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DISTRIBUTISM

Eric Martindale • May 01, 2020

THERE CAN BE ECONOMIC JUSTICE WITHOUT SOCIALISM

May 1st is a holiday for the Socialists and Communists. There’s no better day than May Day to talk about an alternative to their theories.

I’ve begun to research an economic theory called “Distributism”.  It’s in synch with most of the core theories on The Welcome Movement home page www.thewelcomemovement.org.

Distributism is an economic theory whose core value is the individual ownership of property (meaning both businesses and home ownership).  Economic activity, wealth, and the allocation of government power is to be distributed as broadly as possible, decentralized among as many different individual participants as possible. Nobody is held back, and social mobility is maximized.

As many people as possible have a slice of the pie, as opposed to socialism in which nobody has a slice of the pie, and the entire pie is owned by big government. Distributist thinkers claim their theory is the polar opposite of socialism, because government is very small, and almost everyone is engaged in capitalism.

Distributists contend that laissez-faire capitalism is actually closer to Socialism, because a small percent of wealthy people owning and controlling everything is only a hair’s breadth away from the government controlling everything. In a society with a huge wealth disparity between the wealthy and the masses, huge numbers of people do not own homes or business, and are dependents on government.

Those are strong points, and hard to deny. We’ve seen in recent years the emerging power of people like Bill Gates and Marc Zuckerberg, and to some extent government is merging with them. I find that to be an alarming and dangerous concentration of power. It is an emerging threat to individual safety and autonomy. Add George Soros to that list.

Distributism is within the family of capitalist economic theories, but markedly different from laissez-faire capitalism in which half of the people are miserable and have nothing but debt and bills, and clamoring for class warfare politics and a Socialist revolution.

Laissez-faire is a French term that means “hands off”, meaning no government regulations on any aspect of economics.  Laissez-faire principles hold that businesses, including utilities, credit cards, and landlords can charge whatever the market will bear, and if some people are stuck economically and rendered unable to move their families to a better neighborhood, that’s considered their own fault. The classic response is “Work harder, be more responsible, and don’t ask for any government aid because we don’t want to pay for it”. 

I call that Social Darwinism. I’ve long considered that response to be non-Christian because social mobility is restricted. It’s also very elitist. Christian principles are about as far from Social Darwinism as one can get.

Most working-class people want to advance and improve their life situation, but they are held back by various predatory economic forces. In my case, it is a crushing child support obligation. Nobody is more oppressed, scoffed at, and unrepresented in America than the man with a child support obligation. I’ll save my full story for a future blog. 

Distributists contend that deregulation encourages a very unequal distribution of wealth, and an unhealthy concentration of power.  No better example exists than the horrendous interest rates that so many people pay on their credit cards, locking them into a lifetime of debt, and preventing them from becoming owners. My years of work on affordable housing and rent control dovetails with Distributism as well. We need less families renting, and more becoming owners.

Under Socialism everyone rents, because nobody owns businesses, housing, or land. Instead, it’s all owned by the government, and la-di-da, it’s free for everyone. I like the idea of everyone owning a slice of the pie, and not renting.

Distributism supports capitalism, but not laissez faire capitalism. A few points from Distributist theory:

1. They are opposed to monopolies and cartels

2. They are strongly opposed to usury (excessive interest rates in the banking industry)

3. They encourage small business ownership for craftsman and other small proprietors, as well as creating larger businesses with cooperative ownership. In those cases, every worker is a part owner of the company, and capitalism is maximized.

4. They want political and economic power decentralized, and not so powerful over the common person. The traditional family unit should be the dominant element of society, not the State, and not giant businesses.

5. There is a Christian focus to this economic theory, and it emanates largely from both Catholic and Protestant Christian teachings. Every issue, especially economics, is viewed from the perspective of Christian teachings.

6. Less people will be compensated via traditional wage labor, because most people will either own businesses, or they will become part owners of a work cooperative. Wage labor is mostly for younger workers starting off.

