
Distributism - geowwy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
======
harryf
Based on personal impressions, I think Switzerland is a good example of
distributism. Much attention is given to the Swiss banks and the "gold" but in
reality, IMO, the strength of the Swiss economy lies in the small & medium
business sector.

There are over 300K businesses classes as SMBs in Switzerland, many of them
family owned. For a country of 8 million people that means one SMB per 26
people. There are few "high street chains" aside from the supermarkets -
unlike the UK for example where the high street of most towns and cities looks
the same.

According to this article - [https://www.thelocal.ch/20171114/report-swiss-
are-richer-tha...](https://www.thelocal.ch/20171114/report-swiss-are-richer-
than-ever-but-wealth-inequality-persists) \- 63 percent of Swiss adults have
financial assets above $100,000 which means, although there is a small percent
of extremely wealthy people, there's a good distribution of wealth.

That in turn means if you want to start a business here, there are plenty of
potential customers with disposable income they might be willing to risk on
your product or service.

~~~
discreteevent
Also reminds me of mittelstand companies in Germany which often favour
independence over growth. So, for example, they avoid borrowing too much in
order to retain complete control over their destiny.

~~~
discreteevent
Come to think of it a lot of the motivation for start ups seems to be
distributive - not working for the man, etc. The problem is that borrowing
puts on pressure to be aquired or to aquire until you become the man. Maybe
Joel Spolsky and DHH have the right idea. To remain a startup and keep that
buzz you have to forego the Megabucks.

~~~
bobthechef
You seem to be confusing startups with small businesses. They are not the same
thing. The former is often motivated by the desire to make enormous amounts of
money eventually. Most startup founders probably want to be acquired.

------
nickpinkston
I've been to Mondragon which is the biggest co-op federation in the world - at
something like 74K people and $25B of revenue. They've been around since the
1950's and have their own banking, healthcare, university, etc.

It seems to be working pretty well and the area seems to have little poverty
or wealth - very equal. I believe they do run into the same issues other big
co-ops (and any big orgs really) which is after 70 years, the culture (which
is so key to good co-ops) didn't maintain, and people in effect took the easy
way out which led to the bankruptcy of their biggest co-op: Fagor. Still
though, apparently most of the laid-off employees found work in other
Mondragon co-ops - pretty cool.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation)

------
luthien2
Distributism kinda sounds like what we had when we were first building the
Internet (and what we still have): we all owned the means of production (a
computer) and everyone contributed their own ideas freely and as they saw fit
(frameworks, coding languages, software etc) and we all loosely banded
together to come up with our own "rules" to run things, which we now call
protocols. Later on, yes..we monetized the brains by hiring them and creating
FB, Google, etc, but in a way, it seems like a rough idea of "distributism"
built the internet. I think those catholic popes were on to something.

------
DonaldFisk
There's apparently still a Distributist Club at Glasgow University that
participated in the political debates held in Glasgow University Union:
[https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/...](https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/moderate-
radicals-the-distributists-at-glasgow-university/)

~~~
amelius
Just curious, are they in favor of Brexit, or against it?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I would have assumed for it as the EU is clearly another form of centralised
government and favours businesses that trade across borders so are larger. But
when it comes to Brexit all bets are off.

~~~
matt4077
I run a 200,000€ revenue company that sells physical goods across the EU.
Large companies have the resources to do the paperwork to sell across customs
borders, I don’t.

In this sense, the EU is more helpful to small companies than large ones. It
effectively removes borders.

