James Doone presents a sweeping neo-distributist manifesto that seeks to revive the medieval ideals of widespread property ownership, guild organization, local self-sufficiency, and Christian social order as an alternative to both capitalism and socialism.
In Tempori Nostro
Under the old philosophy which had governed the high Middle Ages things had been everywhere towards a condition of Society in which property was well distributed throughout the community, and thus the family rendered independent.- Hilaire Belloc
In our time, we need a new economic system to remove the injustices of our cruel age.
Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton were the twin fathers of the idea of Distributism, which they based off of Catholic Social Teaching as annunciated by the based popes of Leo XIII and Pius XI in their respective papal encyclicals of Rerum Novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931). So, what is this ideology of Distributism (aka Distributivism) ? In short it is a third road between the capitalist and socialist roads of America and the Soviet Union. It rejects the materialist and atheistic systems of the US and the USSR and instead seeks a more Christian, more religious, more traditionally-minded system of economics to benefit the workers and the poor in true Christian fashion. But not as a form of welfare but rather a form of economic independence and freedom from servitude for without each man being a property owner, then all are mere slaves of the plantations. It takes as its guiding light the systems and modes of production and manufacture from the medieval world. In the most basic of formulations, Distributism is an economic system of thought that seeks to redistribute the means of production, land and property between as many people of a nation as possible so the widest amount of people possible own land, tools, methods of production to maximise property ownership for as many of the masses as feasible, and to decentralise power from the imperial core to the local level, such as local councils, mayors and regional parlements.
So, one of the first things a distributist government needs to do is to declare national utilities such as water, post, transport such railways, buses, and airplanes, roads, bridges, canals, mines and quarries, internet, parks, ports, telephones, dams, sewage disposal, public housing and energy such as gas and electric immediately nationalised without compensation and brought under state control. Key industries vital to the national independence should be under state control but apart from that the state needs to promote the wide spread use of workers collectives and independent small scale family businesses. Trade Unions are usually subversive communist agitprop and should be illegal and instead replaced with both workers co-ops and guilds to safeguard the interests of the working classes. The entire energy sector should be nationalised into a single state entity of British Energy, in likewise rail should be once more British Rail, and so on. There needs to be a strong plan and support for autarky, to safeguard national economic independence, especially from America, but also other blocs such as the EU, BRICS, and the EEU. To prevent Soviet stagnation of major industries, there needs to be a strong profit incentive structures to keep the workers working hard to gain the perks, benefits and gifts. It is the fallen nature of man to want more unto himself, and he will work hard only if there is some gain for his own passions. This must be channelled into good, productive and social purposes.
Distributism could work under a non-religious framework but the history and spirit of Distributism is fundamentally Christian in outlook and morals. Islamic nations should adopt this system as should the Buddhists of the Orient.
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There should be a mandatory alms tax of 1% of monthly income for anyone earning over 50,000 GBP per annum, to be paid monthly to a charity of one's own choosing based on food or medicine. Similar to the Islamic practice of zakat. In the Islamic world, from the time of the Rashidun and all the way up to the Ottomans and beyond, there was the waqf or charitable endowment, which was often historically created by a wealthy merchant or member of the ruling elite to provide relief for the poor; examples include hospitals, poorhouses, or schools. Though charity is a virtue only when done via one's own free will, for a man forced to give alms at the point of a spear cannot be called a godly or charitable man. But due to the sinful essence of man, some force by the ruler is needed to offset man's most base instincts and desires.
Consider in what way the industrial system developed upon capitalist lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new methods ? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of contemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed?- Hilaire Belloc
Thomas Jefferson, despite his errors of liberalism, was right in that a true polity must be built on agriculture of the rurals and not on industry of the urban plateau - a virtuous people are those who work the land, not the proletariat in the industry factories of the urban jungle. The distributist state must support by all means the hegemony of the small family farms against big-farm, and all collective mass corporations. During WW2 normal people were encouraged to grow their own food in their gardens and common vegetables such as potatoes, leeks and cabbages etc were grown, this is a wise policy and every family should have a grass garden to grow their own sustenance. This needs to be promoted in schools so children learn from a young age the knowledge of how to grow food but also the why, and indoctrination is the key. They must be taught to be moral and the need to be self-sufficient and to work for the good of the collective for the strength of the tribe. The reign of the individual and 'human rights' needs to be abolished.
