Note: This post has been corrected and expanded. Please see the new article at The Distributist Review.
The current economic crisis is often blamed in part on a “crisis of consumer confidence.” The essential problem, according to those who place such blame, is that consumers just aren’t confident enough. Because they’re not confident enough, they’re not making lots of purchases, which cuts down on orders from retailers, which cuts down on transportation orders for distributors, which cuts down on orders from manufacturers, and thus hits everybody. The important thing, it’s said, is to get consumers confident again so that they’ll start spending again.
Along this vein is the oft-repeated statement that “the consumer is two-thirds of the economy.” Since the consumer is two-thirds of the economy, we need to get him spending his money, or the other one-third won’t work anymore. What’s more, that single two-thirds will shrink, thus costing everybody, consumer and otherwise.
Let’s think about those statements for a moment, however. First, let’s take “the consumer is two-thirds of the economy.” Really? If consumption is two-thirds of the economy, what exactly is the consumer consuming? Presumably, the other one-third is production and services; but let’s be charitable to our dear country and presume that the other one-third is production. (In reality, of course, a great deal of it is, in fact, services; but we’re being charitable.) That means that we’re consuming twice what we’re producing.
Think about that for a moment. If we’re consuming twice what we’re producing, where is all that extra stuff coming from? The answer is China; Japan; Europe. Essentially, elsewhere. And because we’re consuming twice what we’re producing, we’re also spending twice what we’re earning. Where does the extra money come from? The answer is China; Japan; Europe. In other words, we’re borrowing to cover for the extra consumption that doesn’t balance what we produce. And, as a corollary, we’re accumulating a great deal of debt and paying a great deal of interest on it.
And that leads us to thinking about the other notion now, that the problem here is one of “consumer confidence.” Don’t we really mean “consumer recklessness?” The problem, such people say, is that consumers just aren’t spending their money like they used to; they’re saving it instead. Tightening their belts. Never mind that once this great country prided itself on the thrift of its hard-working citizens, noting that said thrift and hard work are the elements which made it economically great. Such people, though, want us “consumers” to just keep spending our money, even though we really need to save it. Even though, in the past, the money that we’ve spent is often money that we didn’t have, and that we had to borrow to spend. We need to retrench; pay off our past debts; save up a cushion in case of a fall. That means that we, as consumers, are not “confident.”
In reality, though, it means that we, as consumers, are not reckless. We’re being wise for a change; we’re being careful only to spend money that we actually have; we’re foregoing present pleasures for the sake of future safety; we’re actually, horror of horrors, paying off some debts instead of constantly racking up new ones. This is terrible! Consumers aren’t confident! Can you imagine what might happen to the economy if this spreads? What horrible disasters might befall our nation if such ludicrous practices spread, and our government adopted such an insane scheme so lacking in “confidence?”
Modern economics have led us to a strange place. Though this country was built on working hard, producing goods, foregoing unnecessary consumption, taking debt as rarely as possible, and paying off necessary debt as quickly as possible; though the wealth of every country has been based on these perennial, thrifty, and diligent practices; we have nevertheless convinced ourselves that our wealth is based on spending as much as we can, racking up as much debt as we need to in order to get everything we currently want, and letting other countries bother with the annoying hard work, production of useful goods, and delayed gratification.
Here is national suicide. We need to return to the basic principles of sound economic management. Namely, that it is production which is primary, not consumption; that it is better to save than to buy what we don’t need; that it is better to be free of debt than to have debt; and that gratification of our present desires need not be immediate, or even occur at all. Thrift; moderation; looking to the future. There is national prosperity. There, and there alone, is the solution to our economic crisis.
Praise be to Christ the King!
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The important thing, it’s said, is to get consumers confident again so that they’ll start spending again.
The term “confidence” used in this context is interesting and calls to mind the “confidence man” and his “confidence trick,” which people were generally more sharp to detect not too long ago. Today, the economic confidence men say plainly that our lack of confidence is an impediment to them getting “their” money out of our pockets and shamelessly imply that this is blameworthy, as you point out.
It inspires no … confidence in me that “our” “economic experts” use such language which indicates that their primary objective is to get us to feel good (confident) about being ripped off once again. The means is to create just the right scheme; a plausible tale that builds the necessary “confidence” to reach this end. Actually fixing problems is not even on the table because the problems (usury, speculation, etc.) themselves are what the con men live by.
