HR 2749 a terrible threat to distributist enterprise

HR 2749 -- the "Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009" is a terrible threat to distributist enterprises in food and agriculture. Playing on concerns regarding food safety and bio-terrorism, the bill grants unprecedented and drastic new powers to the FDA to regulate the production, distribution, and harvesting of vegetable crops. It imposes new fees and record-keeping requirements on farmers.

The bill was brought up on special rules on Wed July 29th, which allowed no debate and no amendments, and required a 2/3 majority to pass. It fell 6 votes short. The Rules Committee made some minor cosmetic changes, and is bringing it up for consideration again today, with only one hour of debate allowed and no amendments. This is a profoundly undemocratic method of enacting legislation. The politicians responsible for this are presently engaged in a disinformation campaign claiming that the bills problems relating to small farmers and organic agriculture have been fixed, but this is simply not true. See my Analysis of Rep. Dingell's Dear Colleague Letter in Support of HR 2749 , for the truth about this legisltion.

Please contact your representative in the US House today. You can get contact info at http://www.house.gov , simply enter your zip code in the form in the upper left corner of the page. Contact friends and family who live in other congressional districts. If the bill passes today, the battle moves to the Senate, so contact your US Senator. You may want to print and fax my analysis of Dingell's letter, since many congresspeople may be misled by his disinformation.

Once more to the barricades, folks. I need a yellow flag with a cabbage on it and the phrase "Don't tread on me."

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Exceptional Ignorance... of Distributism.

It was but only a short time ago that I stumbled upon a Catholic blog that happened to be discussing the most recent papal encyclical. Most all the gang was there. Libertarians! Neocons! Distributists! Oh, my! Each and every one of them making their claims and placing their stakes in the war-torn wastelands of public discourse typically surrounding the discussion of Catholic Social Teaching. Very little productivity, but plenty of huff-puffery.

For most of the readers here, nothing I have described is all that peculiar. In fact, it is relatively run-of-the-mill. What made this particular battle significant, though, was a question asked by very popular Catholic who presides over a rather popular organization that published a not-so popular book written by an undeservingly popular Catholic attempting to put a halt to the ever-increasing popularity of distributism. Then again, it wasn't so much the question as it was the fact that it was asked by this particular fellow, and with what he insists to be the most sincere of motives.

The question, in sum, was how distributists believe their view of the State and the political economy differs from that advocated by adherents to National Socialism.

Let's ignore for a moment that this question has been answered by a myriad of distributist thinkers much brighter than me. Let's also brush aside the fact that a handful of these answers are readily accessible to anyone willing to take a moment utilizing a search engine. Instead, let us focus our attention on the fact that this man, who has dedicated so much time, effort, and money into convincing Catholics (and non-Catholics) to move "beyond distributism" lacks what could in all fairness be consider a functional literacy of distributism.

To deem this as merely unfortunate would be an understatement. What it does for us, though, is reveal the heart and soul of what may be the biggest problem distributists have yet to overcome: general ignorance. Think for a moment. If this particular theologian/economist is ignorant of what differentiates distributists from fascists and socialists, then where does that leave the mass of people unfamiliar with the ins-and-outs of all things CST? Not fearing redundancy, to deem this as merely unfortunate would be an understatement.

So what may be done? Plenty. In fact, plenty is already being done. Distributism has made great strides in recent years. It has found itself being discussed on blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, talk radio, podcasts, as well as in books, magazines and newspapers. Distributist apologists have also found a place at the table of public debate along with the socialists and neoconservatives who have for so long dominated the CST scene. Furthermore, for all the chatter pertaining to the so-called "non-relevance" of distributism, enemies of the school of thought have dedicated decent sums of time and money combating it. They may be of the type that spends gobs of energy beating dead horses, but I'm not of the type that would believe such things.

Having said this leads me to conclude that it's not so much the lack of material that has led to this general ignorance (though an ever-increasing amount of material wouldn't hurt) as it is the fact that most distributists are distributists in the abstract. In other words, we talk the talk, but very few walk the walk.

None of this is meant to be demeaning, as I am the guiltiest of the guilty on this count. Instead, this is meant to be a simple reminder of a simple maxim: actions speak louder than words.