~~~
badpun
On the other hand, without the unified market, governments can engage in
protectionism, and if they do, there's less of a chance that a small business
will be crushed by a giant global competitor.

~~~
bobthechef
That's too simplistic. There are large differences between countries in the
East and the West. Western corporations have had a field day in the EU's
Eastern members precisely because of the relative economic advantages they
have built up over 50 years following WWII and the massive restructuring of
the economies of the Eastern members following the fall of communism. Free
trade really only works when countries have some kind of parity (something
Friedrich List argues). However, to the East's advantage, their economies are
much more dynamic and the West is increasingly stagnating.

------
ImaCake
Sounds a bit like wildlife Conservancies found dotted across the developing
world[0]. While the rules and some funding come from centralised authorities,
the land that is put aside for wildlife conservation is done so by local
peoples at their own discretion, and the management and work in each
conservancy are conducted by the locals. I guess Conservancies in the
developing world contrast with the organised national parks and state run
conservation areas of countries like the USA and New Zealand.

But both forms of organsation can work together. If you look at the map of
Namibia in this reference [1], you can see how conservancies offer a buffer
zone to that country's national parks.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Wildlife_Conservancie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Wildlife_Conservancies_in_Namibia)
1\.
[http://www.met.gov.na/services/conservancies/193/](http://www.met.gov.na/services/conservancies/193/)

------
motohagiography
The nearest implementation of this I can think of is the Seigneurial System in
early Canada (then, New France), that we used to learn about in history
classes as kids.

[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/seigneuria...](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/seigneurial-
system)

It is criticized and largely dismissed in the article and memory as feudal,
but a Distributist interpretation of it might grasp its benefits with more
nuance.

------
luiscleto
I originally thought this was going to be an April fool's satire on using
Microservices as a religion.

~~~
gitgud
I assumed it was a similar joke for classifying people who worship the block
chain

------
gottebp
I love Distributism. As G.K. Chesterton said, "The problem with Capitalism is
not that there are too many but too few" Distributism seeks the maximum number
of families and individuals _privately_ owning a small bit of capital. Imagine
every family with a small business, and these businesses sometimes cooperating
to do greater things. Distributism seeks to avoid massive capital in the hands
of a few oligarchs. It also seeks to avoid the means of production belonging
to the people in a vague and non-specific way -- such as communism with its
abolition of private property (No one really owns anything in that vague
abstraction -- the State owns all). When everyone (or at least most) has a
modest business, they can support their community and keep it intact.
Subsidiarity is localism through and through -- not just in food but
everything else. I think we all want our work to make the places we live
better. We all want the power to help our friends get jobs so they do not have
to move far away (Have a small business and you can hire them).

~~~
toasterlovin
The problem with this vision is that economies of scale exist. I have been
involved in a manufacturing business for a while. Scale solves lots of
problems. It spreads overhead over more units. It incentivizes spending
resources to hyper optimize material and labor usage. Etc.

~~~
bloudermilk
That's what makes cooperation an important aspect of these types of
ideologies. In _Humanizing The Economy_ [0], the author describes successful
cooperative movements from around the world that are based on localized
democratic principles but leverage large-scale cooperation to organize at
scale.

[0]: [https://www.newsociety.com/Books/H/Humanizing-the-
Economy](https://www.newsociety.com/Books/H/Humanizing-the-Economy)

~~~
specialist
Thank you for this tip. I'm eager to read this book.

While I'm a big fan of Richard D Wolff's efforts, he fails to examine the
governance models of co-ops. What works, what doesn't. Models of
incorporation. Case studies.

Governance is key.

\--

Some years ago, I joined a non-profit OSS team, part of the Kuali Consortium,
with the primary intent to see how it worked first hand.

Sadly, it didn't.

Even more sadly, I still have little clue what could work, what to advocate.

I am inspired by Pieter Hintjens' Social Architecture as model for successful
OSS:

[http://hintjens.com/books](http://hintjens.com/books)

But have yet to practice it myself.

\--

Sorry, I always conflate ideas. My end goal is to figure out how to make
useful, meaningful software while still paying my mortgage and feeding my
family.

~~~
bloudermilk
Agree with your critique of Wolff. I’m on a similar quest and have some
resources you might find interesting. Feel free to reach out on gmail–same
handle.

