La Grande Illusion

The first rule in motion picture funding is “never use your own money.” Approach potential investors and get what you can from state and local grants. States pour millions into the movie industry each year. Why should Hollywood receive subsidies with worldwide box office receipts and home entertainment sales turning flops into moneymakers, and with 50 of the largest companies accounting for 80 percent of $55 billion in annual estimated returns? The film business is far from going under.

Don’t tell Hollywood. Armed with powerful lobby, top studios habitually complain before Congress about massive financial losses as a result of piracy, often using data from “independent” firms to support their claims. For example, in 2005 the Motion Picture Association of America commissioned a study reporting 44% decline in revenue due to college student piracy. Two years later, the same firm revealed the percentage was erroneous. Losses were closer to 15%. Other analysts say the actual figure is 3%.

Read more...

Capitalist-Socialist-Distributist Conference

Dear friends,

On April 4th, Thomas Storck, Dr. Charles Clark, and Michael Novak participated in the conference “Catholicism and Economics,” a presentation and debate featuring three economic systems: capitalism, socialism, and distributism. They were tasked with presenting their positions, discussing their viability, and relating them to Catholic Social Teaching.

The conference commenced with a luncheon provided by the host and sponsor of the event, the Nassau Community College Center for Catholic Studies. Many familiar faces were in attendance including Tim Ehlen, Director of Building Catholic Communities, Fr. Ian Boyd and Dr. Dermot Quinn from The Chesterton Review, as well as author and Taki’s Mag contributor, Mr. James Kalb. John Médaille, Bill Powell, Ryan Grant, Jeremiah Bannister, our speaker Thomas Storck, and yours truly represented The Society for Distributism. Literature was available for sale by the Campus bookstore, including Thomas Storck’s “The Catholic Milieu” (Christendom Press) and Belloc’s “Economics for Helen” (IHS Press). Both virtually sold out by the time lunch was over.

180 people registered, but due to intense weather conditions in New York, we estimated somewhere in the vicinity of 120-130 arrived at the event. The numbers were impressive and we were delighted to see a full house. We must thank Dr. Joseph Varacalli, President of the Center for Catholic Studies, for the opportunity to not only debate Mr. Novak and Dr. Clark, but to expose the public to Distributism. This conference successfully exceeded our expectations and we owe Dr. Joseph Varacalli all our deepest thanks for inviting us to take part in it.

Dr. Joseph Varacalli was also kind enough to arrange a table for us to use throughout the conference. We mounted a colorful display with hundreds of our pamphlets (including a promo sheet for Distributist Review Press), our brochure, and a mailing list sign up sheet. Our readers may be excited to know dozens joined our mailing list and we barely had any material left once the event was over.

Attendees varied from layman to academic, so we couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to dig in and introduce Distributism to a large group of people who probably have never heard of it.

Following the initial tributes for Avery Cardinal Dulles, Msgr. Wrenn, and Fr. Neuhaus, the debate started with a half hour presentation by the three participants. Dr. Clark was the first to commence. Some of our readers are probably familiar with Dr. Charles Clark, who penned the Foreword to the IHS Press edition of Amintore Fanfani’s Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism. Dr. Clark is a Professor of Economics at St. John’s University. He opened up with the Democratic Socialist argument by offering a phenomenal attack on capitalism from a practical lens. Clark chastised capitalism for failing to provide workers with a family wage, for its profit seeking at the expense of labor, outsourced manufacturing, and debt enslavement. Clark did an excellent job and in one poignant part of his tit for tat with Michael Novak regarding our financial economy, Clark reminded us of John Médaille’s famous article, “Buy it up! Break it up! Fund it right!” where John argued for a government buyout of our financial institutions, so they could be broken into small businesses, and end the havoc wrought by corporations riding on the coattails of the public. My only critique of Dr. Clark’s presentation is that while he struck the first blow against the capitalist position, we didn’t entirely know how advocates of socialism planned to solve the problems capitalism wrought. From what we gathered, his argument highlighted an expected heightened role of the central government in our economic and social affairs, distant from Marxism and probably likened to a moderate Christian Socialist position.