Take the Amish for example. I would bet that most of us have read very little about the Amish. Few delve into studies concerning their history, theology, philosophy, and traditions. But most of us are well aware of their being thoroughly agrarian and, giving Arthur Penty a run for his money, extraordinarily skeptical of machinery. Most of us have seen their clothing, their buggies, their working on farms or on houses, and many of us may even have some of their woodwork in our homes. The point here, though, is that while we may be largely ignorant of the Amish life, our seeing them put their beliefs into practice (and in such an open and consistent manner) gives us a decent idea as to who they are, where they are, what they believe, and why they do what they do. Better yet, for those who have bought food from their stands or furniture from their shops, we see the standard of excellence they strive to achieve.

In final analysis, it would do us well to have more than Madragon to talk about. How wonderful would it be to talk of the achievements and lifestyle of distributists and Catholic Worker communities nationwide? More importantly, what impact would seeing such achievements and communities have on the public? At bare minimum, it may provide an image that would give them some degree of functional literacy regarding distributism. Then maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have so many well-studied men asking such elementary questions concerning who we are and what we believe. That, in and of itself, may be worth the effort.

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The Red Tories and the Civic State

It has been sometime since I have called myself a “conservative.” It is not that any of my opinions have changed, but rather that conservatism forgot just what is was trying to conserve. Increasingly, it became, under Reagan and the Bushes, “neo-conservatism,” and with that philosophy I have only two quarrels: it isn't new and it isn't conservative. Or rather, what is “new” about it is the attempt to pass off Enlightenment Liberalism as something worth conserving. As one of neo-conservatism's founders, Michael Novak, noted, “neo-liberalism” would be a more apt description.

In practice, neo-conservatism was little more than state-supported, monopolistic capitalism with a veneer of “family values” rhetoric. Never mind that the position of the family actually deteriorated in the last 30 years, both culturally and economically. It wasn't necessary to actually deliver on any promises to the family, since the Democratic alternative of support for abortion and homosexual “marriage” ruled out that path. The end result of such “conservatism” was bloated government complete with debts we cannot pay, obligations we cannot meet, wars we cannot win, and an economy that cannot work.

One had to be even more skeptical of the conservatives when they got “compassionate.” The single program initiative of this “compassion” was the further expansion of the Department of Education, which is a department in search of a job. The job it choose for itself was to impose unfunded mandates on the states under the rubric of “no child left behind.” The department grew with its mandates, even as actual education shrank.

Therefore, I can be excused if I was somewhat skeptical when hearing of the “progressive conservatives” of England. The name sounded a little bit too much like “compassionate conservatism,” just another attempt to dress up a shabby liberalism in the borrowed finery of the conservatives. Further, the English situation struck me as even worse then the American one, with Thatcherism even more destructive of true conservatism than was Reaganism.

But a few weeks ago in Nottingham I got to meet Phillip Blond, one of the “Red Tories” and a founder of the progressive conservative movement. His address was actually about Distributism, and it was backed up with facts and figures in a way that most Distributist presentations aren't, alas. Perhaps I was wrong, and there was more to the Progressives than a little political cross-dressing. Upon returning to the States, I looked up his speech that is considered a founding document of this movement, The Civic State. What I found is one of the most remarkable short political speeches that I have read in decades.

In Blond's analysis of the last 30 years, both the Conservative and Labour parties have tended towards the same end: bloated monopolistic capitalism and a bloated welfare state. Thatcher established a “Market fundamentalism [that] abandoned the fundamentals of the market.” Meanwhile Labour entered into a “Faustian bargain” with monopolistic capitalism which:

[E]nsures a permanent ascendancy of the middle class over the working class and creates an antagonistic feudal structure—where any genuine extension of power and ownership to the poor is resisted by the liberal middle classes who fear mostly for their own status and their sole assumed inherited right to social mobility. (Just look at British schooling)

Blond argues that modern conservatism should reject both alternatives (which turn out to be the same) and replace the market state and the welfare state with the Civic State, which:

[A]ims to blend the benefits of welfare and the market mechanism not by favouring one or the other, but by exceeding both. The Conservative's new civic settlement privileges the associative above the alienated, the responsible over the self-serving and (yes I know this is shocking) the communal over the individual.

This civic state has three main tasks in the current crises: The re-moralization of the markets, the re-localization of the economy, and the re-capitalization of the poor. As the the first, it is a timely project since it is the major theme of Pope Benedict's Caritas in Veritate. Both men call for markets which serve the public good rather than just private interests. As Blond puts it, the market must have a purpose:

For Conservatives it must be the extension of wealth, assets and the benefits of ecological and social well being to all. Freedom from the monopoly dominance of state bureaucracy and market power would allow independence for the formation of community and autonomy and a rebalancing of the demands of work, family and childcare.