Economic measurements–especially at a national level–are insanely complicated, and I don’t blame you for getting thrown off track a bit. The statement “the consumer is two-thirds of the economy,” for example, is actually a simplification of the statistic that consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the Gross Domestic Product. GDP is a useful measure, but it is not “the economy.”
GDP is basically just a big income sheet. It measures how much money is spent and who spends it. Right now, consumers spend about 70%, government spends about 16%, and business spends about 14%. It doesn’t follow from this statement that the “the other one-third is production and services” or that “we’re consuming twice what we’re producing.” In fact, this figure alone tells us very little about production, and makes no distinction whatsoever between products and services.
I agree with the main thrust of your post–all three “spenders” (consumers, government, business) have been imprudently incurring debt and overspending. Your assertion that “…this country was built on working hard, producing goods, foregoing unnecessary consumption, taking debt as rarely as possible, and paying off necessary debt as quickly as possible” is going entirely too far. As a matter of fact, this country owes its very existence to the nascent government’s willingness to incur massive amounts of debt to fund a war against a materially superior enemy.
Most businesses (yes, even farms) are built on similar debt risks. Even outside of entrepreneurship, most of us achieve success by incurring debt for education. It is the working poor who remain working poor for generation after generation because they mistakenly instill in their children the idea that they should incur debt as rarely as possible.
It is not the presence of debt that has caused the problem, or even the amount of debt necessarily, it is the KIND of debt. If we had incurred massive debt in the service of prudent business ventures, education, etc. we’d probably be in great shape as a country. Instead, we’ve bought plasma TV’s on credit cards with 12%-20% interest rates and bought mini-mansions that are far beyond our means to even maintain, much less pay off.
Incidentally, I’m puzzled by this statement: “but let’s be charitable to our dear country and presume that the other one-third is production. (In reality, of course, a great deal of it is, in fact, services; but we’re being charitable.)”
Why so down on services? Do you not find the services of your childrens’ pediatrician or your parish priest at least as valuable as any “product” you own?
+AMDG
Ben, thanks for the comment. It’s good to hear from you again. Still living near Pittsburgh? How upset are you all about Rolling Rock selling out to Bud, and through them to the Dutch? What’s next, Gennessee beer?
“GDP is a useful measure, but it is not “the economy.””
Well, true enough. But it hardly changes the fact that our economy is unapologetically based on consumption rather than production, which is precisely the problem I’m identifying here.
“Your assertion that “…this country was built on working hard, producing goods, foregoing unnecessary consumption, taking debt as rarely as possible, and paying off necessary debt as quickly as possible” is going entirely too far. As a matter of fact, this country owes its very existence to the nascent government’s willingness to incur massive amounts of debt to fund a war against a materially superior enemy.”
Surprise! I disagree. Our *country* owes its existence to no such thing, and indeed even our present government only inherited said debt from the previous government under the Articles of Confederation. But in any case, what the government then did was to begin systematically paying off that debt, which it did after several decades. They did not continue ratcheting up the maximum debt levels with no intention of paying it off ever, which is what our government does now, and which is what most consumers do now, as well.
“Most businesses (yes, even farms) are built on
similar debt risks.”
Sad but true. While naturally it’s often necessary to incur some debt, even substantial debt, to *establish* a business, it’s a miserable fact that businesses rend to remain in debt forever, thus endangering their own futures and that of their employees. But I don’t see how identifying this as a fact really effects my argument.
One might as well say that “most personal finances (yes, even farmer’s) are based on similar debt risks.” Yes, that’s true; but it’s precisely my point that this is what’s gotten us into this enormous mess.
“Even outside of entrepreneurship, most of us achieve success by incurring debt for education.”
Also true, and also very sad. But there’s a far cry from getting some debt to go through engineering school (or whatever) and then paying it off when you get a good job afterwards, to getting some education debt, then a mortgage, then a car payment, then all your consumer credit card debt, and so on. The point isn’t that all debt is bad; it’s that we’re being reckless because we’re consuming rather than producing, and as a result we need to pay for all that consumption by borrowing rather than by even exchange from the produce of our own lands.
“It is the working poor who remain working poor for generation after generation because they mistakenly instill in their children the idea that they should incur debt as rarely as possible.”