I believe I share the same frustrations as my colleagues when I say I was very disappointed with Michael Novak’s presentation. Mr. Novak made no attempt to either define his position or to relate capitalism with Catholicism at all. Neither did he give any mention about our current crisis. He began by contrasting capitalism’s departure from a society in favor of stability and poverty relief to societies paving the way for wealth creation as a solution to massive poverty. In an attempt to minimize distributism, Mr. Novak claimed capitalism exemplified the widest distribution of goods and property, by oddly pointing to the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act, signed into law by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, allowed Americans within the 13 colonies to claim stakes of undeveloped land outside its borders. The Homestead Act was not only the antithesis of capitalism and a victory for government, but also a devastating exploitation of the Native American nations, which were driven off their lands by military forces.

Perhaps Novak’s harshest distinction between the three economic systems came in the form of an ethnocentric jab against Europeans. Comparing the United States to Europe, Mr. Novak claimed Europeans simply drank coffee in cafes and contrasted this with American ingenuity. Europeans enjoyed life, while Americans were the true innovators of the world. Considering Europe is arguably responsible for the bulk of our architecture, arts, sciences, education, and history, I found the comment rather strange.

In another baffling moment, Mr. Novak claimed trade unions were a staple of capitalism and not an association rallied against the abuses resulting from it!

Thomas Storck presented a precise definition of Distributism, its practicality as an economic model, and correspondence to Catholic Social Theory. Mr. Storck brilliantly began by focusing on the purpose of economic activity within the realities of our human use and need. Quoting St. Thomas Aquinas Storck said, “…the appetite of natural riches is not infinite, because according to a set measure they satisfy nature; but the appetite of artificial riches is infinite, because it serves inordinate concupiscence…” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 2, a. 1 ad 3) Mr. Storck went on to define capitalism by separating it from its flat definition and repeating the definition offered by Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, which described capitalism as the separation of ownership and work. Thomas Storck argued that recognizing this friction between ownership and production in a capitalist state, Distributism dispensed with this problem by making ownership and work one and the same. Thomas Storck also argued for capitalism’s clash with productive property and illustrated this particular point by stressing how laws such as eminent domain, capitalism’s obsession with money to the detriment of the human person, lack of innovation, and creation of artificial needs are in actuality enemies of true progress. Once Mr. Storck concluded his portion of the presentation period, we took a break, and I was quite pleased to see a line of people waiting to speak with him.

When Michael Novak took the opportunity to ask our speaker a set of questions, I was surprised to hear him openly state his sympathies with Distributism. Arguably, the question he posed to Mr. Storck regarding the feasibility of health care in a Distributist State might have appeared to him to be the Achilles Heel against the Distributist platform. But to his surprise, Mr. Storck proposed a solution. His favored the restoration of occupational groups (or creation of co-ops) within a Distributist State to operate, regulate, develop, and research in the medical -or any- large scale field. It was a sharp reply for those who have never heard of Distributism before or those unconvinced of its viability in large-scale markets. Mr. Storck concluded his answer by stating that guilds and cooperatives exemplify the limitless potential for the decentralization of large entities through the use of smaller firms as practiced by the automotive industry today.

Following the exchanges, Franciscan University’s Dr. Stephen Krason offered a fifteen-minute talk on Heinrich Pesch and Solidarism. Dr. Krason delivered a passionate lecture and we commend him for it given Solidarism’s brief allotted time. My only objection to his talk came from his perception of the masses as uninterested in working for themselves and preferring to work for others. While self-employment always comes with an elevated risk, employment today is a comparable risk. The problem as I see it, isn’t the lack of desire on the part of most people to own, the problem is the red tape. After all, I am sure Dr. Krason would agree with Pope Pius XI that man works best on that which is his own.

We lament time made it impossible for a “Question and Answer” period between the speakers and the audience. That said, we are grateful to the Center for Catholic Studies for all the time and work they invested in the debate, as well as the meticulous and considerate manner this conference was managed from the onset. Under Dr. Varacalli’s leadership this Center is proving to offer some of the finest events I have ever attended. When Dr. Varacalli asked us to participate I knew it would be successful and all of us jumped right in.

Special thanks must be given to Thomas Storck for his intelligence, gracious support, activist spirit, and the incredible precedent he has bestowed on all of us.

Also, we must thank fellow distributist Jeremiah Bannister for the fantastic photographs.

I know our readers are interested if a transcript, audio or video recording of this event will be available. Yes, the event was recorded. However, please bear with us as we are praying and hoping this recording will be accessible for all of you through our website. I will keep everyone informed through our email list when and if this becomes available.

Read more...

Thomas Storck Podcasts

I recently uploaded a three-part interview with Mr. Thomas Storck. They are podcasts. While the quality may not be the best, this is something we are working on. We will also be working on podcasting the interview with Dale Ahlquist. Hopefully I am not naive to say "all in due time."