As for re-localization of the economy, Blond notes that the Blair/Brown worship of monopolies “produced the paradox of competition without competitors,” favoring the big-box stores over local production and retailing. Blond (incorrectly, I believe) attributes this dominance to “economies” of scale, when in fact it is attributable to government subsidies. The Wal-Mart distribution model, for example, would collapse if their were weight/distance tolls on the so-called “freeways.” But in any case, it is true, as Blond says, that,

Small and medium businesses are how millions of ordinary people own and secure the wealth for themselves and their families. The present market dispossess them and re-categorizes them as permanent members of the low-waged shop serving, rather than shop owning, class.

Of all the tasks, the re-capitalization of the poor is the most pressing from the distributist point of view. Blond notes that in England in 1976, the bottom half of the population owned just 12% of the nation's liquid wealth, but by 2003 that number had dropped to just 1%. In the same period, the share enjoyed by the top 10% rose from 51% to 71%. Clearly, the bottom half of the population has been dispossessed even of the share it had. In the same period, the median wage has flat-lined. Such concentration of wealth is not only inconsistent with a free-market economy, it is economically unsustainable. Markets depend (for those who have not forgotten economics 101) on a broad base of solvent consumers and a wide distribution of productive capacity.

Blond concludes by noting that this conservatism “represents a deep and profound critique of the pre-existing extremes and a restoration of something close to the real heart of Britain: an organic conservatism that cares for all.”

I cannot see any “red” in Red Toryism, and much that is true conservatism. It remains to be seen whether such a conservatism gains any traction with the Tories. David Cameron, the party leader, has endorsed the movement, more or less. But “party leader” is an amazingly pliable profession; we will have to see how it all plays out. Nevertheless, if there is any chance of this program regaining control of the conservative movement, then it may be safe to call oneself a conservative again.

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An International Mondragon Studies Association

Mondragon’s significance in the context of the global economic meltdown is a timely reminder of the pressing need for an International Mondragon Studies Association. Invaluable as are the innumerable books and journal articles that have been devoted to Mondragon, they are no substitute for a permanent forum for on-going exchange of information and opinion between external students of the co-operatives and the practitioners within them, such as an Association would provide. It would also function as a central repository within which works about Mondragon could be brought together and made readily accessible. Links could be developed between the Association and co-operatives, and thereby enable each to more readily access the audience of the other.

None of this is new. An International Mondragon Studies Association would do no more than build on foundations established by earlier studies, such as those reported by the late William Foote Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte in their magisterial ‘Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Co-operative Complex’ and by Davydd. J. Greenwood and Jose Luis Gonzalez in ‘Industrial Democracy as Process: Participatory Action Research in the Fagor Co-Operative Group’.

Reflecting on the Fagor study in 1992, Greenwood regretted that, while the validity of its analysis had stood the test of time, ‘The PAR team did not develop an effective enough internal dissemination strategy for the results and methods of our work. … Managers, who were participants in the PAR work and had read and accepted our core notions, did not find it obvious how to translate our results into concrete management actions’.

A further conclusion might well have been that a key component of such a dissemination strategy would have to have been for both the Fagor research and subsequent studies by Otalora’s Sociological Research Unit to be subsumed in a wider on-going conversation between students of the co-operatives outside and within them. In this way new questions could constantly be raised, new information brought forward, new insights offered and new hypotheses explored. Most of all, measures could be taken to ensure that Mondragon is exposed on a continuing basis to worldwide practitioner experience and scholarly research and reflection, on the challenges of workplace participation, democratisation and inclusion, which its experiences so strikingly exemplify.

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Jobs of Our Own: A New Book on Distributism

Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society, Alternatives to the Market and the State Race Mathews. New foreword by Thomas Storck. Distributist Review Press, 2009, $22.95. Order now.

You read the Distributist Review. Now you can read the Distributist Review Press. From our new press comes a major history of the distributist movement, a book which, up to now, has only appeared overseas: Jobs of Our Own, by Race Mathews.

A history of distributism is often a short history of a few distributists: Belloc, Chesterton(s), and perhaps a McNabb, a Penty, and other assorted English scribblers. Between the failure of Ditchling and the trauma of World War II, the general impression is that distributism has never actually happened in real life.

Wrong. Mathews shows exactly how distributism has happened and is happening, right in the midst of the real economy.

In Part I, British Distributism, we get an overview of how distributism began. Mathews doesn't begin with the Chesterbelloc, but earlier, with the socialist movements in England which preceded distributism, so we can better understand the distributist reaction.