------
bjourne
I believe Distributist ideas such as Syndicalist worker cooperatives have been
thrown by the way-side by the modern Left. Tackling the looming ecological
disasters require centralized control. For example, the Paris Agreement is a
Centralist policy, as is the world-wide Carbon tax.

~~~
majewsky
The leftist media (at least the parts that I know) frequently applaud small
cooperatives and other grassroots-level economic activity. But I don't see
anyone who translates these local efforts into policy.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Both sides of the media do, as to the politicians they seem to favour either
big business or unions.

------
Brendinooo
Distributism is great because it is a third way; some are afraid of too much
corporate power, some are afraid of too much government power, but
distributists are wary of anyone having too much power and are able to provide
a solution for that.

However, there has to be a shift in consumers' mindsets for distributism to be
embraced. One of the great things that capitalism/economies of scale does is
drive prices down. A $100 grocery bill at Walmart could be $120 or more at the
local grocery store, and for a lot of people that $20 makes a real difference.
People rail against big banks, but don't mind the cheaper mortgages. And so
on.

Distributism has a lot of benefits, but in most of the cases that matter,
price, selection, and oftentimes convenience are not benefits, and that's what
we seem to optimize for. It requires a different set of priorities.

~~~
kelnos
The annoying bit is that people as a whole don't seem to account for all
variables all that well.

Sure, your weekly grocery bill may be $20 higher, but due to better wealth
distribution, your salary might be $50/week higher. Most people just see "it
costs more" without recognizing that they still benefit, if they could only
make the deeper analysis.

------
ComodoHacker
What about large-scale projects which aren't possible without concentration of
productive assets and capital? Does this doctrine addresses that?

Can we have sustained energy production or trans-Atlantic internet cables or
satellites or Teslas with it?

~~~
geowwy
From the article:

    
    
      > Distributism puts great emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity. This
      > principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political)
      > should perform a function which can be performed by a smaller unit.
    

The point is that you should try and keep things as small as feasible. When
it's not feasible you use bigger institutions.

~~~
michaelt
How would that interact with the situation where a smaller system just about
works OK, but a larger system works better?

For example, we _could_ devolve wireless spectrum management to cities. But it
would be jolly inconvenient if San Francisco and San Jose required mutually
incompatible wifi hardware.

~~~
ben509
It seems like you could have a government that was primarily focused on
standards and contract enforcement, so companies could build any kind of
hardware they liked, but the government would be able to push them to build it
according to a broader standard.

------
jeffdavis
I'm inclined to like this idea, but it seems to be framed in a way that
centralizes a lot of governmental power.

Why not look for ways to decentralize power and also decentralize resources?
For instance, removing or limiting various privileges of large corporations
that individuals don't have.

~~~
tathougies
Distributism, being a Catholic belief, is ultimately based on the principal of
subsidiarity, which is a Catholic social doctrine stating that all matters of
government ought to be handled at the most local level competent and able
enough to deal with the matter. Thus, while national defense may best lay with
the national government, the trash pickup schedule is best decided by local
processes.

~~~
lixtra
I don’t see why Catholism is emphasized so much in your answer. The concepts
discussed exist independently of Catholism, have their roots before Catholism
and looking at them from a religious angle confounds more than it clarifies.

~~~
true_religion
It’s based on the writings of Catholic popes. I think calling it Catholic
merely gives credit to its recent originators.

It’s just the same as calling a school of economics Austrian, or a branch of
psychology Freudian.

~~~
c0brac0bra
Additionally the foremost apologists for Distributism, G.K. Chesterton and
Hilaire Belloc, were Catholic writers.

------
dluan
Capital democratization is a topic I've been researching for a while now with
regards to new tech startup corporate structure, especially things that fall
into the public good category like FOSS.

Co-op's and ESOPs are just one way, but it's about time that we start to
experiment with new ownership and governance structures that don't just create
more Facebook's and Amazon's.

Louis Kelso is the one who notoriously invented and popularized worker-
ownership plans in the US, taking inspiration from the US Homestead Act with
spreading capital ownership across society. During the cold war, he also used
to characterize 'capital democratization' as a third way, separate from
capitalism and communism, but mainly just because then neoclassical economists
like Samuelson derided his ideas at the time.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUf51M9D6sw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUf51M9D6sw)

~~~
apatters
This is a really interesting thing to think about. If we pick on Facebook as
an example, most people look at FB and see that it has 2.3 billion customers,
then go on to assume it's an amazing and innovative company filled with great
people who make the best product in the industry.

