Whoever oppresses the poor to
increase his own wealth,
or gives to the rich, will only
come to poverty.We have had our share of economic woes lately in America. Could they be related to the truth of that verse? The rich have been getting richer and the poor poorer for a long time. In the 1970's a CEO was paid twenty times more than the lowest paid worker. Today he's paid over 300 times more (Goodzward, Hope in Troubled Times)!
The Mondragon Corporation in Spain is based on Distributist principles so that the highest paid is remunerated at only six times more than the lowest paid worker. It is a billion dollar company (William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed).
When will we learn to love our neighbor as ourselves?
2 comments:
Matt said:
"When will we learn to love our neighbor as ourselves?"
The distributionist approach that you describe has no root in pure capitalism. So, as long as capitalism is seen as salvation in our culture, the answer is, "not anytime soon."
Before the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution capitalism simply meant reinvesting profits. It began in the Middle Ages in Cistercian monasteries expanding their wool industry (Stark, "The Victory of Reason). It continued in Free Imperial Cities where the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-maker prospered in a free market, which had been deregulated from feudal control by the Holy Roman Emperor.
"Small was beautiful" but we bought into massive would be magical, but it made the majority marginal.
Distributism was an effort to reverse the trend of Industrial Capitalism. If we can't put the genie back in the bottle, how do we move ahead in the right direction?
Big business won't regulate itself and the government has a problem with gas and bloating. It really stinks most of the time.
I think grass roots Distributism is the next Green movement, if we let the gospel eliminate any green house gases.
I just love alliteration!!!
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