The treatment of Belloc and the Chesterton brothers goes beyond the major works and draws heavily on lesser-known writings, particularly in the various incarnations of the newspaper which became G.K.'s Weekly. Mathews also doesn't hesitate to examine the question of their anti-Semitism, which even today tarnishes distributist ideas through an illogical guilt by association.

But although Part I will be of interest even to those well-versed in distributist history, it's in Part II, Distributist Reborn, where the action really begins. If you've ever heard of the Antigonish movement—but, like me, barely recognize the word—or if you keep meaning to find out about that mysterious Mondragon corporation, wait no longer.

Mathews focuses on Antigonish and Mondragon as two major attempts to put the ideas of distributism into practice. Although he had other examples to choose from, these two movements illustrate his central thesis: distributism only works when people have jobs (that is, work) of their own.

In the early 20th century, Antigonish was a movement of consumer co-operatives in Nova Scotia which flourished for a time, but ultimately failed. Although Mathews finds much to praise in their work (and plenty of consumer co-ops flourish today), he uses Antigonish to illustrate how the basic agency dilemma will weaken any co-operative that operates only on the consumer level. You may have a food co-op, but if you hire outside managers to run it, there's nothing particularly co-operative about their incentives. They may as well be working at the mall.

In contrast, Mondragon is a worker co-operative. This co-operative (really a co-operative of co-operatives) is altogether the seventh largest corporation in Spain. Big business? Hardly. Mathews examines the intricate mechanisms by which a worker in a Mondragon factory has a real voice in how his shop is run, a real stake in the success of the whole enterprise, and a real safety net for keeping at work, not getting welfare payments.

As with his treatment of the early distributist heroes, Mathews doesn't hesitate to acknowledge the shortcomings he finds, and the compromises Mondragon has made in recent years. But, as with those heroes, the signifance of what Mondragon has achieved and will achieve is far more striking.

Personally, I found myself amazed at this evolved distributism. Here at last is the answer to cliché that distributism is a sweet idea, but how would you make a jet? Ask NASA, which hired a Mondragon co-operative, Ikerlan, to work on the Columbia space shuttle.

On the other hand, long-time distributists may think that deep down, Mondragon must be simply another corporation, and that the only real distributist is a sole proprietor. Jobs of Our Own offers a new perspective; actually, an old perspective, since G. K. Chesterton stated clearly, in Outline of Sanity and elsewhere, that some necessary projects would always be beyond the scope of the independent yeoman. As far as I know, Chesterton and Belloc never worked out the details of how distributists could co-operate in a large industrial enterprise. But Mondragon, and co-operatives like it, are doing just that.

Order Jobs of Our Own.

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Cleanup in Pew 16

I have just returned from two weeks in England, were I was more or less out of touch with the internet. The occasion was a conference at the University of Nottingham on “Christian Social Teaching and the Money Power,” which Chris and I extended into a tour of York, Edinburgh, and Manchester. The conference was great, and made even more relevant by the release of Caritas in Veritate, more of which in a moment. York was fantastic, and the Yorkminster Cathedral (the largest Gothic cathedral north of the Alps) was tremendous.

Edinburgh calls to mind Mark Twain's remark that “The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer in San Francisco.” 51 degrees really isn't winter, but with the rain and wind it was a pretty good imitation for July. Nevertheless, the town is beautiful, and well worth the trip. We also visited Rosslyn Chapel, which was made famous by the “Da Vinci” code films. The guide was rather contemptuous of the movie, as he should be, but the publicity has generated funds for the restoration of the chapel, which is good. The chapel is a jewel, a Gothic cathedral in miniature. All the things which are grand but distant at Yorkminster are close and personal at Rosslyn. The chapel was barely saved from destruction during the Reformation, although later Cromwell did stable his horses there.

Speaking of the destruction of the Reformation, we also visited the ruins of St. Mary's abbey in York, which was a magnificent structure, and its ruins give one some idea of the senseless and pointless destruction and violence of the English Reformation. One gets the same feeling of fury and sadness looking at the ruins of St. Augustine's abbey in Canterbury. Stripped to its foundations and some of the undercroft, one does get a real sense of the scale of these building projects, the faith which raised them, and the sheer hatred and greed that destroyed them.