7. A Guild system is preferable to labor unions, as the guild system is not based on class struggle. A labor union is inherently and by design based on class struggle, with the ultimate goal being civil strife leading to socialism, and then to communism.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild

8. Banking reforms include financial cooperatives and credit unions

9. Support for Subsidiarity. That is a theory which holds that no larger unit (social, economic, or government), should perform a function that can be can be performed by a smaller unit. Most people will immediately think of government social services, but subsidiarity actually applies to the decentralization of everything. This allows the family to emerge as the primary element of society. Government, big business owners, and secret societies should not be so powerful.


The vast majority of adherents of Distributism are strongly Christian, and they are conservative on social matters, esp. with regard to the central concept that a family unit entails one male and one female, and any associated children or elderly being cared for. I’m not sure what their position is on civil unions for same sex couples, which I feel are necessary for practical reasons such as inheritance and the division of assets upon termination of the civil union. However, there should be no “equality” with marriage. Civil unions must at all times be considered a lesser contract to marriage, even from the perspective of secular government.

Those following Distributism object to the widening separation of church and State, the trend towards Atheism among artists and entertainers, and the increasing power of government agencies over civil liberties.

Here’s more on Distributism.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

There is a third-party Christian movement in America that supports Distributism. This is the American Solidarity Party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Solidarity_Party

I registered onto their email list, but I have received no emails. Evidently, they are very small and dis-organized. Their chosen candidates for President and Vice-President in 2020 have never met. My initial review of their website shows that it needs a lot of work. Some issues and platforms are clearly “spliced in” to attract certain interest groups, and it’s been done in an incomplete way that shows the issues were spliced in. That’s a bit patronizing, and people can see through it. I make a far better case on my own home page for those same issues, and they are core to my thinking, not spliced in to serve anyone.

They are light years behind me in making a case that immigrants and minorities should be praised for their commitment to Faith and Family values, and to entrepreneurism, and brought into the conservative fold.

The American Solidarity Party is under-educated about the plight of those renting, and how lack of adequate attention to renter’s issues is pushing millions of tenants towards Socialism, class warfare thinking, and anti-Semitism. I could theoretically educate the Distributists on these matters, but I don’t have an audience with them.

Another likely issue with the American Solidarity Party is this is another group not concerned about the ability of a person to pay child support. But they want to make divorce more difficult. All that will accomplish is a rise in the murder and suicide rates. It doesn’t take a lot of pondering to realize that is not exactly a Christian alternative.

And most importantly, the basic problem with Third Parties is it’s hard to gain critical mass. I wouldn’t consider supporting a Third Party with less than 5% voter support. However, that is a threshold reached several times in recent decades.

The American Solidarity Party deserves to be watched, to see if it develops as a centrist Christian alternative to the two main political parties. To have a centrist Christian Party is some kind of political holy grail. It would unite people of all races and ethnicities in America, and force the big Parties to be more moderate. The ferocious partisanship of modern times would come to an end.

At the current time, I am far more interested in Distributism as an economic theory. There are other groups promoting it too. I will keep my readers up to date as I learn more about Distributism. For those wondering, the pelican is the symbol of Christian charity.

For more information, and to review all of our blog postings, see www.thewelcomemovement.com   



