Distributism: What is Change?

(The Storming of the Bastille)

It seems to be the penalty of those who say things are always changing, that they never realise when things really change. There are many modern examples; some of which are now rather ancient than modern; notably that of the grim grizzled Die-Hard the Darwinian. His whole theory is one of endless change; and yet he cannot recognise or reconcile himself to the obvious change of a challenge to a hypothesis nearly fifty years old. He talks as if the very shape and nature of a man might melt and alter, as in his own story of the monkey; he often seems to agree with that German Darwinian who said that man is something to be surpassed; but he instantly revolts at the very idea that Darwin could be surpassed. While he is presumably ready to discuss whither the Superman will have three legs or nine noses, he will not extend such flexibility from noses to notions; least of all to the notion which is the foundation of his own nightmares. Or again, the Socialist who set out for Utopia at the end of the nineteenth century insisted that men would change their conditions, even the most primary conditions of owning the clothes on their backs or looking after the health of their babies; the one thing he never contemplated was that the Utopians who were this changing their homes and habits might possibly change their Utopia. Therefore to this day the older type of Socialist is still vaguely bewildered by the Distributist; and cannot understand why his is not merely a Capitalist or frankly a Communist. So again the Capitalist, when is also was a sort of Futurist, always saw the future filled with more and more machinery or finance; he was solely occupied in proving that modern men would soon have as much machinery as they wanted; he was rather mystified when yet more modern men want to know whether they can have no more machinery than they want. The Daily Express capitalist will always hail hopefully a men machine or new invention; he seems incapable of seeing a new situation. He really seems to think that England, merely by announcing that she will never fight anybody, can always go on bullying everybody. (G. K. C. 'A Socratic Symposium- Straws in the Wind', G. K's. Weekly, July 18, 1935, Vol. XXI, No. 540)

Chesterton strikes a chord here about something that ought to be remembered. Change is a fundamental factor and reality of life. Someone might say then, 'Well Chesterton has a point, these men the Darwinians or the Socialists could not recognise a change in the situation, but are you New-Distributists not making the same mistake as them?'. I answer that, while it is true that we no longer live in the 1920s and 30s, and that era, its problems and conditions are no longer with us, we live in an age which has yet to wake up to Chesterton's advice. Who can deny that we still live with the Darwinists who cannot admit that the theory could change, except in cosmetic details, or an age when liberal democratic capitalism is actually called the 'end' of history, that man will never change because he has reached his final destiny. I also believe that when some truth has been struck, particularly one that is common to mankind, that whatever the poverty of past attempts or schemes to implement it, the scheme cannot be identified with the truth as such.

This is certainly the case with Catholicism. Its dogma's are universal, in that they appeal to universal principles are above the merely parochial. ‘Go forth and baptise all nations’, a simple mission, restore the race of Adam, in Second Adam, ‘restore all thing’s in Christ’. However, the implementing of this, and the dogma itself are not completely identical. Men can err, no system can perfect men by simply being a perfect system. Thus, a bishop may cause damage the faith, believing himself to be in faithful service. His office may be perfect, he is not guaranteed that same perfection.

A similar line of arguing, I believe, may be made for Distributism. It is a peculiar modern obsession that property is somehow a stigma, that families are something that you are thrown into without any choice, that babies are the single curse of women and that work is the means to leisure. Most men and women today could not imagine that any argument could be brought to challenge these modern peculiarities other than a belated, hypocritical rightism, the mere appeal to ‘traditional’ values. They cannot conceive that their minds may be captured in a cult of change, (perpetual revolution, ‘Obsessive Contemporaneity’, ‘Trendomania’, fadism) that admits of no change to the cult. They are incapable of accessing higher levels of being, they are fixated with the simply inanimate, material, extrinsic, externalistic aspects of ontology. Finally, they are obsessed with the words ‘Freedom’, ‘Liberty’, and ‘Modern’. They declare that Capitalism, enlightenment, science, democracy grants the most of these things, gives the most of it to the most people, and that each of these things are good in and of themselves. They cannot admit of a challenge to these words. They merely stand up and declare ‘We are Free, liberal and modern’ without any substantive proof of it. What if Freedom means something different, what if it is a metaphysical, not merely physical concept? What if liberty is not simply, ‘freedom from tradition’, but is rather ‘freedom from sin and error’? What if we are all ‘modern’ and that such a concept begs the question, what is progress?

Nonetheless, we see men and women dedicated to the ‘ever new’, without ever challenging the ‘ever new’. Distributism is ‘ever new’ however, in the real sense, because it is also ‘ever old’. The first fact about Distributism is that it is a tried and tested dogma. Where widely distributed property is present, and a real respect for the family as the centre of civilization visible then society is stable. Whenever, these things disappear we lose our senses, and even our ability to sense.

Do I think that Distributism as it was expressed in the 20s and 30s needs to be followed with a kind of fideism? No. But neither did the Distributists of the Weekly. The goal is a sane economy, the method is a subject for debate. The scheme may change, sanity (because it is based on sense) never changes. Chesterton once said of Christianity, that it had not been tired and found wanting, rather it had been found difficult and left untried. The same might be said of Distributism. Would it be hard to create a Distributist state in the 21st century? Sure. Should difficulties deter us? Surely not!. (This is the second time this essay that I have used an example paralleling Catholicism. I do not like to ‘secularise’ Catholicism, but illustrations and parallels can be drawn here since Catholicism is in a sense the ‘model’ of truth, being Truth itself).
To conclude then we should turn to Chesterton:

Now we do not admit that anything moves endlessly on one direction in so simple a style; but in practice we often feel that the progressive is the person who had not moved at all. When early in every year there comes that hopeful revolution, that happy revolt, when the hedges are shooting and the bull rushes out, we do not believe that the world will go on growing greener and greener forever, until every man is a Green Man and every flower a Green Carnation; and everything, animal, vegetable, and mineral is given over to the wearing of the green. But we do see something strange and sad about the Poet of the Spring still sitting and declaiming that the winter is past and the rain is over and gone, when he is sitting in the snow all covered in icicles; exulting in change without noticing that there has been any change; even in the form of a chill. And there are some proposals, and one in particular, which remind me rather of an attempt to perpetuate departed Spring in the middle of winter, by painting everything bright green; even to the point of wearing Green Shirts.

Now to my instinct Distributism is a change of direction and not merely an acceleration of advance. And the Distributist is called a stick-in-the-mud; not because he wishes to stick in any mud; but because he refuses to march any further along the particularly muddy path which has been called the path of progress. (Ibid.)

Do we want to ‘go back’ to a better time? Sure. Are we going to do so by failing to admit that things change? Absolutely not! Let us be intransigent. Let us 'stick-in-the-mud'. But let us remember that we still need to go forwards, just forwards away from the cliff edge, and guarding Truth!