G.K. Chesterton’s ideas concerning government intervention in the economy have led some to believe that he may have been a socialist. They argue that the political creed of distributism, which Chesterton advocated, would involve the coercive redistribution of wealth. But are these critics right in their characterization of Chesterton’s ideas? One of the weirdest [...]
The whole notion of a global problem requiring a global solution is rooted in a false logic. Effectively it is saying that because bigness causes problems we need even more bigness to solve them. Distributism as a derivative of the principle of subsidiarity offers the only real alternative to the cult of bigness in [...]
Distributism is the only practical solution to the problem of rampant corporatism and the globalism which is its inevitable consequence. Next time we raise a glass of craft-brewed ale, we should not merely enjoy its flavor, we should also raise a toast to the political and economic freedom that it represents… Some time ago [...]
What was it that this non-expert, the funny fat man, had to say? Why did his works become for many a sort of bible? How was it that an artist-turned-journalist was accepted as the idea man as well as the entertainer of people?… The people who now know G.K. Chesterton most commonly know that [...]
How do employee-owned companies fare in the wider economy? How do they compete in the dog-eat-dog world of business?… Many years ago, back in England and long before my conversion, I stumbled upon a book called The Man Who Gave His Company Away. It was a biography of Ernest Bader, a very successful entrepreneur [...]
One of the wonderful things about The Imaginative Conservative is the way in which it has become a powerful forum for thoughtful and thought-provoking writers to exchange thoughtful and thought-provoking ideas. There’s none of the knee-jerk and thoughtless reaction to events to be found on other cultural and political journals. Deo gratias! This does not [...]
Over a decade ago a then-acquaintance of mine inquired as to my economic views, my response being that I was “a distributist by default.” Such a phrase accurately captures the ambivalence that I had towards that economic theory until the time when I decided to break with it entirely. How I ever came to [...]
At first sight, it would seem that G.K. Chesterton and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have very little in common. The one has a reputation for jollity and rambunctiousness, the other for sobriety and solemn sternness. One penned swashbuckling fantasies about lovable eccentrics, the other wrote gritty works of realism set in prison camps or cancer wards. [...]
With this essay, I am venturing into unfamiliar territory. My previous essays featured in this journal have been distillations of my academic research. This is not the case here. I regard myself sufficiently well-informed so as to be a knowledgeable consumer of writings on the political economy of distributism, but not yet—though I am currently striving [...]
Justin Welby, the humble and good-humored Archbishop of Canterbury, marked himself from the beginning of his reign by the contrast he struck with his predecessor Rowan Williams, now Baron of Oystermouth. Lord Williams was one of the seminal reasons for my conversion to Anglicanism. He was born in Ystradgynlais in Swansea, Wales, to a [...]
I hardly know where to start in responding to Messrs. Richards’ and Witt’s “response” to my earlier article on “Distributism in the Shire”. More to the point, I hardly know where to end. There seems so much to discuss. There is the question of Tolkien’s agreement with Belloc on the practical aspects of distributism, [...]
As any old newspaperman can tell you, crafting headlines is a rare skill quite distinct from ordinary good writing. A New York Post example, “Headless Body in Topless Bar,” is a work of art. Or when rural American audiences felt insulted by hillbilly comedy films, and Variety proclaimed: “Stix Nix Hix Flix.” Or a [...]
The theological dimension is needed both for interpreting and solving present-day problems in human society. – John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 55 God Himself is a society. – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Ch. 8 First Principles How radical can we be? Dare we begin, as Chesterton once did, “with a little girl’s hair”? In What’s Wrong with [...]
Distributism, as originally conceived by G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, has long ceased being a practical possibility for the majority of those living in the liberal democracies of the West. Yet this does not mean that the core principle of distributism—widely distributed private ownership of the means of livelihood—is wholly beyond our reach. [...]