I disagree entirely. The reason that the “working poor” remain poor isn’t because they don’t incur debt; it’s because their jobs are shipped to China and Mexico and they’re forced to work at McDonald’s instead of at their well-paid, benefitted industrial and manufacturing jobs.
Being from a steel town, as I am, you know this is true. Pittsburgh and Buffalo and the whole modern “Rust Belt” were prosperous areas until industry started “outsourcing.” It outsourced not because it wasn’t profitable here, but because the government made it *more* profitable for them to ship their jobs overseas to be performed by slave labor rather than by proud and free American workers.
But that’s a different issue for a different posting. This isn’t about our idiotic economic policy the last thirty years; it’s about reckless consumer spending being justified as the lifeblood of our economy.
“It is not the presence of debt that has caused the problem,”
Of course not. I never said that *all* debt was *always* bad.
“or even the amount of debt necessarily, it is the KIND of debt.”
Right. Consumer debt. Which is why “consumer confidence” is a stupid catch-phrase. What they really mean is consumer recklessness; that is, the willingness for the consumer to make reckless purchases of things he doesn’t need with money he doesn’t have.
“If we had incurred massive debt in the service of prudent business ventures, education, etc. we’d probably be in great shape as a country.”
If we’d paid it off, sure. But it’s never a good idea to have too much debt hanging on your balance sheet. No matter how successful that business is, that interest will keep draining your profits, preventing you from growing and developing to your full potential. Pay it off, and use what you would be spending on interest on something else.
“Why so down on services? Do you not find the services of your childrens’ pediatrician or your parish priest at least as valuable as any “product” you own?”
I’m not down on services; I’m down on a service-oriented economy. The issue is the same as with a consumption-oriented economy: who’s paying for the services? It’s great and all that we’ve got pediatricians and whatnot, and I’m glad they’re around. But how am I going to pay them?
If we’ve got a prosperous and thriving manufacturing sector, then our services are paid for out of our own wealth. This is all fine and good. That’s the production-oriented economy that made us the most powerful country in the world.
If we don’t, on the other hand, then our services are being paid for by the production of other nations, many of whom are our enemies, and the most we can claim is being extremely clever with manipulating the paper that forms the basis for said foreign production while our own formerly hard-working people rapidly decline from workers and producers to unemployed or, for the fortunate, fast-food workers and Wal-Mart greeters.
The simple fact is that the wealth of the nation comes not from “business” (that was the attitude that led to the great crash in 1929), nor from “finance” (our current debacle), nor from having really, really great coffee franchises. It comes from producing things of value; it comes from the fields, the forests, the factories, and the mines. Services are great, but they need to be supported by production. Business and finance are the *servants* of production, not its master.
Good to hear from you, too, Don. I had to smile when I found the blog; you were talking about dozenal mathematics the last time I saw you several years ago.
I’m way too tired to address every point you made right now, but I think we agree about proper ends for the most part. (I’m sure we disagree about proper means, but let’s save some fun for the next homecoming shall we?)
Just a few points before I nod off:
1. Being from a steel town, you know just as well as I do that there was another force at work that was just as destructive as the government or management.
2. When I spoke of the working poor who remain so for generation after generation, it should have been obvious that I wasn’t talking about the middle-class guy who just got laid off from his well-paid factory job.
3. We here in Southwestern PA know all too well how “systematically” the federal government paid off it’s post-war debts!
To answer your question, yes, we’re all pretty pissed off about Rolling Rock being bought by Bud. Oddly enough, InBev actually owned Rolling Rock for several years before Bud bought it. A very long story, but check out Point #1 for the CliffNotes version.
+AMDG
“(I’m sure we disagree about proper means, but let’s save some fun for the next homecoming shall we?)”
I’ll be looking forward to it.
“1. Being from a steel town, you know just as well as I do that there was another force at work that was just as destructive as the government or management.”
I can only assume you’re talking about the unions. Yes; I’m very much opposed to any labor paradigm that puts labor and ownership against one another. Frankly, I wish labor and ownership were the same; but even if not, making them adversarial always makes trouble.
“2. When I spoke of the working poor who remain so for generation after generation, it should have been obvious that I wasn’t talking about the middle-class guy who just got laid off from his well-paid factory job.”