Distributism views man as a steward over the creation of God, and man must tend the garden with his helper Eve. Man must live in accordance with the natural world, he can use its animals for food, its wood and stone for construction, its rivers for water and cleanliness, its oceans for food and travel, its hills for living and fields for growing fruits and vegetables, but man must guard the world, he needs to not destroy the world, he must not pollute the waters or the soil or air, he must use and not waste anything, he must recycle all he can, he must guard the finite resources of the planet. He, like the Japanese, needs to live among nature and let it flow around him, like a stout rock in a sand garden in the humid airs of the mountains of Kyoto. The setting off of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere or under the seas is a monstrous attack on mankind and on the Lord's creation, and such abominations should be banned utterly. Anyone caught polluting should face serious penalties.
The state needs to make sure that the family unit is strong, prosperous and stable, for on the family the edifice of the whole society stands or falls. Contra the satanic attack on the family in Marx and Engels, the woman is not an oppressed slave working for no salary but rather is the homemaker, the wife of the husband and the mother of the children and the matriarch of the family, we all know of the matriarchal grandmother at family events, she conducts the BBQ like a choirmaster, with the grandfather often sat down with a beer chatting to the fellows keeping out of the way, who can blame him after 40 years down the mines. The Marxists view housewives as indentured servants but this revolutionary idea is rubbish, for how can a woman who loves her family be considered oppressed ? Especially when these same people think working in a factory is 'liberation' for the female sex. Baking an apple pie is slavery but working for McDonalds is freedom according to these people - this is deranged, and a tool of the giant capitalists in their quest of exploitation of the workers.
Distributism has a set of guidelines but the flesh on the bones needs to be more teased out and known and that is the purpose of this small treatise; to flesh out a system of thought on the pressing economic matters of our day, so we have an answer to give to those who inquire of us.
Echoing Carlyle, modern prisoners should be put to work, get the prisoners into the mines, or working on roads, or working on collective farms to grow food for the body-politic. In my view there should not be prisons; punishments should be corporal punishment such as caning for minor offences, then paying money for more serious crimes, and finally for major serious crimes the punishment should be death by rope or axe.
The brother oppressed with want, nearly languishing away, cries out with distended belly to the splendidly fed. What do you say of the Lord's Day ? If he has not placed himself before, call forth a poor man from the crowd, whom you may take to your dinner.- Commodianus
As Arthur Penty spoke of, one strength of Communism is that it has a vision, a purpose, a goal that all its followers hold to and seek to bring about in a religious fashion, whereas capitalism has no purpose (bar maximizing profits), no telos, no collective goal or stars to reach, no grand narrative, no crusade, nothing to bind men in a brotherhood.... it is pure bourgeois selfishness. Distributism has a goal, has a collective identity and has a telos for the tribe. Penty wrote the books: Guildsman Interpretation of History (1918), Post Industrialism (1922), Communism and the Alternative (1933), Distributism: A Manifesto (1937), Restoration of the Guild System (1903), Guilds Trade and Agriculture (1906). These are his important works.