Still, the destruction of a building is one thing; the destruction of a teaching is quite another. On any given teaching, there are always interpretive disputes, and good men can come to opposite conclusions. One need not always question the good will of those who hold opposing interpretations, but we can question whether an interpretation is being subjected to some other agenda. One recalls the “Pope Endorses Capitalism” headline in the Wall Street Journal after the publication of Centesimus Annus. This was a rather strange interpretation of an encyclical that denounced the “the human inadequacies of capitalism and the resulting domination of things over people (33)” and stated that “it is unacceptable to say that the defeat of so-called "Real Socialism" leaves capitalism as the only model of economic organization (35).” Nevertheless, this interpretation of the encyclical dominated the public discussion, if not the academic and theological one. The Wall Street Journal's headline was backed by neoconservative pundits such as Michael Novak and George Weigel. For the neocon, the question was not “Capitalism, yes or no?,” but “Capitalism, how much or how little.” And the only real debate they permitted was whether any concessions ought to be made to social justice and the common good. In practice, they conceded very little to either, and read the encyclical as an endorsement of capitalism, which it manifestly was not. This view, alas, dominated the public interpretation, and the effect of the encyclical was thereby muted in America.

Now we have a new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, and a new interpretive battle. This battle will be quite different from the last one. Now there can be no doubt that an encyclical that mentions “justice” 50 times and “redistribution” of wealth eight times posses tremendous difficulties for the neoconservative view. Indeed. George Weigel, who did so much to undermine John Paul's social teaching, has as much as admitted that he will not be able to do the same job of destruction on this Pope. Weigel's initial take in National Review Online poses an elaborate historical fantasy about both this encyclical and its predecessor, Centesimus Annus. Basically, Weigel is claiming that Benedict wrote only small sections of the encyclical and doesn't really believe in the rest, but was forced to sign it by a shadowy (but unnamed) “peace and justice” faction in the Vatican. Weigel names no names and cites no facts, but undoubtedly his next post will claim that proof of this conspiracy is buried in Rossalyn Chapel, right next to the Holy Grail and the Jesus's marriage license to Mary Magdalene.

More of Weigel's fantasies in a moment, but first, the reasons Weigel must resort to such outlandish conspiracy theories. Benedict in this new encyclical has consciously revived the thought of Paul VI, that most reviled of modern popes. Paul wrote, among other things, two highly controversial encyclicals. Populorum Progessio enraged the neocons and Humanae Vitae outraged the liberals. Benedict has combined the thought of both encyclicals into Caritas in Veritate, and the neocons are already expressing their outrage. Benedict proclaims that PP is the Rerum Novarum of our time, and this new encyclical is on its fortieth anniversary, making it the Quadragesimo Anno of our time. Those who are familiar with the history of Catholic social thought will immediately recognize the significance of this, but for those who don't, let me point out that QA introduced the term “social justice” into the Catholic lexicon, a theme which Benedict expands upon at great length. Benedict makes two over-riding points. The first is that any sane economy must be subordinated to justice (your humble blogger is particularly pleased with this point, since it is the basic theme of all my work). Charity is, in truth, intrinsic to economic order. This theme is offensive to neocons, who insist that economics is a science on the order of physics, and no systematic moral considerations can be relevant; morality is completely confined to the realm of individual actions, and not a consideration of economics per se.

The second point follows from the first. Benedict insists that the concern for life, from conception to death, is intrinsic to human development, and therefore to economic development. Those who have little concern for the baby, at whatever stage, will have, for example, little real concern for the environment, whatever they may claim. Taking the two together, Benedict has produced a brilliant examination of the failures of modern capitalism in the light of the teachings of Paul VI. It is carefully worked out in a well-developed thesis and in detail not often seen in encyclicals that deal with topical subjects.

Weigel posits his historical fantasy because he has no other response. He can only encourage Catholics to disregard the Church's teaching by spreading rumors of a Da Vinci Code-type conspiracy which relieves Catholics of the duty they have of taking the encyclical seriously. In other words, Weigel can defend his position only by attacking the pope and the Church. Better he knock down a few abbeys, or stable his horses in the sanctuary, then posit such fantasies (which, Da Vinci-like, he never actually documents) and encourage open dissent.

Cleanup in pew 16. Weigel has read the encyclical and his head has exploded, leaving behind an awful mess. I would not for a moment attack the sincerity of his Catholicism, but I will note that throughout his sad career, he has been more concerned to preserve a rather “liberal” conservatism then to defend the actual Church that claims his nominal adherence. For the rest of us, Catholic and otherwise, we can note with amusement the neocon quandary, but we can read the encyclical for ourselves; we may agree or disagree, without resorting to the subterfuge of a Dan Brown conspiracy theory, no matter how well this might sell. Weigel and Brown have sold their conspiracies in the past, but this time I think they will have greater problems.