An alternative point of view is that there are 2.3 billion customers out there
for this type of product, and the financial systems and incentives present in
our society resulted in Facebook owning all of those customers.

FB actually is exemplary of the flaws present in the first mode of thinking. I
don't doubt there are many brilliant people working there, but their product
is crappy and even user hostile on many levels. Biggest absolutely doesn't
translate to best all the time.

More likely FB got to where it is because the rules of our society concentrate
capital and control (which is exactly what we see going on when we look at
data such as wealth disparity, shrinking # of new businesses etc. in the USA
over time).

~~~
luckylion
> I don't doubt there are many brilliant people working there, but their
> product is crappy and even user hostile on many levels.

The alternative interpretation is that there are brilliant people working on
it and their product is great, the user just isn't the customer. Brilliance
doesn't imply ethical behavior ;)

~~~
apatters
That's true for sure, but it's worth noting that Facebook's actual customers
(advertisers) don't like it much either--many outright hate FB for its
business practices.

------
gdwatson
Maybe it's because I'm a Protestant who's not particularly invested in Roman
Catholic social teaching and so I haven't learned the nuances, but it seems to
me that when you apply distributism to an industrial or post-industrial
society and work out the kinks you end up with either capitalism or socialism.

It's straightforward to apply distributism to an agrarian society where land
is the main source of wealth: split up the farmland among a bunch of
smallholding farmers.¹ But once a meaningful part of your economy is in
capital-intensive industries, you have a decision to make: do you allow
private individuals to accumulate capital or not? If you do, you soon have a
capitalist society. If you do not, or you allow them to accumulate capital but
not to benefit from it, you end up with a socialist society. The examples in
the Wikipedia article confirm this impression.

Distributism looks to me like someone took the principle of subsidiarity and
the role of the family, saw that they got more respect in the late middle
ages, and pined for the economic system of that era. It would be interesting
and productive to re-examine some of the underlying assumptions there.

¹ Whether land reform is just is a separate issue; at least it is possible.

~~~
_emacsomancer_
Interestingly, Protestantism is tied up with the history of capitalism.

I think it's worthwhile to think about systems that don't reduce to either
capitalism or socialism.

(Though, in the spirit of reductionism, one can imagine capitalism as reducing
to socialism in the long term: you can allow private individuals to accumulate
capital, but ultimately it'll end up in the hands of a few individuals, who
will be a de facto government.)

------
stevecoley
I have been in business for more than 33 years.The best way I can describe it
is like this. Running a small business can be like going for a ride in a
washing machine.First you get soaked,then chemicals are dumped on your
head,then your spun,and finally you get hung out to dry! All kidding
aside,these guys get it and are very easy to deal with.Their terms are
flexible,and the process is efficient.I have used them on multiple occasions
involving 3 companies over an 8 year period.They have earned this review.
Contact them via email: (info@westernloanfinance.com) or visit
www.westernloanfinance.com. Thanks Steve.

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengism)
proved to be successful

------
jefurii
Richard D Wolff advocates a socialism that sounds something like this,
centered around worker cooperatives rather than state control of everything.

~~~
Mengkudulangsat
Any large examples of this? Only one I can think of is Mondragon Corporation

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation)

~~~
blowski
In the UK, John Lewis / Waitrose (a big supermarket and department store
group) is owned by its employees.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I suppose the mutual building societies in the UK aren't very far from this
idea as well, although there aren't many left now. Also Vanguard.

------
bravura
"Further, some distributists argue that socialism is the logical conclusion of
capitalism, as capitalism's concentrated powers eventually capture the state,
resulting in a form of socialism."

This is pretty wild, could someone please explain this argument for me?