The links to the podcast archive section will direct you to them. 

NOTE: There were certain difficulties. I found that if one clicks on the title of the particular podcast rather than the generic podcast image, it worked fine. If this still doesn't resolve the problem, I'll have to work on figuring it out.

Read more...

Distributism in the Populist Moment

Life is full of pleasant things, regularly coming at times when they are least expected. Today just so happened to be one of those days. As I went out to check the mail, I noticed that my edition of The Week magazine had arrived. And there, on the cover, was a splendid picture of people rioting around the idol (i.e. the statue of the bull) in front of the New York Stock Exchange. The people with their fists in the air, shouting at the symbol of swinishness, pulling it down from its pedestal in a way reminiscent of the famous topple of Saddam’s statue, and the words “Populist Uprising” gracing the bottom of the page. The image beautifully captured the sentiment, and the words accurately reflected the image. It was spectacular in the truest sense of the word

Unfortunately, as with many articles of this nature, my joy was quickly and significantly diminished. The story was on page 18 in the Talking Points section and it only consumed the larger part of the upper-half of the page. That aside, the article was concerning to the $500,000 salary cap Obama has issued for all bank CEOs to receive per-annum. While I should have paid more attention to the cover of the magazine (which has the words “the new, $500,000 limit on CEO salaries” as the tag line), I figured that the story would deal with… well, the overall uprising of populism.

It was the earlier portion of January, 2008, when I began speaking more about populism, and in particular what I saw as the rise of populism in America. The populism I predicted was relatively moderate. I insisted that it would be a hodgepodge of ideas derived from what is typically referred to as the “right” and the “left.” People would be generally conservative on abortion, homosexual marriage, and a host of other “culture war” issues. On the other hand, people would still support public schooling. Very few would want to rid the system of Medicaid. Unemployment and welfare benefits would remain. They’d stand by the notion of Social Security. If trends continue to go in the direction they appear to be going, people maybe even endorse some form of universal health care. Furthermore, I believed that we would see an outcry against Wall Street, CEO salaries, and mega-monsters like Wal-Mart.

I still stand by my predictions, and I believe most of the indicators are pointing in that direction. Sadly, I don’t see this rising tide lasting too long before it breaches.

People are angry, this much is sure. But they either don’t really know why they are angry or they are taking it out on the wrong things. A casual conversation with Johnny Q. Public will get you an earful of emotionally charged tirades concerning the salaries of CEOs, how Scooter’s Hardware is going out of business because they can’t compete with Wal-Mart, and how the average Joe just can’t make the kind of living he used to with a hard day’s work. In all likelihood, you’ll even hear them talk about the hucksters and swindlers in Washington and Wall Street.

None of this is necessarily problematic. What is problematic is how this tirade is followed up with the same old song and dance that got us here in the first place. The very same person will go to the grave defending state capitalism, quoting “the ole Gipper” by saying “Government is the problem.” This person may be on their way in (or even out!) of Wal-Mart, while Scooter’s is just one mile up the road. He’ll stand by the wage-slave concept, decrying a Living, Family, Just Wage or vocational organizations as socialism. And he’ll probably tell you (depending on how the next few years go) that all we need to do is get more “conservative” Republicans like Sarah Palin in office to begin “taking care of business.”

If you haven’t been formally introduced to this person, or the mass of individuals he happens to represent, you haven’t been in the US very long. Or maybe you just haven’t been paying attention. At any rate, intellectual schizophrenia is the way of the day, and apathy runs thick through Main Street.

This isn’t to deny the ray of light peaking through the clouds. Not at all! It is simply admitting that, as of yet, it is little more than a sunbeam piercing through the clouds of convention tomfoolery. It’s a mere acknowledgment that the masses aren’t as angry with the socio-political apparatus as they are with who may be in control at the time. It’s a blame game, with all their bets being on top-down measures to make all the difference.

Yet even here it is not entirely doom and gloom. This underlying sentiment is real, it is emotional, and it is angry. What is required is good old distributist education. While a large portion of the populace may be experiencing frustration with the status quo, they need to realize that the answer is not found in merely tweaking the status quo, or even crossing their fingers in hope that those on Capitol Hill who just so happened to micromanage the status quo will make all the difference.