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Go Read Caritas in Veritate

Did you ever think you'd read an encyclical that advocated:

• energy efficiency, and the moral duty to reduce energy consumption
• consumer co-ops
• micro-finance
• large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale
• intergenerational justice—in the context of environmental resources
• opening international markets, especially in agriculture

As Benedict shows, these ideas are merely consistent developments (or repetitions) of Catholic social teaching. But he is fearless in applying CST in today's arena.

Nor does he hesitate to dig into our dirty details:

• NGOs peddling contraceptives and involuntary sterilization to poor countries
• the decline in birth rates
• the hoarding of resources, especially water
• human embryos are sacrificed to research
• the poverty of isolation
• abusive tourism
• usury
• the havoc caused by the misuse of finance

There's far more to this encyclical then I can put in any bulleted list. As usual, you'll spot distributive justice (para. 35), obviously a favorite phrase around here, as well as classic principles like subsidiarity and a defense of labor unions.

But you can expect to hear many different spins on this document (including here). So you owe it to yourself to take the time to read the real thing.

Go read Caritas in Veritate.

If you want to print it out, consider this personal reading copy I prepared for myself. It's three columns and only 28 pages (as opposed to the 50 or so my browser quoted me).

Don't miss this!

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The Real Unemployment Numbers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the June unemployment numbers last week, and they were worse than expected. They were certainly worse than what the Obama administration predicted, since they were hoping that the numbers would be dropping by this time. But all that aside, what do the numbers really mean? It all sounds very precise and “scientific,” but from the very beginning of unemployment statistics, in 1878, it was a highly manipulated number. At that time, the United States was once again in a recession and many people were out of work. But Carrol Wright, head of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, didn't believe that there were really that many unemployed. He called the whole thing “industrial hypochondria.” (We have recounted Wright's story at Physics Envy).

In order to prove his point, he conducted a survey that would count only those who, in his opinion, “really wanted to work.” Based on this “intelligent canvas,” he determined that there was really no unemployment problem at all. Wright was rewarded for his politicized survey by being made head of the newly formed Bureau of Labor Statistics and later head of the Census Bureau. But the problems of determining who “wants to work” and who doesn't remain with us. The BLS issues six unemployment numbers, U1 through U6. The lowest is the number of workers unemployed for 15 weeks or more and still looking for work (5.1%), and the highest includes both the discouraged workers and part-time workers who want full-time jobs (16.5%). The commonly quoted number is the U3. All of these numbers involve judgments about who is in and out of the labor force.

But here's another group of numbers, also from the BLS, that give perhaps a better picture:

• Total Employable: 235.655 million

• Total Working: 140.196 million

• Total Idle: 95.459 million

• Percentage Idle to Total Employable: 40.5% (actually not working — not 9.6% unemployment rate!)

• Total Working Full Time: 112.489 million

• Total Working Part Time: 27.707 million.

• Total Not Working Full Time: 123.166 million

• Total Searching for Work (the "Unemployed"): 14.729 million

• Percentage "Unemployed" to Total Idle: 15.4%

Note that only 15% of the idle are counted as “unemployed.” Further, the percentage of those holding full-time jobs comes to only 47% or the total employable. It is quite true that not everybody who is not working wants to work full-time, or even at all. But it is equally true that the 9.6% number understates the problem.

Especially troubling is the “median weeks unemployed,” (17.9) which is much higher than at any time since they began reporting this number in 1967. This means that not only are people getting laid-off, they are not finding new jobs. The broadest measure of unemployment, “U6” (16.5%) is also the highest since they began keeping this statistic in 1994. The highest number before this recession was 11.8%.

All of these percentages appear to be a lot more precise than they are, since they are all dependent on the computation of the total labor force, and that depends on certain judgments about what percentage of the total employable population is actually in the labor force (the “labor participation rate.”) If you look at the numbers from the perspective of the total employable, only 59.4% have jobs, and only 47.7% have full-time jobs.

Peak employment came in November, 2007, at 146.67M. Current employment at $140.2M represents a loss of almost 6.5 million jobs. In the same 19 months, somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 new workers enter the workforce each month, or between 1.9 and 2.8 million new workers. Obviously, the economy did not provide jobs for these workers.

19 months of job losses is a depression level number, and there has been no comparable period of job losses since that time.

