The idea in distributism is that the legal ownership of the means of production in the economy is distributed as widely as possible in the population. This implies a double comparison and contrast. On the one hand, as in capitalism, distributism honors private property and rewards intelligence, hard work, and entrepreneurialism. But simultaneously, and differing from the usual structure of capitalist governments, a distributist state takes measures to discourage the endless accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority. While capitalism believes in private ownership, it also believes that only a few people should own what really matters, that is, the ways of producing money and goods. Distributism is not content, therefore, with great numbers of people owning their own homes or having shares in the stock market; they need to have real control over the land, farms, factories, and institutions that produce money and goods. On the other hand, as in socialism, the state remains the most powerful entity in the country; the state does not permit plutocrats and corporations to usurp its authority, as they ceaselessly attempt to do in capitalist countries. But simultaneously, and differing from the common ideal of a socialist economy, distributism is realistic enough to acknowledge that some are still going to be rich and some are still going to be poor. The rich are not automatically dispossessed, nor are the poor put on the welfare rolls.
Although is sounds utopian, a distributist economy was a common reality in the past. It is the natural form an economy takes when its societal structures are relatively simple and local. Imagine a primitive society. In such a society people accumulate wealth by the work of their own hands either on farms or in small industries. Some people do get wealthy, through the combination of hard work, intelligence, inheritance, and divine providence (usually but wrongly called “good luck”). But when trade is limited to an area the size of a county (a few hundred square miles), even the wealthiest people will generally not become vastly wealthier than their neighbors. Vast accumulations require theft, slavery, war, or some other form of exploitation. Numerous examples from history illustrate this kind of simple, local economy. The Roman Republic had a distributist economy before the rise of the Roman Empire. A distributist system gradually developed out of the ruins of the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages in Western Europe. When England began to colonize North America, people thought that England’s economy was still distributist, though they never used such a word for it and the dispossession of the monasteries had already steered their economy on the course toward capitalism. In early America, the economic system of the English colonies in the North was largely distributist; in the English colonies in the South, it was mixed with a servile state. Today, with the coincidence of modern technologies and the tradition of law and polity for the past century and more, capitalism has eclipsed distributism in the United States. But distributism is not forgotten. Remnants of the old distributist order remain in practice, in law, and in the collective memory of the nation. The importance given to personal home ownership, the “family farm,” and small business; the current movement toward eating locally grown food; the continuing appeal of arts and crafts as full-time occupations – all are living remnants of distributism.
From here: incommunion.org/2010/11/24/distributism-a-primer-for-orthodox-christians/
