The Emergence Of A Distributist Paradigm
Feudalism Part II (The preceding article is non-essential, so you don't need to read it to read this one)
The (lack of) Merits in Government in an Industrial Society
There is an objective liaise between modernity and an image of the past that, though it seems to not be given justice, is pertinent to understanding our relationship with the direction of the future. Imagining the past is clunky, and a lot of times, completely dishonest when coming from purely secular and economic perspectives. Before the early modern era (the late 17th century), European identity was inextricable from our ties to community. In saecula saeculorum, the responsibilities of the crown, all the way down to the lowliest laborer or indentured servant, the ties of society were in the maintenance of community - one might say the Church. Or as Chad Haag might describe, the soma of the medieval European was tied to the maintenance of crops. Life was cyclical. Not one person, before the invention of the middle class and the expropriation of the peasantry’s commons, had their eyes set on the heartbeat of the economy, the advancement of technology, et cetera. Economic surplus, when it was had, was inevitably poured back into the regeneration of the community. There was no customization of production, such as in capitalism or communism. What was gained was made to further glorify God because the economic process was inextricably linked to the maintenance of communities.
If we are to assume this as unmistakable - that through the growth of Christendom, which Ellul pointed out acted as an inhibitor of unadulterated secular technological advancement - then we must ascertain that there is a truth in the goodness of an economically stagnant society, wherein community comes before everything else. For instance, the prime goal of a good lord in medieval France or England would not have been to maintain a road or to build a supermarket; nor would the goal of a good king be to establish highways and electrical substations; nor would the shir-rive (sheriff) be concerned with cracking down on drug lords and cartels. The objects of all those in power were to, from however far their power extended, prevent violent crime, prevent moral degradation, and ensure that all those under the crown were faithful to the crown. However, he or she who held the title of monarch were enormously in debt to their own people. There was fealty from the bottom to the top, and all mandates and edicts were, inevitably, directly purposed for the creation and maintenance of Christian communities. This, what we call, Christendom.
The development of infrastructure that is derived from scarce resources for the object of production is a new concept. The modern government is not willed to maintain a community, nor do the subjects of the modern democratic republic have the expectation of maintaining community. The sole object of power has been directed towards developing more infrastructure as its mandate of heaven is solely derived from infrastructure idols. For instance, the highway is not created to maintain community. Perhaps in political language it is seen ostensibly as something to connect Americans, or communities, but as we all can plainly see it does just the opposite. Really, this is the case with all developments of the second industrial revolution, but I am not here to ruminate on what has already been said numerous times.
The modern government, whether China, the USA, France, or South Sudan, all gain their legitimacy on crumbling highways and rusting metal. There is a fundamental principle that every strong kingdom had and it was that community and the Church outlast all the crumbling highways and rusting metal. This principle so fundamental, that only now that is has been lost, are we to fully realize it was requisite to the health of a nation and of a state.
Just look at the appeals of President Biden during the State of the Union address.
They are solely focused on the growth of “jobs” - that rip families apart, send men and women in atomizing vehicles to expropriate their labor to cynical woke corporate America.
The development of more complex infrastructure, that at the current birthrate and further centralization will become completely useless in fifty or a hundred years.
The “opportunities” created by government programs for minorities to receive education gratis.
And on and on. You see the trend here, right? All this is not the growth of a nation or a state or a community, but the clueless appeal of a bureaucrat in a secular, industrial society. This society that is clearly on its downslope, beckons and moans for meaning, and all it has to do is look further to the past.
Distributism Is Realistic (because it is true)
This is why distributism is truer than capitalism or communism. The latter two find their basis on capital and production as the subject. The direction, purely being economic and materialistic, can be abstracted as an ascending ray, rather than a circle or possibly a stagnant ray (the natural state of man without increasing industry and “wealth”).
For as we can see, the direction of capitalism is unsustainable, and antithetical to the family and the maintenance of the nation’s people and the state. It is bleak and cynical and wishes to further the divide between individuals from community, and communities from the state through the basis of moral individualism and inevitably atheism and nihilism.
The direction of communism, all the bleaker, wears the skinsuit of community, and yet maximizes the importance of production (beyond reason), strips every person from the seniority of their Church and community, and leaves them evermore detached from the holy life. The holy life being the pursuit of the other - sacrifice for the greatness of God and His Son’s teachings.
The reason distributism is truer is because it was the natural state of a Christian society. When society prioritizes the glory of God, it is prioritizing families and communities. This was done for centuries during the feudal era primarily in Western Europe in France and England, and in Central Europe in Germany and Italy. (See my last article on feudalism for a further deep-dive into that). Distributism - the prioritization of the communal factor in the ownership of private property, and maximizing gift-giving and almsgiving above production, wealth, or economic increase - is perceptibly the modern reaction to capitalism and communism based upon the social teachings of Pope Leo XIII. However, it really is just taking the world we already had and refurbishing it in modern lingo. This is why distributism isn’t some pie-in-the-sky Catholic integralist fantasy state - it lasted centuries, while capitalism has failed to live up to its supposed merit, and communism, well, I don’t even have to go there.