Distributists, then, are living in a time of great opportunity. People are dissatisfied, and they are willing to listen to “new” ideas. Better yet, most do not realizing that those “new” ideas are far from being “new.” Capitalists have had their chance. Socialists have had their chance. Now it is time for distributists to have their day in the sunbeam.

How long this uprising lasts is unknown. But it would be foolish not to take advantage of a brilliant opportunity to direct this populist moment towards a more humane political economy.

Read more...

The Health Care System and the Guilds

There can be no question that the American health-care system has tremendous problems. We spend almost as much per capita in public funds as do the Europeans, but we do not have universal service. We spend a greater amount in private funds, yet we do not have free market in medical care. It is almost as if someone deliberately designed a system that combined the worst features of socialism and capitalism into one Rube Goldberg operation. We spend more than any other country in the world on medical services, yet the results are near third-world levels.

The debates on this issue usually take place within this framework of “free market” vs. “socialized” medicine, yet the system we have is neither and both. It cannot be a free market system because the supply of medicine and medical services are limited by licenses and patents. Milton Friedman advocated abolishing the licensing of doctors altogether. Friedman argued that medical licenses restrict the supply of doctors and thereby raise the cost. He believed that the free market would judge medical competence better than any license board, rewarding the competent doctors and punishing the incompetent.

The problem with Friedman's argument is that we have already tried that. Right into the early 20^th century, doctors were unlicensed; they took perhaps one to two years at a local medical college, usually a for-profit institution run by local doctors who lectured at the college. After their course of lectures, and without ever having touched a microscope or a cadaver, they set up as doctors. The results were disastrous, as became evident in the great Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918. After that, the move to improve education and require licenses gained public support to produce the system we have today, a system largely controlled by the American Medical Association (AMA).

Further, a free market solution depends on the availability of information and the ability to judge that information. In comparing doctors, information about them is hard come by, and even if I had such information, I would not be able to make an informed judgment. And if I am having a heart attack, I am in no position to do the comparison shopping that a free market requires.

Yet for all that, Friedman has a point. By limiting the number of doctors, we restrict the supply and raise the cost. Further, the education of a doctor is long, arduous, and expensive. New doctors are frequently burdened with huge education loans, and setting up a practice requires a huge capital investment. This forces doctors to act more like businessman than medical professionals; they have to turn a large profit just to break-even on both their costs and the amount of income forgone while they were getting their educations. And it has frequently been charged that the AMA restricts the number of “slots” in medical schools so as to further restrict supply.

I have previously dealt with the problem of licenses (see Sicko-phancy). Instead of a single license requiring many years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, I propose a series of licenses: midwife, nurse practitioner, medical practitioner, medical doctor, medical specialist. This would vastly expand the supply of medical personnel and thereby lower the cost. However, this can only be a partial solution. Doctors, whatever their license level, still face tremendous problems with medical insurance. And likewise the public faces similar problems. The cost of medical care is so high that nearly everyone needs insurance, but the insurance companies do their best to limit the claims they will pay. And there is still the problem of who gets to grant the licenses, no matter how many levels there are. Would not the AMA exercise its influence on governmental agencies to keep the supply as low as it is today, and the price as high as possible? And how to address the problems of the high cost of medicine and medical equipment, like MRIs?

Can we take away the power from government and still have an effective medical system? Must we be mired in socialism, or should we return to the free-market chaos of the 19^th century? I believe that there is a better way. I believe that the answer lies in a well-tested institution from out past, and that institution is the guild. The guilds were associations of professionals in a given field who took responsibility for the training of their members and the quality and price of their products and services. They were the sole judge of the qualifications of their members, and had the power to set both standards and prices. What I propose is that we allow medical professionals to form guilds with the power to grant various licenses. They would be the sole judge of the qualifications required, and they would set the practice standards and prices. But most importantly, the guild would stand surety for its members. That is to say, when a patient had a complaint, he would sue not the doctor but the guild. The guild would be responsible for the competence and good conduct of its members.

You might ask, “why would one doctor stand surety for another?” But in fact, this is what already happens in malpractice insurance. Insurance is merely cost averaging. If the losses go up for one doctor, the rates for every other doctor in that insurance pool goes up. But doctors have no control over who is in their insurance pool; the quack and the competent get thrown in the same insurance system, with the later required to pay for the former. In a guild system, the guild would have a strong incentive to ensure the competence of their members and monitor their practice standards; they would want to weed out the incompetent or downgrade their licenses. The guild would purchase insurance for all its members, or even provide the insurance itself, thereby removing the profit motive and lowering the cost.