~~~
tathougies
Yes... Communism means the communal ownership of goods. In practice, some
process needs to be in place to decide how the goods are used. Usually, this
is some kind of democratic institution -- a government or small committee that
nominally looks after the interests of the people. Historically, the issue
with communism is the inability for this small group to truly benefit all the
workers.

Corporate capitalism is the same system under another name. Instead of
governments controlling the capital in the name of the workers, employers own
the capital in the name of the workers. Workers themselves in both systems do
not often own their own means of production (although capitalism at least
allows for this).

For example, a distributist model of furniture manufacture involves thousands
of local woodworkers each making furniture, selling them, profiting in a small
way -- at least enough to raise their family. A corporate capitalist model is
one large company which owns all the tools and wood that the individual
employee-workers utilize to make a good that is sold to profit the
corporation. A communist model is the 'people' own the tools and the wood that
some citizens make into furniture for the benefit of all the community.
Because the worker gets everything they need anyway, their income isn't
actually a function of their labor.

In both the case of corporate capitalism and communism, the worker does not
own the means of production and the profit and value they create via the
utilization of the tools and raw materials owned by some other more remote
group is mostly alienated from their behavior. Only in the distributist model
are people actually paid exactly for what value their labor provided.

In other words, monopolistic publicly owned corporations are basically
communism, but with the board of directors (on behalf of the 'people' \-- the
shareholders, basically the public for large corporations) substituting for
the communist government. All economic decisions are made centrally, and any
competition between these large firms in an oligopoly is more akin to the
competition between communist governments than the competition envisioned by
capitalists

~~~
blowski
Thank you for such a clear explanation. As somebody that clearly knows their
onions on this topic, are you able to answer a couple more questions?

1\. Under distributism, what happens to people who can’t produce valuable
economic output - the old, disabled, infirm?

2\. How does distributism deal with externalities, both positive and negative.
What incentive is there for charity or creative work where results benefit the
whole group, so nobody wants to pay?

~~~
platz
Well, how do those things happen today?

~~~
blowski
A combination of tax and regulation to redistribute income, cover the cost of
negative externalities, and encourage activities with a positive externality.
I’m grossly oversimplifying, and obviously it’s neither 100% efficient nor
effective.

I’m genuinely intrigued by distributism, so please don’t think I’m making
snarky comments.

~~~
platz
Since capitalism does those things in an ad-hoc way, I don't see why it would
have to be any different under distributionism; if anything it would most
likely be a non-change; it certainly doesn't seem to preclude those activities
- my impression is you have to implement some form of mixed economy no matter
what backing ideology you try to guide with.

~~~
blowski
So distributism isn’t opposed to tax? Could the government then subsidise some
types of work that it wanted to encourage, or tax those it wanted to
discourage?

------
luiscleto
> "Further, some distributists argue that socialism is the logical conclusion
> of capitalism, as capitalism's concentrated powers eventually capture the
> state, resulting in a form of socialism"

This greatly resembles Karl Marx's criticism of capitalism, which has failed
to hold up to reality so far.

Frankly, this sounds a lot like repackaged socialism using labor unions and
guilds rather than a central government. Might not be as bad a state socialism
(i.e. they might actually be able to manage the businesses better), but I
sincerely doubt it would solve any of the major problems we see today.

While you do have inequality in capitalist systems the "elites" tend to
rotate, with empires falling apart and new ones taking their place. Wealthy
families maintaining their wealth and power are the exception and not the
norm.

Introducing guilds or more unions will likely make it much harder for
competition and innovation to thrive, introducing a huge barrier of
bureaucracy interested only in maintaining the status quo for their own
benefit.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
The capture the state part seems to be spot on. You just need to take a look
at how much lobbying goes on and our inability to deal with issues like
climate change thanks to the big oil companies.