Distributism is simply a descriptive concept that develops from a society in need of decentralization, and prioritizes Christianity (and therefore community) above the maximization of profits and the boot of the state.
What Is The Development of Distributism Going To Look Like?
In many respects, the development of distributism will emerge from what is being called neo-medievalism of which I am only scarcely familiar. However, I understand the general concept. The world is both globalizing and deglobalizing at once. This is why from the same voices in the media and the internet, there is this frustrating cognitive dissonance where through one side of their mouth, the description of clearly catabolizing global order is emerging, whilst corporations and supply chains become ever more centralized. It is probably the largest dissonance in narratives among the entire right-wing. However, they are not wrong.
Global order is clearly mediating. As in, the post-collapse of the Soviet Union has brought other big players into the mix, and though they will never defeat United States order, they can be a major thorn in the side. This article is not for geopolitical speculation (my least favorite kind of speculation), so I am refraining from that conversation. Metapolitically speaking, the unpredictability continues to become more and more clear. Ethnic wars breaking out left and right, bizarre one-eighties made by many powers, the clashing of political groups and social castes in the West, etc. There is every reason to think that the future of trade confederations like the EU will break apart, and passive-aggression between China and others will become less passive and more aggressive. However, this says absolutely nothing about the future of domestic supply chains and economic power, and how the evolution of the free market economy will continue to look more and more like feudal Europe. Yes, the world will “globalize” because the technology is there; technology won’t, can’t, and shouldn’t be impeded; there is a firm reliance between all states and corporations to maintain some level of peace to prevent famine and widespread war. However, it will deglobalize as the direction of technology is no longer yielding vast economic opportunity and fruit, leading to obvious widespread stagnation.
How can this be? Well, it is quite obvious that we live in hyper-individualistic societies, but to assume this will be the norm forever is quite short-sighted and ironically selfish. What is more than likely to happen is those who control the supplies and networks, whether giant corporations with complex nodes of control over food (Tyson Foods) or computer technology (Google and Microsoft), or small/medium-sized cooperatives between farmers and local businesses (A great example the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma where much of the country’s beef comes from) is the development of fealty between corporation and serf tenant. A critical aspect of modernity is the individualized vision of “moving up.” In effect, the prime goal of all, whether low birth or high, is directed towards materialistic ascension. What exists in place of that, however, is the reengagement of gift-giving, sponsorship, community-building, etc.
Now tack this on to the silent yet burgeoning cottage industry in America among homesteaders, tech bros, 3D printers, health nuts, hippies, small-scale farms and ranches and many others. There is already a desire for community and gift-giving, and though much of it has a Christian ring, it is still in a nascent stage.
What seems to be a key development in a stagnating world economy is the onset of feudalism, the good and the bad. Idealistically, there will be more and more owed fealty between a corporation and its servants. Somewhat akin to heavily unionized companies in Europe, Australia, or perhaps Japan (though they’re a bit weirder). I am in no way idealizing the situations of any of these countries, as they have many other problems at hand to solve, but they are further along economic stagnation than the US and are a look to the future for what the modern world will look like.
Worst case scenario is certain corporations take advantage of their workers, but at the expense of being gobbled up by angry workers’ councils, perhaps the Church, or perhaps even the federal government if it still has more than ceremonial exertion of its power. This energy is all quite latent and has not taken form past a certain economic malaise that exists. It is foolish to think that this malaise is permanent, though.
The prime factor at play here is the shifting of capital to the land, and the necessity for nodes of power to prioritize what efficiency can be reached and the maintenance they can apply to infrastructure already developed. Therefore, in place, power structures will need a new mandate of heaven. One that is eerily similar to the feudal kingdom of the 900s-1400s. Families will start to congregate more centrally, especially upper-middle and upper class, in traditional exchange. Not necessarily communes, but in gift-giving and mutual exchange. The baker and the blacksmith will be essential to each other.
It is fallible to think that complex nodes of power will predominate over smaller communities. Both will serve to the end goal of preventing collapse. Think of both as lords under the ceremonial, inert federal government. Perhaps, in certain places only the corporation will have reign, or will have reign over certain “tenant lords” in a contract who then have control over lower serfs under them. This was an occurrence in feudal Europe, where in cases of economic surplus and relative peace, certain serfs were able to become their own de facto lords. Normally because the lord above them gifted or sold them land.
In turn, the rise of Christianity, of community will form alongside the predominance of feudal corporations above the federal government. The federal government is already becoming exhausted, tired, and as the boomers die off, those replacing them will be people eager to hit the self-destruct button. It is pertinent to look to what is likely to happen, based on presuppositions that legitimacy of power is gained from the pursuit of maintaining order and material conditions. This being the case, without endless progress and technological advancement to pursue, the community and primacy of the landowner will dominate over the individual and the primacy of the capitalist.