Since the guild would be the sole judge of the qualifications and practices of its members, there would be a greater diversity of practical approaches. The Guild of St. Luke, for example, might favor one approach to medicine, the Galen Guild might favor another, and natural competition and practical experience would be sufficient to discover the superior approach. And while it might be difficult for the public to judge one doctor against another, it would be easier to judge the performance of one guild versus another. Further, this also provides space for “alternative medicine.” I have no way to judge whether such things as acupuncture or Chinese herbalism are medically valid. But when joined in a guild and required to stand surety for each of their members, practices which do have some value would likely thrive, even if traditional medicine does not, as yet, recognize their value. And if they have no value, it is likely that such practices would simply disappear because the insurance claims would bankrupt them. Likely the government would still have some minimal role to prevent outright quackery; they would not likely allow a Guild of Peach Pit cure-alls.

The guild would also provide a career path for its members. As it is now, student spends the better part of their youth and a great part of their future earnings in getting an MD. But with a guild with a multiple license structure, they could enter as nurse or medical practitioners, practice medicine at some level while continuing their training for higher levels. This would give them both an income stream and practical experience in their trade. It would be a kind of “apprentice” program.

In addition to insuring their doctors, the guild could offer insurance to the public. That is, they could offer to treat people for a fixed annual fee. This would give the guilds an income stream, but also a great incentive to insure that small problems do not go untreated to become big problems. In other words, such health insurance would actually be concerned with insuring health rather than denying claims. Further, the guilds could be required to devote a certain amount of their resources to free or low-cost care for the impoverished or indigent. The government might play a role here in qualifying people as eligible for such reduced-cost treatment.

The guild would be empowered to establish its own clinics, its own training and education programs, its own pharmacies, labs, administrative structures, and whatever else is necessary to medical practice. This would also make it easier for medical professionals to enter practice without worrying about setting up the business and administration that consumes so much of doctor's time today.

Of course, the complete solution to the problem cannot be found without breaking the monopoly power of prescription drugs and medical equipment. I have already outlined an approach to this in the aforementioned Sicko-phancy. But I believe that the guilds can also play an important role here, especially in the testing new drugs and negotiating prices. Drug companies would no longer have an incentive to “bribe” doctors to prescribe their patent medicines, since it would be the guild and not the individual doctor who establishes standards for medicines and judges their effectiveness. The collective judgment of the guild is likely to be superior to the individual judgment of any given doctor, especially when that individual judgment is influenced by “gifts” from the drug companies, as it is now.

Now, I will not pretend to my long-suffering readers that I am an expert in medical economics. I welcome any critiques or refinements that those more qualified than I am can offer on these matters. But I will assert that there are some principles which hold no matter what the system, one of these being that the incentives will dictate the outcomes. And the current incentives—for doctors, insurance companies, the AMA, and others—are all wrong and cannot be repaired in the current system. Every solution now on the table in the public debate will likely only make the problems worse.

What I will assert is that sometimes our best future is in our long past; that methods that have been tried and worked, but for some reason were abandoned, can be re-worked to answer current conditions. I believe that it is the essence of both the progressive and the traditional to find what has worked, and to adapt it to the present moment.

Read more...

What We Want, and How: The First Phase

In 1927, K.L. Kenrick, Honorable Secretary for the Birmingham Branch of the Distributist League, wrote an article titled, “What We Want, And Why.” Kenrick carved out the early League’s aims for the restoration of property, the plight for man’s independence from wages through self-ownership, and an appeal for the small shop over the large. With each passing paragraph, Kenrick summarized why distributists held firm to these requisites for the betterment of society. In the spirit of his original essay, I will attempt to discuss how we may implement these prerogatives for the furthering of our movement.

The reinstatement of the Guild System for small-scale production, cooperatives for larger scale, creation of CLTs (Community Land Trusts), agricultural apprenticeship programs, Micro-credit loans and local currencies, are just a part of our intended goals. Perhaps some of these serve strictly as rebuilding tools or temporary measures used to educate our communities about local economics. Without a doubt however, their counter-revolutionary qualities serve to combat against the intellectual and material devastation wrought upon our present society. Some of these programs are permanent solutions we will use towards a parallel economy (see Dr. Chojnowski’s article A Distributism How-To), i.e. a stream of thought and action —made by us and for us— operating beside the existing structure and generating stability for the public.

