Demonizing Distributism by Association

In a recent essay, Veronique de Rugy focuses her ire on Alexander Salter, author of a forthcoming book entitled “The Political Economy of Distributism.” She apparently seeks to discredit the book by discrediting its author as an admirer of the “antisemitic” Hilaire Belloc. This is really all too silly to be taken seriously.

We live in a post-rational age which has rejected the pursuit of truth for the pursuit of power. In such an age, we no longer engage in rational dialogue but merely seek to defeat our opponent by whatever means are at our disposal. Take, for instance, an article published on May 5 in the National Review by Veronique de Rugy. It is clear that she does not know anything about distributism, which she mislabels “distributionism”. Yet this does not stop her from attacking it. Since she doesn’t know what it is and cannot therefore discuss its merits or flaws from anything but a perspective of ignorance, she seeks to demonize it by association. She stoops to conquer through the employment of the ad hominem attack, the rhetorical equivalent of stabbing someone in the back because you cannot face his arguments face to face.

The object of Dr. de Rugy’s ire is Alexander Salter, author of a forthcoming book entitled The Political Economy of Distributism: Property, Liberty, and the Common Good (Catholic University of America Press). She can’t be faulted for not having read the book, which won’t be published until next month, but she apparently seeks to discredit it, without needing to read it first, by discrediting its author. She does so by associating Dr. Salter with Hilaire Belloc, the pioneer of distributism. Specifically, Dr. de Rugy quotes two examples from an article by Dr. Salter in which he invokes Belloc:

Conservatives who distrust markets deserve to be taken seriously. But we don’t need to abandon a market-oriented political economy to appreciate their concerns. In fact, all we need is old-fashioned economics. The economic way of thinking gives us a way to understand the essential connection between property and freedom. To see how, we need to consult a much-neglected writer and statesman from the early 20th century: Hilaire Belloc, a founding father of the political-economic school of thought known as distributism.

And then she quotes Dr. Salter’s suggestion that Mr. Belloc might have something of value to teach our contemporary world: “As religious conservatives continue to debate the proper spheres of markets and government, they should keep Belloc in mind. There is much he can still teach us.”

At this point we might have expected, or at least hoped, that Dr. de Rugy would engage with the concerns of conservatives and about the necessity of doing so without abandoning a “market-oriented political economy”. Or perhaps she might have asked what Dr. Salter means by “old-fashioned economics” and how this might help us understand the “essential connection between property and freedom”. Perhaps she might have asked what exactly Hilaire Belloc could teach us.

No such luck.

Instead, Dr. de Rugy, stooping to the level of the cancel culture, accuses Belloc of being an “antisemite”, coupled with a couple of abusive epithets that he allegedly attached to the person of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. Anyone who has read Belloc’s book, The Jews, will know that his view of the Jewish question was much more nuanced than the label of “antisemite” suggests. What, for instance, did Belloc think of antisemitism? He answers the question himself:

The Anti-Semite is a man who wants to get rid of the Jews. He is filled with an instinctive feeling in the matter. He detests the Jew as a Jew, and would detest him wherever he found him. The evidences of such a state of mind are familiar to us all. The Anti-Semite admires, for instance, a work of art; on finding its author to be a Jew it becomes distasteful to him though the work remains exactly what it was before. The Anti-Semite will confuse the action of any particular Jew with his general odium for the race. He will hardly admit high talents in his adversaries, or if he admits them he will always see in their expression something distorted and unsavoury.

Are these the words of an antisemite? As for Belloc’s alleged attacks on the persons of Jesus and St. Paul, anyone who has read the numerous books by Belloc in which he affirms and defends the Christian faith will know that such comments, if they were made, were meant in jest, albeit in questionable taste.  He was both bellicose and rambunctious, which meant that he sometimes quipped intemperately, shooting from the hip without taking aim with his reason, employing wit without wisdom. He once “prayed”, in a poem entitled “The Sailor’s Carol”, that all his enemies would go to hell! Do we really believe that he meant it, or merely that he meant it to be funny?

Although it seemed decorous to defend Belloc from Dr. de Rugy’s insinuations, the point is that her introduction of Belloc’s alleged antisemitism is beside the point. What has it to do with the rectitude or otherwise of distributism? Is Protestantism discredited because of Luther’s alleged antisemitism? Is Churchill’s war record against the Nazis discredited because of his alleged antisemitism? Is sanctity discredited because of the alleged antisemitism of some of the saints? Is capitalism discredited because of the alleged antisemitism of Henry Ford?

Having sought to demonize distributism and discredit Dr. Salter in such an ignoble and ignominious manner, abandoning reason for the reductio ad absurdum of ad hominem rhetoric, she stoops even lower by quoting some lines from Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, to illustrate an alleged similarity of reasoning between Dr. Salter and Dr. Reich. The only similarity was that both men seem to believe that the markets impact culture. What exactly is Dr. de Rugy’s point, beyond the desire to smear Dr. Salter by association with someone with whom her readers will disagree? Does Dr. de Rugy not believe that economic markets impact culture?

This is really all too silly to be taken seriously. The problem is, however, that our dumbed-down culture takes a great deal of silliness all too seriously.

Although it is a shame that Dr. de Rugy should descend to the level of the cancel culture in order to demonize distributism by its association with allegedly disreputable characters, it is nothing less than a disgrace that the National Review should publish such an ad hominem attack on the author of a serious work of scholarship, adding insult to injury by placing it under the ad hominem headline: “Hilaire Belloc Is Not a Good Model for Us to Follow.” What has any of this to do with Dr. Salter’s arguments, which were not even discussed?

So be it. Let the blind lead the blind. We can at least be grateful that Dr. de Rugy has brought our attention to Dr. Salter’s forthcoming book. May we be prompted or provoked by Dr. de Rugy’s unreasoned attack upon it to read it. Should we do so, we will have a singular advantage over Dr. de Rugy. We will actually know what distributism really is.

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The featured image is “The Committee on Moral Books” (1866) by Jehan-Georges Vibert, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.