can arrange security departments for each small cooperative, but the combat capabilities of such a decentralized army may be far lower than those of the armies of big capitalists. We might still end up being massacred by those brutal villains.

    I sometimes want to believe that people's morality can solve problems...but the fact that this world of villains forces me to abandon this naive idea.

    I'd like to know how people think about this

    7 Comments
    2024/02/14
    09:53 UTC

    8

    Since in Distributist theory, cooperatives were made in mind for a more agrarian society, could syndicates be more practical in modern times as a replacement?

    3 Comments
    2024/02/11
    17:44 UTC

    14

    Would Distributism require a bigger government or a smaller government?

    Distributism as a theory has tickled my interest lately. But one thing I ask is: How big would the government be in a hypothetical Christian society, would it be providing lots of services and taxes and all that buzz or would it be small? I know there are libertarian and anarchist varients of the ideology, its just that I'm more or less interested in how the core of the ideology would work in this regard.

    9 Comments
    2024/02/11
    01:18 UTC

    5

    Are there any good YouTube videos that explain distributism

    I learn better through videos then reading

    1 Comment
    2024/02/03
    14:52 UTC

    4

    Confiscation of the monasteries.

    I know that Belloc and Chesterton harped on the confiscation of the English monasteries as a root cause of the dissolution of the guild system, but neither seems to adequately connect the two. What are some good academic sources that do? I am considering the topic for a paper for a master's program that I'm in in my spare time--a class paper, not a thesis.

    1 Comment
    2024/02/01
    22:26 UTC

    4

    Modern Jeffersonian democracy

    Yeah when I first founded this subreddit I didn't know what distributism was and was crudely explained as mix between capitalism and socialism. And while I still don't understand distributism it seems to mean almost everyone on this subreddit is a literal Jeffersonian.

    That would explain why you guys still love markets, money, land and private property but hate large centralized states, banks and collectively held land. But also explains why I couldn't understand your economic reasoning, like you need centralized states and banks to have things like money and complex markets that aren't just small farmers markets.

    There's a reason the second bank of America isn't around but the federal reserve is, and it because Jeffersonian politics died out when there wasn't more land to settle for small fertile farms or reserved parks and nature reserves.

    4 Comments
    2024/02/01
    03:05 UTC

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