The question most asked amongst newcomers is how, given the present circumstances, does one become a distributist?

The answer is that Kenrick, along with the early League, believed Distributism begins with the individual. One need not wait for a political party or organization to start living distributist ideals. What it does take is a drastic change in philosophy, replacing an economy of growth in favor of an economy of use. This would, as Fr. McNabb said, “put first things first.”

In today’s Western world, altering life and replacing it with distributist principles requires an incremental transition. Drastic ventures are often beyond the reach of most middle-class families who cannot simply dismiss their mortgages or wish their credit card debt away. The poor and homeless can’t pick up and purchase parcels of land or buy into an urban co-op either.

We should be clear that there are things the individual can do. First off, one should start by consuming what one needs instead of what one desires. He or she can decide to cease shopping at Costco or Sam’s Club, opting instead to purchase goods at the small shop. This may mean a higher price, but it also means greater value, quality, and investment in community. Due to this cost, the individual will practice thrift or what Solzhenitsyn called “self-restraint.” He or she will utilize discernment when expending earnings and limit resources rather than exhausting them, because judgment will be regulated and more acute.

The household may be fastened to the slavery of wages, restricted to their current occupations and incapable of starting their own businesses, but they can conserve energy, rely less on machinery, work with their hands, or they can study and incorporate distributism to their family’s educational curriculum. It may be difficult for some to live a full distributist ideal, but the efforts made today will benefit the next generation, who will lead this nation sooner than any of us realize.

Furthering distributist education demands self-examination. We have a divided audience separated into two categories: people familiar with the ethical/moral and historical challenges of economic philosophy, and those literate in the complexities of political economy and social development. In other words, we can fairly divide our audience into men of letters and of science. Generally speaking, the former is ill equipped in the latter and vice versa. We must therefore encourage the distributist to become proficient in both areas, mingling the two.

Tying in these two categories are two classifications: the novice and sophisticated distributist. For every apologist, there is a recruit coming in from the rain, carrying a heavy load of social conditioning. It is unrealistic to expect the novice to understand the difference between “mark to market” accounting and derivatives, if he can barely grasp why he shouldn’t be a capitalist or socialist and urgently needs conversion to distributism. The budding distributist also wishes to pursue further growth and may grow impatient with the repetitive nature of the basic information we provide. It is clear, and must remain so, that both sets of distributists require nurturing.

Of course, short and long term objectives are natural to any organization. All of these goals must be calculated and tested, evaluated and reformed. By necessity, our current aims are conceived according to a realistic picture of our limitations at this stage in the movement.

A consideration of the following may prove helpful:

A. Support our new non-profit The Society for Distributism. I recently wrote an article for Gilbert Magazine called “From a League to a Society” and we’ve received many email subscribers because of it. The featured website, http://www.distributist.org/, currently under construction, includes a sign-up form in order to keep abreast of our efforts (if you have given us this information in the past six months there is no need to send a fresh request, or email us). This site will also be the principle font for donations, literature on implementation programs, and information for the confirmed April 4th debate with capitalist Michael Novak. We are working on many projects, including free downloadable material, local lectures and events, and strategies for the creation of local chapters. Starting your own chapter or non-profit can be a successful way of making Distributism a household name. Catholics may be reminded of the successes of Una Voce or the 180 Catholic Worker houses worldwide, which have strewn a valuable print on Catholicism, thanks to their tenacity.

B. Educate yourself. Read our websites. We also suggest looking over the bookshelf right here on The Distributst Review. Time and time again when newcomers ask me what book to read first I insist they have to pick up a copy of John Médaille's The Vocation of Business. To purchase the work of the early distributists look no further then IHS Press. Their material includes work by Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, Amintore Fanfani, A.J. Penty, Fr. McNabb, and many others. Read Thomas Storck's The Catholic Milieu as a basis for understanding economics and its relationship to man.

C. Press. All press is good press. Thanks to the hard work of publishers like IHS, and no doubt our own efforts, we have managed to intimidate the leading Christian-capitalist think tank. The Acton Institute, which recently published “Beyond Distributism” wouldn’t waste their time on our movement if the laws of supply and demand didn’t warrant their response. This should tell us our numbers are growing at a formidable rate. Refer us to your friends, family, religious leaders, local politicians, and anyone else you can think of. Consider submitting an article for your local paper, or an essay to an online or print journal. People have a knack for truth and common sense. They will listen. Don’t be intimidated. The more the movement spreads, the harder it is for our opponents to ignore us.