Distributism is not fascist, it is above and beyond fascism, for fascism is a modernist, post-industrial ideology, whereas distributism is a Christian, pre-modern and traditionalist system of thought. Fascists gaze for inspiration at the systems of Mussolini and Hitler, but Distributists gaze at the medieval guilds or the Roman corporations of classical antiquity. Marxist theory spake of the alienation of workers in modern production, and this is true and I can speak from first hand experience how this feeling develops. Workers, by virtue of the fact that they do not own their own means of production, have no say in what they produce, how to produce it, when and for whom, they are active in making the goods but are passive in everything else. A self-employed carpenter makes his roof beams or tables or clocks, and he choses what he crafts from redwood, and when he begins and when he stops for lunch, and what days he wishes to have off, but the worker, like a slave, choses nothing. He works when told, eats when told, and has days off when told, how is this not slavery. He is poor and unskilled, what options has he ? None but to labour for the boss, like Ben Hur as a galley slave on the Roman warship.
Alienation is not just a feeling within the heart, it is also the objective reality of capitalist economic structure. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution that began in Great Britain, the old master craftsman in their studios declined and men were replaced by machines and the journeyman with his bag of tools became a labourer on a machine for the Manchester industrialist. Marx identified four kinds of alienation in the modern worker: the first is alienation from the product due to workers now only producing specific components in a long assembly line, the worker is cut off from other areas of production and has no say in what is made or when or how and they cannot do a holistic production, only a repetitive and monotonous way of production. Workers in this system do not make things for charity or for their own betterment, but purely for profit for the capitalists. Contrary to the libertarianism of Horus, workers in a capitalistic society are not actual free to choose but often have to take whatever they can get to stave off poverty and destitution thereby taking jobs out of need not want and then all the power lies in the hands of the rich merchant who can then pay the worker low wages, lower the amount of breaktime and refuse time off work. Under this system the worker has no control over production, no control over when they work or where they work, they are totally under the orders of the capitalist, this is the second form of alienation Marx spake thereof.
When the mass of men are dispossessed-own nothing-they become wholly dependent upon the owners; and when those owners are in active competition to lower the cost of production the mass of men whom they exploit not only lack the power to order their own lives, but suffer from want and insecurity as well.- Hilaire Belloc
A worker with the choice of eating or starving, can it be said he truly has a choice ? The third is that workers become alienated from themselves, from the entire process and thereby lose a part of themselves, they work not for joy, or creation, or mastery, but purely for the bank account of the owner. The fourth and final type is alienation from other workers, for they no longer are fellow journeymen, fellow brothers at the anvil or tiller of the soil, but rather they become adversaries, estranged, enemies, all trying to sell their labour to the boss for the lowest amount of coin. A slave worked for food and lodging, a wage worker... does he do different?
The weakness of the libertarians, despite their propensity to wish for license to vice and libertinism, is that their system is great if you are an industrialist, or entrepreneur, but if you are of the lumpenproletariat, what good to you is economic freedom ? Freedom to starve, freedom to work for the betterment of others. What the poor worker needs, is his own property, his own tools, his own small business to stand on his own two feet proud and free; like the English yeomen of old. For only by owning his own means of production can a worker truly be free - that is the true essence of economic freedom. The libertarians are wrong.
Another issue of capitalism is commodity fetishism, how many shops are dripping in tat made purely for profit by the corporation, wasting the natural resources of the earth, not for glorious arches or cathedrals or temples or roads, but purely for rising numbers on a bank balance sheet. Quotas are needed to prevent overproduction and waste. However, certain items like books should be plentiful for the education and enlightenment of the masses.
We Distributists want everyone, within reason, to be owners of means of production, we want as many people to be craftsmen, small business owners, entrepreneurs. And for those who need or want to simply work for a wage then they should be working for worker co-operatives.
PROGRAMME
Similar to other ideological systems that have pointed programmes here is a program for brevity and education; ideally to be printed in a pamphlet or on a website or on TikTok etc (despite my hatred for such social medias).
Program of a Distributist Economy
- A neo-distributist state shall endeavour to create a nation whereby the means of production and land are distributed as widely as possible among all the men of the polity.
- A neo-distributist economy shall be organised to benefit firstly the working class, and then after that the middle and then the upper class.
- The office of the Tribune of the Workers shall be established to veto any law or act of parliament that he considers to be against the interests of the working class. He shall be elected for a one year term and his wage cannot be more than the national average.
