In a group "Chestertonian Distributism" I saw one, claiming to be a Trad, stating:
Distributism without the supra-natural charity is already mentioned in the Bible: Even if you give all your properties to the poor....
No, that is not distributism, that is voluntary communism.
Distributism is a statement on how, prudentially and justicially, productive property should be distributed among owners, namely, many small are better than a few big.
It is better in justice, since if all productive property is concentrated in the hands of very few, these few are tempted to treat the rest (who only exist as their employees) as slaves.
It is better in prudence, for instance in the perspective of social distancing, in the perspective of carbon emissions and in the perspective of avoiding many bankrupcies at the same time. Plus in the interest of having employment.
This has NOTHING to do with giving or not giving your property to the poor. That is a very different story about a vocation.
"And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
[1 Corinthians 13:3]
Distributing all your goods is not distributism. The proper study of distributism is not St. Thomas Aquinas "contra retrahentes paupertatem" it is Leo XIII Rerum Novarum, in which he calls out both a single or few public authorities as owners and the abuses of very few private owners.
Distributism is a statement saying that economy should be structured so it is more probable than at present to see you as owner of a a small shop and - somewhat - less probable than at present to see you as employee in a big corporation. Opponents of distributism are not preferences like simple egoism, wanting to keep one's property rather than giving alms or embracing a vocation, opponents of Distributism are both Manchester Capitalism and Soviet Communism.
The Trad also stated that Chesterton was "traditional like Bishop Lefèbvre" - I'd agree, but say, on some items he was a good deal more traditional. In Écône you are not banned for believing Cro-Magnon were pre-Adamites physiologically like men, but not ontologically human yet, lacking the rational soul, since that had been one of the positions accepted under Pius XII. It was not yet accepted officially as even one position under Pius XI, when Chesterton lived, and on the theme of Human Origins (if not on plant species) he was definitely anti-Evolutionist.
However, that is something different from being a Distributist.
I value both.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Barbara
4.XII.2020
Chesterton was also so traditional as not to point St. Barbara into doubt. Unlike some./HGL
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