D. The Internet is an instrument Howard Dean, Ron Paul, and Barack Obama have used effectively to benefit their candidacies. If you have a blog or website, talk about Distributism, start a chat board, comment on other sites, etc. Don’t underestimate the potential success of your efforts. It may “just be the net” but the Internet has grown the movement exponentially. Several years ago one could barely find the word “distributism” online. Today, one search results in pages talking about it. Remember, many people are sympathetic to distributist ideals. They just don’t envision it. That is a world away from being against it. Be the catalyst or plant seeds that will open up minds.

E. Networking. Those interested in the pursuit of Distributist ideals should join the Distributist Yahoo Group. Distributists need to get in touch with one another. Yahoo Groups, forums, and chat boards are good tools to find other distributists in your area. Meet with them, start study groups, and collaborate on future projects.

F. Start your own lectures. Ask your local Parish priest if you can use a recreational area or cafeteria, or book your community center to host a talk. In most cases, a box of two-dozen doughnuts and fresh coffee will suffice to draw in a crowd. Get together with local distributists or invite famed distributists to speak in your area. There are plenty of lecturers eager and ready to give a talk. They are passionate, dedicated, and interested in the growth of this movement.

G. Activism. Have your co-workers ever heard of the E.F. Schumacher Society? Probably not. Academia might have, but not the man on the street. We certainly need to work with the intellectual establishment, but if we don’t talk to the common man, distributism will stay in academia. This means talking to our neighbors, our coworkers, or just borrowing a table from your Aunt Phyllis and standing on a street corner or (with permission) outside our churches. You can also contact sympathetic groups in your area. Check and see if they will allow you to hand out flyers or information packets at their next meeting. Remember, faith without works is dead (James 2:20). Volunteering to educate pedestrians is a greater investment to our movement than handing out money.

H. Foreign languages. Have you noticed a new international section on my site, The ChesterBelloc Mandate? Interest in Distributism has grown beyond the English language. There is a craving for alternatives to socialism and capitalism worldwide, and whether we call it distributisme, distributismo, or dystrybutyzm, our French, Spanish-speaking, Polish, Czech, and Philippine readers are growing. They are our allies, just as thirsty as we are, gathering information about the economic model and philosophy which once originated in their lands. We tip our hats to them and offer our support. If you can write in another language fluently, why not translate our articles or create your own essays from scratch?

I. YouTube videos and podcasting. Do you post your own videos on YouTube? Why not join radio personality “Paleocrat” Jeremiah Bannister, and post videos of your own on YouTube, Google, Metacafe, or any other video-based website? If you podcast, consider talking about distributism from time to time. Interested in interviewing an expert on distributism? We will assist anyone who needs to get in touch with them, and make sure to advertise your work on The Distributist Review and The ChesterBelloc Mandate.

One need not have three acres and a cow to be a distributist, although we pray God may bless us with both.

Always remember, there are those who argue Distributism cannot happen. They believe people will refuse to return to the small shop. They claim families will never want to work for themselves. But, if this economic crisis is any indicator, a transition in the world is already taking place. The question is whether this catastrophe will delve us into further capitalist-socialist collaboration, or if informed people will restore us to a Distributive State.

There is ample evidence to suggest more citizens sympathetic to our cause exist, who simply need exposure to some of these avenues, which can set us in motion. Until they see the diligent work ahead of us, they will remain on the fence.

Kenrick told us why, and I examined the “baby steps” needed straight away in pursuit of our objectives. The rest is up to all of us. Distributism begins with me.

Read more...

A License to Steal?

John Kindley and nmsnow recently conducted an interesting (if somewhat acrimonious) debate in these pages (see Mitt Romney's Planet) on the subject of professional licensing. Supporters of licensing believe that it is the best way to ensure that professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents are competent to perform their tasks. Libertarians, on the other hand, regard licenses as nothing more than state-imposed monopolies that do nothing more than raise prices, unfairly exclude some people from the professions, and do little to raise professional competence. That is to say that they are little more than a license to steal. Needless to say, these two positions are irreconcilable. However, I believe that distributism offers a way out of this dilemma, a way that addresses the concerns of both sides, and vastly improves the present system.

The reason we need, or think we need, a system of licenses is that the professions provide services of such a specialized nature that the ordinary consumer simply cannot judge their services. I certainly cannot judge the work of a neurosurgeon, and am in less of a position to do so at the time I need one. The license at least guarantees me that the surgeon has had a certain level of training, and re-training and has passed some sort of examination. This may be, as the libertarians claim, thin cover, but at least it is some cover.

