Distributism

[Ernie]

What do you all think of Distributism?

[barnhart]

It seems to me like a more human centered form of capitalism.

[Ernie]

It seems to me like a more human centered form of capitalism.

Interesting. Some people think it is basically the same thing as socialism.

[barnhart]

It seems to me like a more human centered form of capitalism.

Interesting. Some people think it is basically the same thing as socialism.

Hmm... to rise to the level of socialism I would expect more of a state mandate.

[Neto]

After just the first 5 minutes, it sounds like a sort of "Moral Anarchism", similar to the ideas of Nestor Machno (Ukrainian anarchist active in the early 1900's), except that he would have (I think) considered the village, or community as the center of this "economy", rather than the family specifically (and in contrast to his free use of extreme violence in the attempt to bring it about). It worked in the small farming oriented areas, but their attempts to "free" factory workers was not welcomed by those it was intended to help, because the factory workers knew that those kinds of enterprises required a large investment of capital, and so it would have required that the individuals (who had just been "freed") band together into a company (accepting the financial risk that their employer had previously taken), in order to continue their occupation. To some degree, this was a crucial turning point or defeat in the effort to bring their anarchist dream into full bloom. They were, in fact, driven out of the city where they first attempted to bring it, by the very people they had come to "free".

[joshuabgood]

Sounds good to me.

[Ernie]

Sounds good to me.

What does?

[Grace]

It seems to me like a more human centered form of capitalism.

Interesting. Some people think it is basically the same thing as socialism.

Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. (source:Wikipedia) Distribution sounds more like neighbor/church family/ families/business owners helping each other do well in their chosen professions, but not being regulated by those people as a whole. I like the idea where a construction company owner doesn't add more crews, but gives someone else the opportunity to start his own business with a crew.

I have seen this with a specific local trucking company, where when someone wanted to buy his own truck and branch out on his own. The trucking company actually loaned the money for the individual to buy his own truck and then the company gave some of their business to him.

[Ernie]

It seems to me like a more human centered form of capitalism.

Interesting. Some people think it is basically the same thing as socialism.

Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. (source:Wikipedia) Distribution sounds more like neighbor/church family/ families/business owners helping each other do well in their chosen professions, but not being regulated by those people as a whole. I like the idea where a construction company owner doesn't add more crews, but gives someone else the opportunity to start his own business with a crew.
I have seen this with a specific local trucking company, where when someone wanted to buy his own truck and branch out on his own. The trucking company actually loaned the money for the individual to buy his own truck and then the company gave some of their business to him.

The world needs more of this!

[Neto]

It seems to me like a more human centered form of capitalism.

Interesting. Some people think it is basically the same thing as socialism.

Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. (source:Wikipedia) Distribution sounds more like neighbor/church family/ families/business owners helping each other do well in their chosen professions, but not being regulated by those people as a whole. I like the idea where a construction company owner doesn't add more crews, but gives someone else the opportunity to start his own business with a crew.

I have seen this with a specific local trucking company, where when someone wanted to buy his own truck and branch out on his own. The trucking company actually loaned the money for the individual to buy his own truck and then the company gave some of their business to him.

I cannot get onto Wikipedia (blocked for some reason), but the definitions I saw for socialism said that the means of production, etc. is owned & controlled by the state, and handed out according to their determination of need and of resulting productivity for the whole society. I think that the wiki definition is accurate in terms of socialism as a theory (on paper), but the examples we can observe are different.

Anarchy sounds terrible - we've been taught to think that way - but it DOES work to a large degree on a small scale, such as in a tribal society, where there is no industry requiring large investments of capital. I also think it could work in small somewhat isolated agrarian communities, or in a colony situation, but in large scale environments there are *always* going to be outsiders who come in to manipulate it for their own personal gains.