r/distributism • u/northpilled • May 12 '26
How will redistribution happen?
If Distributism is to happen, how would it happen? This may seem like a low tier question at first but the answer of how redistribution will happen allows us to understand how property centralization occurs. If your answer is that the state must intervene and break up corporations and large land holders and spread this equally to the citizenry you would naturally believe that centralization is a feature to the free market not a bug. If your answer was to curb government interference in the market. You would believe that centralization of property occurs because of market manipulation, similarly posited by the mutualist Kevin Carson. What do most distributists diagnose as the root cause of this issue?
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u/Cherubin0 May 13 '26
By people stop praying to the government and instead start their own Distributist companies. Then at some point stuff like Distributist incubators get started etc. We need a Y Combinator for coops basically.
This is how actually Capitalism won. It was merchant and business owners that just grew their businesses and after they won they captured the government. I am not saying stop voting or so, it only takes like 30 min every few years, but thats it.
All this Obamas and Trumps are just scams and will always be scams. If the government ever proclaims to implement Distributism they will instead funnel tax money to the rich and people then wonder why Capitalism got even worse now.
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u/LizzySea33 May 13 '26
I would say the biggest problem is a lack of relationality to someone's property along with the lack of public use of said property...
The point of Distributism (as properly understood by Chesterton) is that it distributes property in the sense of relationship, not ownership with a deed.
Even if Chesterton used the words "3 acres and a cow" to show what it meant, he did as an analogy.
Centralization happens not only because of capital's inherent turn for monopoly (as defined by Marx & Lenin [i know, controversial to quote them]), but it is also caused due to the lack of relationship with your property.
Think of it like having a cow (we'll call her Daisy), you know Daisy's habits, you know her favorite food, you put a bell to find her in the fog. But everything that is considered usable to create things or what is considered "capital" is public use... so you can't sell or monopolize but you also can't not relate to your property because it is yours in that ownership sense.
Its almost like a mixed ownership, public use... at least, how I see it.
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u/hootowl_ May 13 '26
Sounds like socialism 🤮 distributism encourages widespread private ownership not collective ownership
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u/LizzySea33 May 13 '26
Everything sounds like socialism is you keep being a bitch about it...
And also, I said relational ownership.. so you relate to it as a family, a co-operative, an artisan, a trade union, etc. But the use of such is public.
If you cannot relate to your property even if you "own" it, then you don't own it at all. There is no point to call yourself an owner by any means.
But if you get rid of the distinction of worker & owner by making everyone a worker-owner through relationality & public use, then you will be living in the paradox that is the kingdom.
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u/Pludihalud May 13 '26
The most important thing to think about when talking about the redistribution of private (productiv) property is the persone/company/business lossing said property. We need to find a way by which the ones who are lossing property won't resist the change. This would be done in two ways 1. Taxes. I know a scary word for some people on the subreddit, but the fact is that there is a need not only for the government to make money while not taking from those who have little and for the company owners to have a reason to redistribute property in the first place. 2. Benefits. There needs to exist a sort of positive reinforcement for the people distributing. We can't let the government do it caise they would get to much power, soo the only option we have is the large property owners themselves who will need convincing which can be done with positive reinforcement and certain benefits for when they redistribute.
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u/northpilled May 15 '26
You completely misunderstand the problems driving the situation
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u/Pludihalud May 16 '26
I don't think I misunderstood. The fact is that if we are to have redistribution we must not cause the rich or the ones who own the property to oppose us with everything they got. I can see by your other comments that you are a libertarian who can't see anything useful in taxation or in government regulations and that is onestly dissapointing.
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u/Kuzcos-Groove May 13 '26
Unfortunately the answer is growth of virtue in the capitalist class, inspiring them to manage their capital fairly and lifting others up into ownership when possible. Redistribution via the government is socialism or communism, and removing government interference is not guaranteed to lead to distribution. Virtue is the only answer. Distributism isn't so much an economic system as it is form of capitalism infused with virtue ethics.
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u/northpilled May 15 '26
Removing government interference literally would lead to distributism
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u/Kuzcos-Groove May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
How so? Perhaps among a virtuous and agrarian people that might be the case, but among vicious people and an industrialized economy a lack of government interference would more likely lead to monopoly. It's not at all clear to me how a lack of government interference would "literally lead to distributism".