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It’s Columbus Day, and time again for the annual tradition of historical revisionists and haters of Christianity to bash Christopher Columbus. I want none of it, and I couldn’t care less if he was Spanish, Italian, or Jewish. The case in favor of Christopher Columbus is the case for Western Civilization. If you believe that the progress of the world is being guided by the growth and maturation of Western Civilization and the spread of Christianity, then Columbus Day should be celebrated. If you believe that some other value regime is better for the world, chances are you want to vilify the man. That’s how the battle lines are drawn. History is ugly, plain and simple. It’s full of invasions, wars, slavery, oppression, famine, and misery. That didn’t start with Columbus, or with The Crusades. Not even with the Muslims that plundered and invaded the Mediterranean and southern Europe for hundreds of years, leading to the counterassault known as the Crusades in the Middle East, and as the Reconquista in Spain and Portugal. No, the evils of the world go back thousands of years, far before the founding of Christianity and Western Civilization. The glass of history isn’t half empty, it is half full. What really matters is the advances that we have today in engineering and technology, in medicine, in computers and electronics, in the arts and sciences, and in economics, literature, government, and democracy. These advances have occurred because Western Civilization and the social structure of Christian society allowed these advances to occur. Yes, there were bumps in the road like what happened to that Copernicus guy, but progress still occurred. Despite our flaws and despite all of the inequalities and injustices remaining, humanity and civilization has greatly advanced under the Christian Western system. Thank you Jesus, and thank you Columbus. This is our history, and what matters most is where we have arrived. I openly acknowledge that much work remains to be done. If I thought we were done with the need for advances, my Welcome Movement website and blog would not have been created. I would be singing the praises of Donald Trump instead of advocating that he become more Christian, more humble before God, and less crass and domineering. Christopher Columbus is important and must be honored because he’s at the very center of the progress of Western Civilization. It doesn’t matter that other explorers and pioneers set foot in North America long before Columbus. Let me explain. Yes, the Chinese visited our West Coast, and mapped it out. They referred to America as “Fusang”. The Japanese were here as well. The ancient Minoans from Crete had massive copper mines in Upper Michigan and Minnesota. The largest mine on Isle Royale in Lake Superior is called “Minong” by the Native Americans, obviously a reference to Minoan, as is the place name of Minnesota. I wonder what Sota means in ancient Minoan? I’ll put my money on cold or snow. The ancient Egyptians were here, and the Carthaginians. Maya or Maya Rata is an ancient region of Sri Lanka as well as the name of a modern province in that country, with architecture identical to that of the Mayan civilization in Mexico, and dating to the same time period. Many words, and some cultural practices and beliefs are the same in both regions, and their calendars are in synch. To this day, South Asian DNA remains a significant component in the Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala. Here’s one of many sources on this connection https://thegr8wall.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/similarities-between-the-hindu-the-maya-culture/ There are hundreds of Muslim place names in America, from Allamunchy in New Jersey to Tallahassee in Florida. There are Medina’s and Mecca’s in multiple states, and even American towns with exact place names for small towns in Turkey. Almost all of them have the same story, which is “the place name was Native American in origin.” Native Americans in the Eastern United States and the maritime provinces of Canada fear taking ancestry DNA tests, and they bitterly resent the findings showing substantial DNA from the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. They call it the curse of the Middle Eastern DNA. Rather than accept these DNA results at face value, modern geneticists have come up with a twisted theory called The Founder Effect to try and justify the findings. It’s a really bad case of science starting with a conclusion and working backwards to find the evidence to support it. I’d love to see Elizabeth Warren’s full DNA results. No doubt it shows substantial Middle Eastern DNA, and that may be why her test result showed almost no “Native American” DNA, to her great embarrassment. The actual origin of Native Americans, especially the Creek and Cherokee, is a matter of major discussion all over the internet. https://accessgenealogy.com/native/cherokee-dna.htm and https://www.woowoomedia.com/dna-scientists-claim-that-cherokees-are-from-the-middle-east/ Yes, the Muslims were here in America in huge numbers. The famous Piri Reis map was compiled in 1513 by an Ottoman Empire admiral using older source maps that no longer exist. The Piri Reis map shows amazing detail of places not yet reached by European explorers as of 1513. Columbus records in his log encountering a wooden sailing ship on the coast of Jamaica, with occupants in colorful clothing. He could not discern their place of origin, but the Native Americans had no ships. There were Black settlements in Nicaragua and Costa Rica prior to the slave trade, and likely founded by Muslim traders from Senegal and Guinea. They left gold artifacts with an unusual alloy