Weren’t you talking about blue-collar working men who don’t incur huge debts to send their children to college, to start a business, or something similar? My precise point is that they shouldn’t have to; working in a factory, or in a field, or wherever without a college degree is perfectly respectable. Not everyone should have to incur debt to ensure their own prosperity. But increasingly, as our society has outsourced all its manufacturing, it’s becoming impossible to make a decent living without a college degree; and furthermore, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get such a degree without enormous debts.
In any case, I don’t think we disagree here; the question isn’t about productive debts for necessary purposes (say, borrowing to buy land for a new farm, or to establish a new factory); it’s about consumer debts for consumer purposes.
“3. We here in Southwestern PA know all too well how “systematically” the federal government paid off it’s post-war debts!”
I was talking about Revolutionary war debts, which were paid off by the 1830s (the last time the government was entirely debt-free). The government made significant dents in all its war debts thereafter until WWII. I’m aware that we’ve made little effort to pay off WWII’s debts, and I posit that’s a big problem in terms of our government’s solvency.
“I can only assume you’re talking about the unions. Yes; I’m very much opposed to any labor paradigm that puts labor and ownership against one another.”
Actually, it’s a more common scenario for labor to be pit against management, rather than ownership. (Certainly management is supposed to represent ownership, but the divide can be quite profound in the modern corporation.)
“Frankly, I wish labor and ownership were the same;”
In some companies, they are. Southwest Airlines is a good example. This is becoming increasingly true–at least in part–with the rise of stock options and 401Ks.
“but even if not, making them adversarial always makes trouble.”
Yes, but sometimes, like a just war, it is a useful trouble. Since management sometimes gets greedy, unions are necessary. When unions get greedy, things tend to fall apart.
“I was talking about Revolutionary war debts”
So was I.
+AMDG
Hmm. You’ll have to explain a bit more on the Revolutionary war debts; I don’t think I follow you.
I agree that some companies are increasingly moving toward a worker-owned paradigm. This is a very positive step that I strongly support. (Who ever said I was a doom-and-gloom pessimist?
)
I also see where you’re going with the management vs. ownership issue. Of course, the distinction doesn’t seem relevant unless the ownership is actively at odds with the management. Since management is more and more compensated with enormous stock options in order to hide their real incomes, thus becoming huge shareholders and thus vested owners, I’m not sure this is often the case. I can see, however, that there could be significant opposition if the management is diverting profits away from shareholders (and doing things like paying chunky dividends) into their own pockets (like AIG continuing to give its managers $500,000 “retention packages” even as the government owns 80% of the company now). However, given that management and ownership are usually quite closely related, this conflict strikes me as minimal in most cases these days.
“Since management sometimes gets greedy, unions are necessary.” I’m partly with you. I’d disagree, though, on two points:
1.) Management *always* gets greedy. This is because our economic system *encourages* them to get greedy. Indeed, our economic system is founded upon so-called “enlightened greed,” the notion that individual vice will redound to the collective benefit.
The CEO of Exxon-Mobile this summer, when his company was shamelessly gouging consumers on oil prices, stated quite explicitly that he felt no guilt about enriching Arab oilmasters at the expense of his own country because, as he said it, his duty was to the shareholders (of which, of course, he himself is a prominent member), not to his country. In other words, he’s an Exxon-Mobile exec first, and an American second. Our system encourages executives to believe this sort of tripe, with the idea that their self-centered greed will, in the end, make us all more prosperous. We’ve seen just how well that works, even assuming that it’s okay to be vicious in order to get richer, which of course it isn’t. I find this sort of thing very troubling.
2.) “When unions get greedy, things tend to fall apart.” Yes, because they fall into the same trap that management does: they see themselves as looking out for themselves, not as looking out for their industry or for their country. Once again, our system encourages this; because management is dedicated to bilking the workers out of as much as they can get away with, so the workers respond by trying to bilk management out of as much as they can get away with. Their self-centered greed could just as easily destroy their industry and their country’s economic health as management’s can.
Rather than making them adversarial and fighting one another, I’d rather see them all together, on the general model of the guild. Owners, management, and workers are all together in one subsidiary corporation; they make decisions based not on the good of their own subgroup, but on the good of the industry as a whole. Just as guildsmen used to be required to share their advancements with the whole guild to strengthen the craft, even though doing so sacrificed their advantage, so management and workers will have to sacrifice their own interests for the good of the industry. Unions will maybe have to accept lower pensions; management will have to accept less absurdly inflated salaries. But by doing so, the industry, and thus both worker and manager, survive, whereas when they’re at loggerheads as they are now, they end up killing each other.