- Trade Unions, which are built on class struggle and are subversive tools of agents of communism, shall be illegal and instead shall be replaced with craftsman guilds as those of the Middle Ages and the ancient Rome.
- All major industries of national importance shall be state owned and run with incentive structures and rewards for productive workers to ensure efficiency, quality and functionality. Transport such as rail, energy such as gas, oil, electricity, water, post, telecommunications, roads, bridges, mines, steel production, ship-building, a national bank shall be established to lend money to citizens without interest, all minerals such as slate, tin, iron, etc are state property. The state must always aim for autarky.
- Usury, the lending at interest, is evil and a plague on the workers so it is totally illegal. Citizens or companies can acquire foreign loans but interest cannot be enforced in a court of law in a distributist state.
- The state shall establish worker co-operatives and implement profit sharing to make profit more equal and all industries and businesses for a more fairer society and national collective.
- The state shall promote national unity and solidarity and promote social and cultural unity of purpose towards national goals of greatness. Great works of culture such as art, music, and literature shall be promoted widely for purposes of education and cultural flow within a polity.
- All trades shall be governed by guilds, and all craftsmen shall be members of the guild with the rights and duties of being a guildsman; the guilds shall be established by law but shall be autocephalous and independent from the diktats of the state; each guild shall set prices, maintain standards of quality, promote brotherly competition among members and co-operation, for unbridled dog-eat-dog competition is destructive to the body-politic and national cohesion, and shall prevent foreign companies from undercutting native workers and enterprises. Ranks in the guilds shall be apprentice, journeyman, and master. The curriculums shall be designed and controlled entirely by each respective guild. The state must provide conditions whereby all men can earn a decent standard of living and be able to buy a house and support a wife and children, this is the measure of a successful economy, and not the false god of GDP, as Tucker Carlson spoke of.
- The distributist state rejects both capitalism and Marxism as both are defective and harmful for man and nations.
- There shall be no income tax on wages under £30,000. Between 30,000 and 60,000 income tax shall be 25%. 60,000 to 100,000 shall be 35%. 100,000 to 500,000 shall be 50%. 500,000 to 1 million shall be 60%. All amounts over 1,000,000 shall be taxed at 63%.
- There shall be a 4 day working week, with Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays being days off. All work (except emergency work) on Sunday is strictly forbidden by law. No one is allowed to work more than 8 hours per day. Compared to a medieval peasant, modern man has far less days off of work. Work today is more like wage slavery, working long hours in stressful jobs for low pay. There shall be at least 45 days per annum that are state holidays in which people shall have time off to spend with their families and to do enjoyable recreational activities, to cultivate human flourishing.
- Private property shall be protected and respected as it is a part of the natural law and the bedrock of family formation, and the formation of communities, tribes and nations. The state shall endeavour to provide each family with a family home with at least a large back garden so they can grow their own fruits and vegetables to consume or trade with neighbours and for the goal of achieving national autarky. Family property cannot be taken as debt or confiscated for debts owed, nor can it be sold to foreign business or persons as only native citizens can own land. If someone dies without a will and has no family then the house and or land and possessions shall be sold to someone of the local area first and the proceeds shall be given to the food banks.
- The state shall turn all state land not used for reasons of national importance into allotments for the populace. The cost per annum shall be no more than £50 per person, and the size shall be between 300 to 400 metres squared.
- Farmland cannot be sold to anyone who shall not farm the land, all good farmland must be used for farming by law (though according to good soil practices such as crop rotation, cover cropping, reduced tillage, organic farming, agroforestry etc). Unless there is a national need, all fertiliser needs to be organic such as bonemeal, fish, blood, seaweed etc. GMO foods are banned, only natural advancement of crops via breeding is permitted. Non arable farmland shall be used for graving livestock, and for planting foliage and flora. There must be a massive re-forestation campaign to re-tree the whole nation, including cities. All solar panels on farmland must be removed by law. Cities need to be greened with mass foliage and trees, inspiration should be taken from Japan.