mix identical to gold produced in Guinea, West Africa, and found nowhere else in the world. Various European groups such as the Vikings, the Basque, the Welsh, the Irish, and the Templars were likely in America as well. Their contact may have been more fleeting, but they also left various artifacts. The explorer Giovanni Verrazano was the first modern European to visit what is now Newport, Rhode Island. His log and his map note a stone tower which is still standing and shrouded in controversy. It’s clearly of European architecture, and it has been repaired and repointed so many times that nobody knows for sure who first built it, or when. Carbon dating of mortar can only prove when a repointing occurred, not when the stones were lain. Here’s one of hundreds of theories on the tower. http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/did-giovanni-verrazano-visit-the-newport-tower Doesn’t all of this make the case that Columbus was not so important? Not at all, just read on. What was the result of all those settlements and civilizations from all those great peoples from all of those places? What came of them? What lasting advances were made? How was the world made a better place? The answer is nothing. Nothing at all. The Muslims in particular were all over North America and left so many place names, but the physical and cultural contact was largely lost at least 200 years before Columbus, and the religion was extinct in the West by the time the Europeans colonists arrived. The contact that really mattered was the contact made by Columbus in the name of Kingdom of Spain. And that contact came only months after the last Muslim forces in Spain surrendered, and the Reconquista was complete. The knowledge of Columbus’s voyage swept Europe, and led to the major European powers exploring and settling the America’s. A vast exchange of plants and animals occurred called The Columbian Exchange. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange It is considered an epic event in world history. The connection of the Old and New worlds had a profound impact on all of humanity. Europe accumulated massive wealth and power, and overpopulated from the new calorie-rich food supplies, especially corn and potatoes, that were imported and grown all over Europe. Much of that overpopulation was sent to other parts of the world as conquerors and immigrants. There was nothing like the Columbian Exchange resulting from any of the earlier civilizations that visited America. Cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses didn’t make it to the New World with the Minoans, Mayans, Muslims, or any other Pre-Columbian group. Turkeys, corn, potatoes, tobacco, and tomatoes didn’t arrive in Europe either. There was no massive collapse of the Native American population from disease, and the migrants from the Old World in those past eras eventually mixed with the Natives and lost their cultural identities. The next question is, was the Columbian Exchange a good thing? Would the world have been a better place, or advanced quicker, without this exchange. The answer is probably No. Human civilization had several opportunities for civilization to greatly advance in the past, and become “modern”. Ancient Egypt was very advanced in many regards, and even today with our best modern technology, we could not build the great pyramids. There are depictions in Egyptian art of devices that look like flying machines and even lightbulbs. Another drawing shows a baby mammoth, perhaps from Labrador? Airplanes may have flown the skies of ancient India as well. The Muslim World was very advanced around the year 1000. They also experimented with electricity and had batteries. They made spectacular advances in science and mathematics, and they founded the world’s first true universities. Timbuktu in Mali had a university before any in the Christian world. The ancient Chinese used natural gas for lighting and heating, and possibly manufacturing. They had thousands of miles of natural gas pipelines made out of bamboo. Their naval armada sailed all around the Indian Ocean, and contained huge wooden ships called junks that were far larger than those of any European power. Well, what became of these civilizations and their advances? The answer is about the same as what became of the explorers and settlers that reached America before Columbus. That answer is very little. Those civilizations reached their glory days, and then faded. That’s why they deserve to be little more than historical footnotes. It’s the history of the Christian West that really counted. What succeeded was the work of Columbus, and all the advances in Europe that happened only because the European powers extracted so much wealth from the New World, and benefitted from trade. In the 1700’s something happened in England and the American colonies that never happened any time in the history of the world. We experienced the Industrial Revolution. All of the world has benefitted. The Industrial Revolution happened within the context of Christianity and Christian civilization. It didn’t happen in ancient Egypt, Baghdad, or China. There is something about our Western value system, our views, and our perspective on the world that lends itself to social and economic development, and to democracies replacing monarchies. A key series of events occurred. First, the Renaissance led to the invention of the printing press in Germany by Johannes Guttenberg. Second, the mass printing of The Bible made the Protestant reformation inevitable. Third, the Protestant reformation set the stage for capitalism, the industrial revolution, and the rise of democracy. Thus, all of our great advances are rooted in our Christian value system, and in the rise of modern