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To Twitter or Not to Twitter

This post will most certainly be an odd-ball as it has nothing to do with the political economy, at least not directly. Instead, I wish here to make a suggestion to the contributors of the Review. While it may seem small, and some may deem it unworthy of posting here, I would beg to differ. I believe what I am about to suggest to be of relatively significant importance, especially as we are seeing the distributist movement expand by leaps and bound.

My suggestion, dear friends, is that the contributors consider creating an official Distributist Review Twitter account. Alongside this project would be the creation of personal accounts, both for the contributors and followers who may happen to be interested.

I bring this up for a number of reasons.

First, I am seeing many other think-tanks, online forums, and pundits use this network to their advantage. They are able to update their followers with links to articles, blogs, videos, and tidbits of personal or professional information. The updates are limited in character, so it forces the writer to get straight to the point. It also allows those with short attention spans to get nuggets of info without having to peruse a 10 paragraph blog entry.

Second, Twitter is just another extension of the alternative media envisioned and praised by Belloc. While it may be fragmented and peice-meal, two weaknesses to the Free Press that Belloc was more than willing to grant, it provides people with quick and easy to follow information. And it is formatted in a way that takes into account the fact that most people are selective when it comes to reading material on the internet. Sadly, it also accepts the hard-to-swallow truth that people tend to treat the written word like they do television, expecting fast-paced information at the their fingertips.

Speaking of fingertips, this brings me to my third point: cell phones. People who subscribe to an account may wish to have updates sent to them via text message. This enables electronic written word to be treated much like 24-hour news (of which I am not a fan), but without the advertisements.

Fourth, there may be some of us who are rather busy and find posting medium or lengthy blog entries rather hard. This is especially true for those who are forced to live a life characterized by multitasking. Short updates or posting links to things of interest may actually enable some members to become more active, as restraints of time and space are no longer an issue.

Lastly, while we work collectively on this site, we live relatively separate lives. We read different books, magazines, and blogs. We listen to different music, watch different programs, and work in a rather diverse array of fields. Furthermore, we are all at different places in our lives, be it personal, familial, vocational, social, or religious. Having individual Twitter accounts would allow our followers to see us in a way that Blogger cannot.

None of this is to say, or even imply, that we decrease our activities on this particular site. Rather, it would be adding a new dimension to our current activities. These should compliment one another rather than replace one another.

As I stated in the beginning, I admit that this post may seem rather odd. It certainly doesn't fit the mold. But if we wish to see this movement continue to spread like wildfire, then we should have no reservations of embracing an information-sharing trend that has taken the world by storm. But in the end, it is just an idea I figured to be worthy of consideration, both by contributors and followers. Your input, then, is greatly appreciated.

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The Peasantry of the Future

In answer to the question, “What do the poor want?” Simone Weil replied “They want you to look at them.” I take Simone's answer to mean we must look at this poor person or that poor village, and see them in their actual situation. There are any number of people, of various political persuasions, willing to look at “the poor” and at “poverty.” They rarely look at actual poor people, which is just as well since they would not like what they see; what they would see are people with a very different set of values, values that are incompatible with the modern world. This is especially true of the poor peasant. Capitalist and communist alike are willing to do all in their power to ensure that the peasant shall not be poor, but only on the condition that he shall not be a peasant. They both promise to give him valuable things if only he will surrender his values.

This is certainly true of the Quechua-speaking people of the Peruvian highlands, descendents of the Inca empire but for centuries poor peasants living on the margins of the dominant Spanish culture. Having little to steal, Lima had little interest in them. And so they continued in their peasant ways on marginal lands in the mountains.

There were some willing to help. The Marxists, for example. They were more than willing to “improve” the lot of the peasant if only the peasant would become the new Marxist Man. This man had his roots not in the village, but in the National University of San Cristobal with a Maoist philosophy professor , Abimael Guzman, who founded the Sendero Luminoso, “The Shining Path.” The Senderistas unleashed a bloody civil war in Peru that ran from 1980 thru 1992, and brought Peru to the brink of collapse. Although there was some initial sympathy for the rebels, their antipathy to peasant values and their murderous violence against any who resisted, or were even suspected of resistance lost them any support. The villages were caught in between the rebels and the army, with each side abusing and murdering those whom they merely suspected of sympathy with the other side.