- Farms that are too small to make a profit shall be subsidised by the state for the purpose of food security. Farms managed in a diabolical way shall be run by the state as a state farm and shall employ local workers to work on the farm, and if staff are not available then prisoners shall work the state farms. In order to prevent low productivity, workers on state farms shall be incentivised via money gifts to worker harder and be more efficient and productive for the greatness of the nation. In other parts of the nation, unproductive farms shall be bought by the state and sold cheaply to families as private farming property to farm for their own need and that of the local community.
- A welfare state shall be established to provide protections to the poorest members of the nation, and only citizens are entitled to any benefits; the benefits shall be unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, old age pensions, holiday and maternity pay, healthcare based on the Swiss and German models.
- Citizenship shall be based on ius sanguinis.
- The state shall promote apprenticeships and trades to young men as well as careers in military domains. The army, navy and airforce shall be used for the building of public works in the Roman fashion and the training and maintenance of the army shall be along Roman and Spartan fashion.
- Military training shall be mandated on all men of the age of 18; they shall undergo 3 months complete army training in the use of weapons, hand to hand combat, survival skills, map and compass reading, forestry, building works, and other military arts. All armed forces shall be purely peaceful and defensive forces under the Augustinian theory of just war.
- In order to prevent hubris and pride of the intellectual classes, and to prevent the scourge of ivory towerism of the academic class. By law all teachers, professors and all other white-collar workers etc must do at least two weeks work per annum on the state farms picking potatoes or fruit etc. to keep them working class in spirit - they shall receive minimum wage for this.
- A minimum wage shall be instituted to protect workers from exploitation by the capitalists and it shall be set at the living wage.
- A distributist state shall be a monarchist and Christian state; all laws shall be based on Christian ethics and morals shall be ascertained from the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers, as well as Greek philosophy and natural law theory of Aquinas.
- Only persons over the age of 30 are allowed to vote.
- Books, leaflets, pamphlets, videos et cetera that promote capitalism, communism etc shall be banned under interdict as subversive literature. Leftwing parties shall be banned due to their danger to the conservative system.
- The rule of law and due process are held as sacred and shall be upheld.
- The state shall endeavour to give each family enough land to be self sufficient in agricultural produce.
- Family businesses are to be held by the state as the golden ratio and ideal that the nation needs to aim for.
- Every worker, if they think or feel that they are being exploited or being treated unfairly, can appeal to the guild of their profession, and if the employer has indeed been treating the worker unfairly, such as abuse, rudeness, withholding pay etc, then the guild can fine the employer personally for his tyranny.
- Obesity and mass consumption along with consumerism is a rotten cancer on the body-politic, therefore there needs to be a rationing of unhealthy foods via coupons and major taxes on sugar, chocolate and biscuits etc. Highly processed foods need to be outlawed. All things must be organic. Seed oils need to be banned (except olive oil).
As we are entering a new multipolar age, the old hegemony of capitalism is winding down and the red banner is rags on the floor before the mountains of skulls reaped in the terror of Bolshevism. A new system is waiting to be born, a new star comes to light up the skies of the cosmos. "This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half."― George Orwell in Animal Farm. This quote sums up the Soviet Union. The 21st century is still in its infancy, this century and one hopes the next shall be the epoch of distributism; an economic healing of the nations is needed; it shall not come from paganism, nor from atheistic materialism. Distributism is localism. Buy your milk, eggs and vegetables from the local farmer, your meat from the butcher, your bread from the baker, support your locale, rather than the mega slop of the giant corporations. Only via this shall the land be healed.
Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.- Alain de Benoist
END.
'In Tempori Nostro' by James Doone B.A.
A manifesto of Neo-Distributism.
If I had to give this system of thought a name, then I name it Collegianism.
The author supports only peaceful and lawful reform of the system.