It may seem far-fetched, but the numbers do show that conservative denominations of Protestantism and conservative parishes of Catholicism will beat out the liberals, and a Christian revival is currently being birthed from the ruins of modernity.
Simply put, the trends show that a mix of the following ingredients will emerge a new paradigm eerily similar to distributism - what is essentially a modern form of feudalism and the commons system:
Stagnating economies.
A new form of traditional Christianity.
The near irrelevance of secular governments in favor of decentralized nodes of power; either from state governments, corporations, powerful families, forming communities, or a mix of all of these will emerge.
The development of technology already within our grasp will help smaller companies and communities become more self-sufficient.
It is easy to be blackpilled by simply viewing the current state of society as bleak as it is, but it is very obvious that those who produce bad fruits will not inherit a good kingdom. If they are not replaced, they will be made irrelevant by those who build good kingdoms (Christian people who have lots of kids and partake in almsgiving). Perhaps there is another decade or two of immense decay and deracination, but the seeds are already being sown by traditionalist Christians, motivated Christian entrepreneurs, and reactionary thinkers.
Coda
This is obviously where things get interesting. This latent energy is something that will take decades to form, but the forms it will clearly take are already easy to contemplate. Smarter minds than I could probably write more on speculation and theory formation. I am just here to set the right minds in that direction. What I would urge the reader to do, and what I hope to achieve with this theorizing, if I can even call it that, is the following:
What are the political, social, spiritual proclivities of a society whose sources of energy are disappearing and must move towards a lower state of operation (literally shift its main sources of energy - e.g. oil to wheat/corn)?
Do progress and technological advancement lose primacy in a society that must stabilize?
What aspects of globalism are to continue and what are to fall away?
How can free market capitalism reign in an efficient or economically stagnant society?
What does homage and fealty look like in this new paradigm? (relationship between neo-lord and neo-serf, neo-duke and neo-lord, neo-duke and neo-king)
How can our modern interpretation of debt translate to something more sustainable?
Any questions, scrutiny, and critiques, please feel free to pass them along.
Thank you to Laurentian and Michaelangelo-of-Pol. Both of you assisted me greatly in writing this, albeit unknowingly :).
“The land also shall not be sold for ever: because it is mine, and you are strangers and sojourners with me. For which cause all the country of your possession shall be under the condition of redemption.”
Leviticus 25: 23-24
“If thy brother constrained by poverty, sell himself to thee: thou shalt not oppress him with the service of bondservants. But he shall be as a hireling, and a sojourner: he shall work with thee until the year of the jubilee. And afterwards he shall go out with his children: and shall return to his kindred and to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt: let them not be sold as bondmen.”
Leviticus 25: 39-42
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.”
Genesis 3: 19
The Emergence Of A Distributist Paradigm
I disagree with the notion of distributism mainly because most people don't offer any description other than socialism without the name. I think I can offer some ideas as to what a proper organic society would look like since I come from a family that owned estates and even had slaves a few generations ago( my family is not European so we remained feudal till fairly recently). One of the reasons why I think there was a failure of feudalism was the lack of freedom for the serfs and slave class. When you have no recourse to stop a tyrant people are more susceptible to populist sentiments. You can read all about the degeneracy of European nobility. Another thing is the eternal or lifelong nature of property rights. A person who bought the land was entitled to keep it for as long as he could and pass it down forever. So if a yeoman was forced to sell his land in hard times his descendants would be landless and screwed for generations. I think a solution can be found in the Israelites. The Israelites divided the land up between tribes and then the men of the tribes were given land which was to be allotted to their sons. They could sell or give away their land to another person however by the time of Jubilee the land had to go back to the intended inheritor. This way there would be no permanent landlord like other ancient communities had( Pharaoh was the sole owner of all the land in Egypt for example). People can form fiefdoms with their inherited lands and elect a lord who would provide for protection in exchange for fees or a majority of profits or even all the income from the land till a Julibee. This allows for the use of land by those who can actually do things with( entrepreneurs, merchants, planters, etc) while keeping the ownership of land with a certain family or group of people. Globalization if you mean free trade is still a very important thing, and I really dislike the DR's leftwing attitude toward it. It doesn't make logical sense, God has created a diversity in lands, resources, and peoples all around the world so that people would be forced to cooperate in things they need or want. You need to trade but there can be balance made by prohibiting products that are contrary to a people's culture or from a hostile group. Another armchair idea is using corporations to organize quasi-feudal structures. The average normie wants the life of a serf but gay. They want free healthcare, food, recreation, housing, birth control, and whatever all provided by a government or corporation. So you could make a system in which people in exchange the fruits of their labor for employee benefit packages and other things( like living in a certain place for a certain time). Imagine " A Day in the Life of a Twitter Serf".