The capitalists of Peru were also willing to help, so long as the peasants know their place, that place generally being cheap labor and a marginal existence in the cities. More sophisticated capitalists, like the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto proposed bringing the poor into the modern world by modernizing their property rights. In his popular book, The Mystery of Capital; Why Capitalism Works in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, DeSoto noted the vast amount of capital that the “poor” have in land, tools, and cash, an amount that exceeds the value of the Lima Stock Exchange. However, these values cannot be used as “capital” because the tenures are not formally recognized in law. DeSoto's solution is to speed up the process of land registration and convert all the titles into Lockean property which can then be used as capital.

The problem is that DeSoto does not recognize the complexity of village titles, which are a combination of communal and family plots. Even the family plots, however, are held through communal acknowledgment of the individual rights. The land is not so much held by the family as for the family. These complex community arrangements pose some problem for a purely individualistic notion of property. Adam Webb notes that the conversion of communal land into individualistic property

Opens up a fault line between those who want to get along and those who want to get ahead. Modern society is arranged to benefit the shrewd and competitive, those who can figure out how to manipulate the new rules of a larger society to their own advantage.

The result is likely to be what they have always been: a few large landowners and a mass of men without property, not to mention the complete destruction of community values.

Adam Webb has looked at the question of values. His first book, Beyond the Global Culture Wars was a masterful look at the clash of values that underlies our current conflicts with other cultures. In his new book, A Path of Our Own; An Andean Village and Tomorrow's Economy of Values, Webb, a Harvard-trained sociologist, takes the trouble to actually look at an actual village (Pomatambo in the Peruvian highlands) and actually bothered to get to know the people and find out what they want.

We cannot make the mistake of romanticizing the poverty of the villages. Their attachment to values does not preclude a desire for indoor plumbing and electricity. This requires development. But a development that destroys the values of the community is not likely to be real development at all. Indeed, economics cannot be divorced from values, nor efficiency from ethics. Those who sacrifice ethics for “efficiency” will discover that they have created an economy with neither, an economy destined to collapse, and that right soon. Indeed, that is what we are witnessing today. We are required by political correctness to simultaneously proclaim the efficiency of the market and avert our eyes from the massive bailouts and subsidies. But these are nothing new; they are part and parcel of the history of capitalism, as witnessed by the fact that in 1776, Adam Smith devoted 3/4ths of The Wealth of Nations to detailing the incestuous relationship between business and government. The situation has not noticeably improved since Smith's day. The bailout is a rather regular and recurring feature of capitalism, yet each time we are supposed to be shocked, shocked, and reaffirm our belief in the unaided market alone.

In formulating his solutions, Adam Webb draws on Western agrarians and distributists like Wendall Barry, Chesterton, Belloc, Schumacher, and the Mondragón experience, as well as Eastern distributists like Liang Shuming and Mohandas Ghandi. But Webb does fault these thinkers as being too devoted to place and particularity to the detriment of the universally held values that each of these particular places expresses. As he puts it:

The ethos of traditional peasant life is one of no-nonsense self-reliance, austere morality, self-command amid adversity, duty towards kin and neighbors, generosity, hospitality, participation, and the anchoring of one's livelihood in an atmosphere of decency and fairness. These virtues have been universally valued among peasant folk all over the world. The peasant community and its customs reflected such virtues and created the conditions for people to exercise them.

It is this universality of values that Webb sees as the basis for forming a counterweight to the individualistic (and highly subsidized) globalization that tends to destroy these values. His proposals for capitalizing the resources of the village, both at the communal and individual level, provides for both community and individual enterprises to flourish in an atmosphere that preserves rather than destroys value. Every system of values must have its economic and political expression in order to survive as a living entity, rather than as a mere cultural curiosity. The importance of this task cannot be underestimated.

Half of the world's population are still peasants. We normally conceive of the task of development as one of rescuing that half of the world from its poverty. But we should stand this viewpoint on its head: the real task is one of rescuing that half of the population who are still capitalists—or trying to be—from their unworkable and unsustainable materialism. It is not the capitalist who will rescue the peasant, but the peasant who stands ready to rescue the world from its no-longer viable capitalism.

Adam Webb has fulfilled Simone Weil's requirement that one actually look at the poor. He has done extensive work in their villages, and actually listened to what they actually wanted. The result is a remarkable book and a remarkable plan, one that recognizes both the values of communities and the modern potential of building on those values. An economy without values has no future (a point which I feel confident that Benedict XVI will make next week in his new encyclical), and no bailout of whatever size can rescue it. Rather, it will have to be rescued by those who still hold the values upon which a viable economy can be built.

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