I think basing a social system on strife is a bad mistake. It’s like saying that civil war will yield peace. It doesn’t; it only yields more ill-will and fighting. Remember that the Civil War was only ended with a harsh occupation, a forced unity; allowing the strife to continue would have only resulted in another one. It’s better to voluntarily accept unity now then to be forced to accept it later, when circumstances give you no other option.
Of course, this only works if we don’t allow our domestic industries, thus constituted, to be constantly undercut by unfair foreign production utilizing near-slave labor overseas. But that’s another question.
“Management *always* gets greedy.”
An overgeneralization, and a very uncharitable one. I’ve worked many, many jobs in my life in settings ranging from restaurants to factories to Fortune 50 companies, and the vast majority of managers I’ve encountered have not been greedy. If you base your entire view of ‘management’ on the greedy CEO’s profiled in the media, you’re being neither accurate nor fair.
“This is because our economic system *encourages* them to get greedy.”
People get greedy because they are fallen. They remain fallen regardless of what economic system they inhabit. This “I am bad because my environment made me bad” external locus-of-control stuff is for post-modernists, not good Catholics.
Not all businesses or workers are greedy. Our system is based on people’s natural desire to harvest the just fruits of their labor, however, which some of us have taken to calling ‘self-interest.’
“Rather than making them adversarial and fighting one another”
Again, no one–or system–is MAKING them adversarial except their own moral choices. With the framework of capitalism, man is free to be as good as he chooses. Within whatever system you propose, this remains true.
Owners, workers, and management working together for the good of the whole is happening right now in countless businesses across the country, it just doesn’t get reported because it doesn’t bleed.
The system you’re proposing would require people to exercise a great deal of virtue. People can exercise this virtue within the framework of capitalism as well, so why not focus your energies on helping people do just that instead of trying to sell them on an entirely new system?
I’m not getting into the Civil War thing right now because it’s just too big a topic, but I will say that just because something happened a certain way does not prove that that is the only way that it can ever happen.
Speaking of civil war, my comment on post-Revolutionary debt references our country’s first civil war (or just plain ol’ insurrection depending on how picky you are with your terms). Good ol’ Hamilton was very concerned with paying off the debts, prudent soul that he was (sarcasm), and decided the best way to do it would be to tax the hell out of the dirt poor farmers of Western Pennsylvania, most of whom were veterans of the Revolution who had never been recompensed for their service. The feds didn’t think it was worthwhile to send many troops to prevent these folks from getting massacred by the natives, but when they refused to pay an unjust tax on their only form of wealth or currency–rye whiskey–they formed an army larger than that which fought the Revolution to crush these rednecks and make a point in the meantime.
All hail the balanced budget!
I left another comment, but it doesn’t show up. I’m way too tired to re-type it now.
“Management *always* gets greedy.”
“An overgeneralization, and a very uncharitable one.”
True. I should have said that management often gets greedy. So, unfortunately, does labor.
“This is because our economic system *encourages* them to get greedy.”
“People get greedy because they are fallen. They remain fallen regardless of what economic system they inhabit. This “I am bad because my environment made me bad” external locus-of-control stuff is for post-modernists, not good Catholics.”
Right. The fact that, say, an Aztec child was raised constantly soaked in the blood of human sacrifices wouldn’t at all serve to encourage his natural vices.
Men are certainly fallen, and thus tend to vice. But it’s absolutely false to claim that their environment doesn’t either encourage or discourage said vice. It certainly does. Environments which encourage vice are bad environments, and environments which discourage it, and encourage virtue, are good environments.
Don’t you, as a father, attempt to arrange your family life to be an encouragement to virtue for your children? Surely you don’t just ignore the environment of your home and say, “Well, they’re fallen; it’s not their environment that makes them misbehave.”
“Not all businesses or workers are greedy. Our system is based on people’s natural desire to harvest the just fruits of their labor, however, which some of us have taken to calling ’self-interest.’”
Our system encourages businesses to maximize their profits as their first order of business. This is wrong, because it encourages to place material gain over all other ends. We should rather encourage business owners not to maximize their profits first, but rather first to provide for their own families, and then to provide good livings to their employees who give them a fair day’s work.