~~~
luiscleto
They can apply large pressure on the state, true. But so can labour unions
(and probably so would guilds). It is still not true state ownership as
competition does thrive (even if they still have obstacles).

Edit: There are probably even better examples of lobbying than climate change
as that has a ton of confounding factors that make it hard to deal with
besides just oil companies. But I see no reason to assume distributism would
make the issue better. Taxi drivers protesting against Uber comes to mind.

------
mjfl
Any real implementation of Distributism would require a strong state and
police force to enforce it and in practice would look identical to socialism.

~~~
nabla9
All robust implementations of capitalism require state and police force to
enforce property rights.

Property is monopoly to assets given by the government.

~~~
baddox
You can certainly have property rights without a government, they just may not
be “fair” according to some definitions (of course, specific implementations
of government protection of property rights also may not be “fair” according
to some definitions).

~~~
JetSpiegel
That's just might makes right, there's no property there since you can take
what you want.

Property implies you use the state (an external entity) to enforce your
rights, providing checks on individual power, not that you enforce it
yourself.

------
simonh
The problem with this is it can only work by imposing arbitrary restrictions
on everyone. Under free market capitalism if you want to run a family business
you can. If you want to run a multinational corporation you can. Nobody is
rigging the system to force one outcome or the other and there are good
economic reasons why both can be appropriate and successful in different
circumstances. Distributism arbitrarily labels one of those wrong and the
other right on ideological grounds, leading to an inflexible, inefficient and
ultimately coercive economy because the 'right' answer has to be imposed
somehow.

I think what is often missed about capitalism is that essentially it is based
on individual freedom. The freedom to own property, to own capital, to deploy
that capital as one sees fit, to take responsibility and the benefits from the
outcome, to act individually if you wish or in concert in groups or
organisations of any size.

In capitalist liberal democracies, if you want to create and run a workers
cooperative, you certainly can and people have. You can run a family business,
or a huge corporation. It doesn't really mandate a particular organisational
structure, at least at that level. There are rules about how business entities
are run to an extent, such as rules about boards of directors and financial
reporting, but they don't actually stop you building an enterprise built on
distributist or even Marxist principles.

The problem is these arbitrary systems of organisation, while they can be
effective in some limited situations, just aren't flexible and efficient
enough to be extensible to a whole economy. In mandating a particular
organisational structure, and in distributism even a preferred scale, they
also obstruct innovation. The old distributionist mantra 'three acres and a
cow' sums this up nicely, it's an essentially static view of society. Again
Marxism suffers from the same disease, never really developing good answers to
how enterprises are founded, innovate, evolve and wind down in a natural way.
Instead it has always had to resort to state executive fiat because there is
no organic process for innovation and these life-cycle transformations in
Marxism. In contrast under Capitalism, people and organisations simply do
these things through the exercise of their individual freedom and discretion.

~~~
hacknat
> Nobody is rigging the system to force one outcome or the other and there are
> good economic reasons why both can be appropriate and successful in
> different circumstances.

I would consider myself a capitalist, but you have to be pretty naive to think
that corporations haven’t captured our governing class and rigged the system
in their favor.

This Wikipedia article makes this point very early as a critique of
capitalism, which is fair.

~~~
simonh
They have in some countries and not so much in others depending on the
regulatory system. In the US yes corporations have enormous direct political
influence due to the campaign finance and lobbying system, but other liberal
democracies have very strict campaign finance laws that make that much harder.
It's not an inherent or inevitable attribute of the system.

There are also plenty of examples of governments breaking up, trust-busting
and punitively regulating big corporations so they clearly don't always get
their own way.

In contrast I would argue that ossification and stagnation are inherent
features of distributism and a lot of alternative economic systems that don't
have good answers to the problem on innovation and economic dynamism.

