distributism 43
From Olive Trees to Overcapacity
A homogeneous global consumer culture flattens its victims. And, perhaps in the same vein, our meanderings around the dying furniture capital of Yecla turned up nothing: virtually everything on display…
Distributism and Global Warming
Not a Single Cube of Ice In November of 2008, the cargo ship Camilla Desgagnés delivered supplies to the Arctic village of Kugluctuk. It did so by traversing the Northwest…
Burn the Vineyard
I have just returned from one of the most remarkable journeys of my life, a ten day tour of Romania to promote an anthology of distributist and localist essays, Economic…
Building the Ownership Society
This is, at last, the last chapter of my new book, Equity and Equilibrium: The Political Economy of Distributism. I post it here because so many questions have arisen on…
Closing the Circle: An Economy of Values, and Where to Look for It
It is no surprise that many of us connected with FPR welcomed the release in mid July of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. As John Médaille and…
“Servile World: How ‘The Big Business Government,’ ‘The Loathsome Thing Called Social Service,’ and Other Distrubutist Nightmares All Came True
In response to my posting on "'A Distributist View of the Global Economic Crisis': A Report," several people asked for more specifics regarding the popssible shape of a contemporary Distributist…
The Economics of Distributism V: The Practice of Distributism
Irving, TX. Somewhere, the Sage hath said, Philosophy is easy; plumbing is hard. The Sage is correct; we should be suspicious of systems that exist only in the mind, but…
The Need for Autarchy
Devon, PA. Thanks in part to the series of fine essays John Médaille has provided us during the last several weeks, the implicit economic vocabulary on the Front Porch has…
The Economics of Distributism IV: Property and the Just Wage
Dallas, TX. In the last installment, we maintained that the only means to economic equilibrium was the just wage: unless each person gets a fair proportion of the wealth he…
The Economics of Distributism III: Equity and Equilibrium
What Does an Economy Do? If what we said in the last installment is correct, then the first task of any humane science is to determine what its purpose is.…
The Economics of Distributism II: Political Economy as a Science
Science, Normative and Positive Some wag somewhere has remarked that economists suffer from “physics envy.” One could certainly make that charge against W. S. Jevons (1835-1882), one of the founders…
The Economics of Distributism Part 1: Does Capitalism Work?
Property in the hands of labor is freedom. Labor in the hands of property is slavery. --Dmitri Kleiner From the earliest days of Distributism, distributists have exhibited a certain disinterest…
The Wise Old Œconomist
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Before it became a science of supply and demand and the circulation of commodities, economics was originally understood as the wisdom of household management. The Greek word…
No Going Back…So Where Are We Going?
The idealism of the paleoconservative cause is simply too burdened by the idealism of its vision. Politics is not a time machine and we are not ever going to travel…
Crunchy Pope, Part 1: Body, Earth and Cosmos
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Pope Benedict has recently gained a bit of credit with world media for emphasizing the urgency of addressing the environmental devastation we have wrought. This (combined with…
Douthat to the Times
Phoenix, Arizona. Catapulted by his inclusion on the exclusive FPR blogroll, Ross Douthat has been tabbed as a new opinion columnist for the New York Times. This is good news.…
The Human Meaning of Property
MT. AIRY, PHILADELPHIA. Before I say something rather abstract about concrete things, a few personal words about what (and who) lies behind these thoughts may be in order. The photo…
Agrarians Rejoice!
We do live in a remarkable age. The last time agrarianism and distributism were taken seriously in America was during the 1930s. The economic crisis of that decade forced people to…
What our Hands Have Wrought
RINGOES, NJ. In the fall of 2008, Americans were confronted with frightening news. The financial world was, the experts warned, teetering on the brink of disaster. Politicians from both parties…