Harvesting the just fruits of your labor is certainly legitimate self-interest. Attempting always to maximize the profits that result from your labor (and from the labor of others) as the first end of your economic action is *not* self-interest. That sort of thing goes by the name “greed.” Increasing the results of your labor is fine and good; but it’s secondary to lots of other considerations.
The fact that Ludwig von Mises (who was a venemous anti-Catholic, by the way, because Catholic philosophy is fundamentally antithetic to his economic theories), and his progeny like Murray Rothbard and so forth, think that doing everything you can to maximize your profits is the first and final end of economic action is irrelevant to what the Catholic teaching and thought is.
“Again, no one–or system–is MAKING them adversarial except their own moral choices. With the framework of capitalism, man is free to be as good as he chooses. Within whatever system you propose, this remains true.”
This is myopic. To pretend that an economic system has absolutely no effect on what moral choices the actors within it take is ridiculous, and I’m sure you don’t really mean what you’re saying here.
The fact that capitalism *allows* a man to be good doesn’t change the fact that it *encourages* him to be greedy, and thus bad. The two are not mutually exclusive. Communism also *allows* a man to be good; there are just significant negative consequences for being so.
In capitalism, a man that doesn’t seek profits first and foremost loses competitive advantage. He is thus encouraged to take economic actions based not on what’s *right*, but on what’s *profitable*. This is regrettable.
“Owners, workers, and management working together for the good of the whole is happening right now in countless businesses across the country, it just doesn’t get reported because it doesn’t bleed.”
Yes, sometimes. And that’s great. But when they do this, they’re doing it in spite of their capitalism, not because of it. If there weren’t laws protecting unions, management would certainly not pay union workers a living wage; they’d just go hire cheaper workers when their current labor force got uppity. We know this because they did exactly that for decades, until unions got legal protection.
“The system you’re proposing would require people to exercise a great deal of virtue. People can exercise this virtue within the framework of capitalism as well, so why not focus your energies on helping people do just that instead of trying to sell them on an entirely new system?”
Why are the two mutually exclusive? Can’t I encourage a Protestant, say, to love the Virgin Mary, while simultaneously encouraging him to abandon Protestantism entirely?
In any case, what I want to do is help establish a system that encourages virtuous activity rather than vice. This is precisely the sort of thing that the popes have asked us to do in the line of social encyclicals with which I’m sure you’re familiar. I doubt that you’d tell Leo XIII or Pius XI that they really ought to just give it up, and encourage people to be good without in any way changing the system that encourages them to be bad.
Regarding the Revolutionary debts: you were referring to the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. Understood. But is the fact that the recovered taxes were sometimes less than wisely chosen really effect the good of the goal?
All hail the balanced budget!
Hail!
I think we can agree that a good society is one which makes it easy for men to be good, and that a bad society is one which makes it easy for men to be bad. Ditto for economic systems. So while I certainly agree with the assertion that a person’s environment can encourage vice or virtue, I find that most distributist arguments vastly overestimate both the power of capitalism to induce vice, and the power of distributism to induce virtue.
It’s rather hard to swallow these extreme assertions about capitalism when I’m surrounded by people who are NOT greedy or selfish. Who DO give a great deal to charity. Who DO help the community. Who DO work hard to build value in their business and provide good wages to their people.
One beef with distributist arguments is that good capitalists are largely ignored or marginalized. Instead, the worst offenders of a real-world functioning system are compared to the best examples of a hypothetical system. The excesses of one system are portrayed as its defining characteristics in an effort to promote the very best features of a hypothetical system, whose negatives are rarely acknowledged.
“Why are the two mutually exclusive?”
Forgive me for going all capitalist on you here, but your time, effort, and intellect are a scarce commodity. (Let’s call it Element G from here on out.)
It is certainly true that you can spend some of Element G on encouraging virtue within the current system and some of Element G on encouraging people to abandon the system entirely. But what ratio do you think will result in the maximum good? (Or as we unreconstructed capitalists would say, “Where can we invest capital to get the best return on investment?”)
Which of these has a higher probability of success?
I really don’t want to sound insulting here, but I can’t think of a better way to put this: in your heart of hearts, do you actually believe that you have even the slightest chance of convincing enough people to buy into distributism to make it a reality?
And if not, doesn’t it make more sense to “spend” all the Element G on something that will maximize the good instead of trying to convince a tiny number of people of the hypothetical correctness of your arguments?
