← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · PaleoBear
Thread ID: 20078 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2005-09-08
2005-09-08 01:22 | User Profile
As I watched the coverage of the New Orleans catastrophe and subsequent loot-fest, reality bitch-slapped me out of my comfortable armchair philosophizing. The first realization is that the 2nd Amendment gun nuts are right. The second is that such things as distributism are no longer feasible in modern societies because we don't have populations like those in the days of Belloc and Chesterton. Certainly if America looked like early 20th-century London I might still hold that distributism is the preferable form of economic organization. But in a society that looks increasingly like Mad Maxx rather than Brideshead Revisited, perhaps the libertarian types (CATO, Mises, et al.) are on to something?
2005-09-08 02:00 | User Profile
What is incompatible between 2nd amendment rights and distributism?
2005-09-09 00:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]What is incompatible between 2nd amendment rights and distributism?[/QUOTE] Nothing. I said that distributism is not feasible in a society that is heterogeneous with a large underclass that must be supported by the larger population. Furthermore, as we so in NOLA, a good percentage of this underclass is antithetical to a collectively organized economy. With all due respect to Chesterton and Belloc, I'd bet that if the Thames flooded London and thousands drowned, a good number of Londoners wouldn't be raping, murdering, looting, robbing, et al. Distributism (and realistic socialism for that matter) requires a homogeneous, European Christian population. If not, then these "others" become either parasites or leeches on the society/economy.
2005-09-09 01:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=PaleoBear]Nothing. I said that distributism is not feasible in a society that is heterogeneous with a large underclass that must be supported by the larger population. Furthermore, as we so in NOLA, a good percentage of this underclass is antithetical to a collectively organized economy. With all due respect to Chesterton and Belloc, I'd bet that if the Thames flooded London and thousands drowned, a good number of Londoners wouldn't be raping, murdering, looting, robbing, et al. Distributism (and realistic socialism for that matter) requires a homogeneous, European Christian population. If not, then these "others" become either parasites or leeches on the society/economy.[/QUOTE] My mistake; I misunderstood your post. As regarding a huge, parasitic underclass being antithetical to a distributist society, I agree. However, I would add that they are antithetical to a well-functioning society organized around any scheme one could name, so I don't hold that to be a particular failing of distributism.
2005-09-09 05:23 | User Profile
I do not think Distributism was ever intended for anything other than a homogeneous, European Christian population.