On the other hand, John Kindley ably sums up the arguments of Milton Friedman against licenses. On the whole, I must say that I do not find Friedman's totally convincing. Mostly, I wish that Milton, who claims to be an empiricist, would occasionally look at the empirical world. The fact of the matter is that medical licensing in the United States is of relatively recent origin; it didn't come about until the early 20^th century. Prof. Friedman doesn't need to speculate about what a medical system looks like without licenses; he could have simply looked to the 19^th century. At that time, “doctors” earned their right to practice by taking 9 to 18 months of courses at a local doctors college, a for-profit institution often run by local physicians. The student would never have seen a cadaver or touched a microscope, and would know little of pharmacology. Quackery and incompetence were the order of the day, and the shortcomings of the system became apparent in the great Influenza Epidemic of 1918, which afflicted 25% of the population. Few people would be tempted to return to 19^th practice.

Nevertheless, Friedman does point to real abuses of the system. There is no question that when the state assumes control of the licensing process, members of a given profession use the law to raise their own incomes and limit their own liabilities. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a real estate agent, and we are past masters of the art of using the law for these purposes.) Medical boards (as well as Bar Associations and other professional organizations) frequently overlook abuses by their own members. And given the frequency with which doctors and other professionals are successfully sued, there are valid arguments against the claim that licenses guarantee a standard level of competency.

Of course, some have a simple solution to this last problem: they would simply end or restrict the right to bring a lawsuit against doctors and other professionals. However, restricting a citizen's right to bring a tort is a violation of both constitutional and common law, not to mention common sense. Removing the penalties for incompetence will only encourage the worst practices and discourage the best. This is clearly the wrong solution.

I believe it is clear that we need a system of licenses; however, it is not clear that these licenses need to be directly granted by the state. Rather, there is another vehicle of ancient and honorable lineage that could fill this role, and do it in a manner consistent with both professional competence and the free market. That institution is the guild. Rather than have the state grant licenses, let the state license any number of guilds to do the job. The guild would take responsibility for anyone to whom they granted a license. That is, a person who has harmed by the incompetence or malpractice of a doctor, lawyer, real estate agent, etc., would not sue that doctor or lawyer, but would sue his guild. The guild, and each of its members, would be financially responsible for malfeasance by any one of its members. If a suit were successfully carried against a guild, that guild could in turn sue the doctor involved in an attempt to recover their losses and their reputation.

This would force the guild members to take responsibility for each other. An incompetent member of the guild could have his license revoked by his colleagues, and they would be more than willing to do so, since such an incompetent threatens not only the reputation of all of the members, but their financial health as well. The guilds could set their own education, training, and practice standards. By common consent of the members, and by their internal and mutually agreed-on constitution, the guild would have the right to audit the practice of each of its members, and would likely do so at regular intervals for its own protection. Instead of one vast AMA, there would be all sorts of competing guilds, all with their own approach to medicine (or law, or whatever.) These guilds would compete with other guilds on service, science, and price, and the market, as well as science, would get its say. Over time, best practices would win out, as the worst practices fell victim to the market and the tort system.

One might ask, “Why would any doctor join a group where he has to take financial liability for all the other members of the group?” The simple answer is that he already does; this is what insurance is. Insurance is merely a method of cost averaging. A competent doctor, who has never had a claim or a complaint, nevertheless pays in his insurance premiums for all the mistakes of his colleagues. The difference is that now he does not get to choose the colleagues with whom he will share this liability. Under a guild system, a doctor would not have insurance at all; his guild fees would cover that, and he, as a member of the guild, could pass judgment on which of his colleagues he will share the liabilities.

The role of the state would be to license the guilds, set some minimum standards to prevent outright quackery, and audit them to ensure that they had the financial stability and resources to stand behind their members. This would greatly reduce the role of the state without eliminating it entirely. The state would do things that it is equipped to do, while guilds could provide a wide variety of competing services and prices. Further, it would be much easier for the public to judge the overall performance of a guild than to judge individual doctors or lawyers. John Kindley wants a system were he could practice law as an apprentice, and I suspect that any number of guilds would be willing to do this, since it would lower their costs and provide them with a way to develop talent without relying on the expensive law schools.

In this area, as in so many, I believe that distributism provides creative answers to the practical problems that we face everyday.

Read more...