Concerning the Whiskey Rebellion, I didn’t mean to imply that the evilness of the policy somehow discounted the desirability of a balanced budget. I think you’d agree, however, that an unbalanced budget is preferable to budget balanced through evil means.
+AMDG
“It’s rather hard to swallow these extreme assertions about capitalism when I’m surrounded by people who are NOT greedy or selfish. Who DO give a great deal to charity. Who DO help the community. Who DO work hard to build value in their business and provide good wages to their people.”
Distributism, as you know, is considerably more than giving to charity and paying good wages. The goal of distributism is to ensure the greatest possible distribution of productive property. While capitalism certainly encourages greed, it most definitely encourages the concentration of productive property into comparatively few hands.
It’s great that a lot of capitalists ignore capitalism and don’t seek their own profit above all else; but they’re doing this in spite of capitalism, not because of it. But while that’s a big part of distributism, there’s a lot more to it.
“The excesses of one system are portrayed as its defining characteristics in an effort to promote the very best features of a hypothetical system, whose negatives are rarely acknowledged.”
Which negatives do you believe are rarely acknowledged? I’ve heard this said frequently, but never heard which negatives are supposedly being neglected.
In any case, that’s not just us; the social encyclicals themselves identified the root problems of capitalism in this way. People tend to sin, but are generally decent and honest folks for the most part; it’s unsurprising that many don’t allow capitalism to work its full magic on them. But the fact is that the most prominent of capitalists generally do; this leads to things like bulldozing Poletowns and outsourcing.
“But what ratio do you think will result in the maximum good? (Or as we unreconstructed capitalists would say, “Where can we invest capital to get the best return on investment?”)”
I think persuading hearts and minds that the current system is flawed is extremely important. Something that “unreconstructed capitalists” generally ignore is that *maximum return on investment is not the highest good*.
To turn it around on you: do you think you’re more likely to convert the dedicated Protestant to Catholicism, or to convince him that Mary is actually good and should be honored? Obviously the latter; so should you abandon trying to convert him?
“[I]n your heart of hearts, do you actually believe that you have even the slightest chance of convincing enough people to buy into distributism to make it a reality?”
Me personally? No. But what’s that got to do with it? Do I really, in my heart of hearts, think that I could possibly convert enough people to Catholicism to make this a Catholic country? No. But that doesn’t mean I stop trying to spread the faith. And this issue is very proximate to that one; John Paul II said that the Church’s social teaching is part of the Church’s gospel message, in Centesimus Annus.
“Concerning the Whiskey Rebellion, I didn’t mean to imply that the evilness of the policy somehow discounted the desirability of a balanced budget. I think you’d agree, however, that an unbalanced budget is preferable to budget balanced through evil means.”
Certainly; I agree with you there.
“Me personally? No. But what’s that got to do with it? Do I really, in my heart of hearts, think that I could possibly convert enough people to Catholicism to make this a Catholic country? No. But that doesn’t mean I stop trying to spread the faith.”
You spread the faith because God commands it, and because bringing even a single soul to Christ is of inestimable value, regardless of whether or not you achieve your secondary goal of making this a Catholic nation. (That is to say, making this a Catholic nation is not your primary goal in spreading the faith, so whether or not you are likely to achieve it doesn’t really factor in to whether or not you should continue spreading the faith.)
So what is your primary goal in spreading distributism? It is an economic system, after all, and if, as you yourself admit, it is very unlikely that this idea will be implemented as an economic system, what’s the point? Because you enjoy talking about it? Because you want people to acknowledge it’s hypothetical goodness?
Anyway, while I disagree with many of your economic ideas, I plan to take a bit of my own medicine and keep my mouth shut on the topic. I think it was Aristotle who said something along the lines of, “If something is not morally or practically necessary, and it brings you no delight, don’t do it.”
I have no practical concern about distributism being enacted. I have no moral concern that either of has placed his soul in danger because of his beliefs. And as for delight…while I enjoy talking with you about any number of subjects, I find reading distributist ideas about my economy about as enjoyable as reading Calvinist ideas about my soul.
In short, the only possible benefit I can think of in continuing this argument is the pleasure of being right, which is very bad for my soul. On the other hand, I think I can get more pleasure from having a friend who is a distributist. It adds to the variety and enjoyment of life.
The last word is yours.