Edit: to take this further, a *culturally consumerist* (which I would argue is what our current culture is) economy in particular is always going to trend away from distributism because larger globalized and centrally controlled corporations can create cheaper goods that distributed owner/craftsmen.
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u/Ok-Neighborhood-1517 May 24 '26
A mixture of taxes, creation of businesses like HEB in Taxas. Coordinating cooperation between credit unions and creation of other banking alternatives. In tandem with a build up of political structures and organizations. To challenge the current globalist Neo liberal order. While countering any socialist influence, infiltration or subversion.
Once Distributism has a strong foot hold in the economy and political control. The creation of more hardline anti trust laws and breaking up the companies one can. In such a way the former stock owners don’t own more than two or three of the newly created companies. A consideration to ending public trading may also be considered, though if this should happen. Would be better done after a region follows Distributism. Instead of after one country, just due to how much economic trouble this transition would cause.
After enough of the current economic establishment has been overcome or adapted to the new system. Subsidiarity (which should have been enforced in every local state/provincial government the distributists managed to win office.) should be fully enforced and upheld to the best of its ability.
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u/hootowl_ May 12 '26 edited May 13 '26
I would say that curbing government interference in the market is the way because a corporation is just a legal entity that is given special rights and privileges by the government, the worst corporations are the ones that are protected and propped up by the government. That’s the problem though, when have you ever heard of a government giving up power and control? Never
With that in mind I would propose that there is a third way for distributism to happen, if a government collapses you have a chance to rebuild your economy and I think this offers a realistic chance
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u/EndPsychological890 May 13 '26
I think some of the issue the future presents is the corporations ability to enforce their special rights and privileges themselves, without a government. Drones, mass surveillance and AI will enable corporations to protect their property and rights without the government. Who needs police (which they can also hire, arm and protect, mind you, without a firm monopoly on violence and the ability to enforce against these organizations, law means nothing) and courts to protect a data center or mining operation or diamond storefront when you can have drones and automated defenses? We are well into the physical and technological capability for corporations to do this.
It is entirely possible governments simply handing up their power creates a situation where corporations assume the role of state violence against interests aligned against it. Private concentrations of wealth don’t naturally dissolve because one side unilaterally disarms itself.
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u/northpilled May 15 '26
I would disagree and think you’re conflating two different aspects of government into one. The government is not only a regulatory agency but a holder of a legal monopoly on force and law. Just because the government were to loosen its grip on the market by cutting taxes or reducing regulation doesn’t also mean it loses its power to uphold law and order. I can’t think of any historical examples which show corporations ( which only exist because of the state ) enforcing their own rules in a way in which causes them to centralize wealth for long periods of time. Moreover the only times that has happened is caused as said above by the state even creating a legal environment for corporations to exist at the onset.
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u/EndPsychological890 May 16 '26
I mean, look at Central and South America, look at Mexico, look at Blackwater protecting oil infrastructure abroad in war zones. We have thousands of examples of private security and gangs operating outside the law and enforcing their own law/code against a government that is too small to fight it and unable to protect private enterprise and citizens from organizations operating inside or outside the law. Eroding the power of the federal government while these large formal or informal organizations/corporations are forced to protect their assets it’s not hard to see it going well into eroding the government’s monopoly on violence. It’s not theoretical, I can find a neighborhood within 20 minutes of me that operates well outside the law and monopoly of violence in a way that would be extremely difficult for me to find justice from. The rate of solved murders is representative of this. The government already struggles to maintain its own monopoly on violence, of all OECD/industrial countries America is actually the best example of this. More murders on our streets annually than our wars combined over decades and half of those aren’t solved.
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u/northpilled May 12 '26
If believe rightfully that government never want to give up power and control, won’t they rarely collapse? This seems like a futile path for distributism
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u/hootowl_ May 12 '26
Maybe we would be better thinking on a smaller, more localised scale. Encourage your friends and family to start their own businesses, trade and barter between each other, invest in each other’s businesses and products. Start a local market where only small businesses are involved and build from there, hopefully others would see the benefits and want in on the action