Christianity. I certainly don’t bash the Catholics, but we’d probably still be sailing in wooden ships with cannons, and living in monarchies, if Martin Luther didn’t post his 95 theses. Other religions and other value systems don’t generate societies as successful as that of the Christian West. Christopher Columbus and his voyages were a key step in the entire development of Western Civilization, and led to the rise of Europe. That’s not only our history, it’s the most relevant history of the world. Ours is the system and the culture that has conquered the world in so many ways, not just militarily. All major aspects of society from religion and democracy to education, medicine, science, engineering, technology, and the arts has largely derived from that of Western Christian civilization. Thank you, Christopher Columbus. You created our world. Yes, you deserve to be celebrated, warts and all. If some great revolution covering all aspects of society had happened in Japan, Nigeria, or Iran instead of in Europe, surely the world’s history, technology, and culture would be focused on their past instead. Our homes and businesses, and our public infrastructure, would be modeled after some other part of the world. But no, that didn’t happen. We don’t have natural gas pipelines made out of bamboo, do we? Modern western cities, even places like Dubai, Seoul, Tokyo, Brazilia, and Nairobi, don’t look like Jericho. The rest of the world is modeled after us. This is the ultimate legacy of Christopher Columbus. This matters way more than him spreading slavery or being responsible for diseases, oppression, and murder that claimed the lives of the Taino natives on Hispaniola. Equal and greater evils had been happening for thousands of years, and WITHOUT any advance of civilization to show for it. Yes, the glass of history is half full, not half empty. The misery wrought by Columbus has born fruit and created the modern world. 
We know there has been oppression associated with Western Civilization. We know there have been wars, and there will be more. We know there are great injustices still unresolved. We know that our history wasn’t perfect, and the motives of whole nations and empires were selfish and insincere. But we also know that progress occurs in phases. For instance, our Founding Fathers simply could not have established a system of democracy covering women and racial minorities. They just weren’t ready. They were the most progressive and advanced people in power anywhere in the world at the time, but the best they could implement was democracy and equality for all White men. They weren’t ready. Society wasn’t ready. Should we mock and blame them for the great steps that they took, and demand that their names be removed from public buildings? No, that’s just plain ignorant. The Founding Fathers took the first steps. Nobody else took them, did they? No other society in the world was on a path towards the full equality of all men in their society, no less to include women and other racial groups. In time, other people took the necessary further steps, and the social structure of our Christian-based society allowed it to happen. That’s how progress unfolds, that’s how history moves forwards. What about good ole’ Chris? Didn’t he bring misery and oppression wherever he visited. Well, he wasn’t ready to establish a just and fair society either. He was only ready to expand the empire of Spain, and the fortunes of businessmen there. The nations of Europe were ready to advance themselves, and to spread Christianity to other lands. That was about it, at that time. Are the indigenous peoples of the America’s, Africa, and Asia better off as Christians, and for adopting Western Civilization? Absolutely. Not a doubt about it. The Christian value system is the best value system, and the best proof of this claim is the development of the modern world. Thank you, Christopher Columbus. The real reason some people hate Columbus and our Founding Fathers is their desire for historical revisionism not just for Columbus, but for all of history. They want to portray the whole world as groups of people in conflict with other groups, and as exploiting and oppressing other groups. This is their message, this is their venom, and this is their politics. They are an unholy alliance of socialist, anarchists, atheists, and artists. They hate religion, especially Christianity. They want no limits on sexual morality or substance abuse. They are advancing a culture war, and they have largely conquered academia, the media, the fashion and entertainment industries, and the tech sector. Their intellectual development is that of a rebellious teenager. Yet collectively, they have more power than our political leaders, and they have the full determination to use it to dominate our society. That’s what Columbus bashing is all about, and it’s time for everyone to choose sides on this issue. It’s not about analyzing history and respecting the progress that humanity has made. Nor is it about building on that progress, and planning the next steps. Nope, Columbus bashing is all about spreading hate and political mischief, and upending our entire society. And the tip of the pitchfork is pointing squarely at the neck of Christopher Columbus. Our best defense is to educate the public on the role of Christopher Columbus in the advancement of Western Civilization. I have no problem with cities and towns having an Indigenous People’s Day. There’s about 350 days not designated as any kind of holiday in this country. Pick one of them. The second Monday in October is already taken. For more information, and to review all of our blog postings, see www.thewelcomemovement.com 

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