Questionable Character

In a recent post (“It's Springtime for Trump and America!”), I speculated that “...we are a deeply troubled, dysfunctional society on many levels, and that pathology both percolates up from the citizenry and trickles down and impacts them in their daily lives.” In other words, there is a vicious circle at work here – and to try and find the end of that tangled ball of yarn would be a daunting task. Of course, the adherents of the “homo economicus” school (of which the current expression is “It's the economy, stupid!”) would contend that, ultimately, everyone “votes their pocketbook” (or, I would say, everyone votes their pocketbook except those few who can afford to do otherwise) – and that idea has to be qualified by pointing out that people vote for whatever, or whomever, they think will most benefit their pocketbook. (According to that model, even the otherwise ordinary citizen who claims to believe in, and who supports, communism has his pocketbook in mind above all – the general welfare being a secondary consideration if it even comes into play.)

The original pathology of voting in such a way as to increase one's personal income or standard of living is two-fold. One is the notion that it's the government's job to provide, and insure, a certain standard of living for the citizenry. Needless to say, this idea does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, unless we take the phrase “promote the general Welfare” from the Preamble and stretch it way beyond any imaginable breaking point (which has, of course, been done on a chronic basis since at least as far back as the New Deal). The second point of pathology is the oft-overlooked fact that in order for me to have more, someone else has to make do with less – not that it's always a zero-sum game, but that at any given time you can't put money into one person's pocket without taking money out of another person's. (Simply printing more money is not an exception to this, because that causes inflation which makes everyone poorer.) But this is generally considered to be perfectly acceptable – i.e. the substitution of government coercion (at the point of a gun if need be) for more traditional charity – to the point where the government is currently engaged in putting “private” (religiously-based) charities out of business when they fail to fall into line with government “guidelines”.

One can even make the claim (as I do) that the history of modern economics is based on a single central question – how much in the way of liberties and freedom are we willing to give up in order to achieve economic leveling, i.e. economic (and therefore social) Utopia? And if this is true, then economics simply becomes a subset of politics – the implementation part, if you will – and, sure enough, this has clearly been the case, again, since the New Deal if not since the Progressive Era.

The libertarian, and more especially the anarcho-libertarian, will contend that government (of any size) requires some form of taxation (by that or any other name), and that taxation is theft, simply because it involves the transfer of wealth from people who neither want nor need government “services” to those who do want, and do need (assuming there are no alternatives). This can be seen as an extreme view, “extreme” not being a moral judgment but simply a way of saying that it's on one end of a scale, with the other end being totalitarianism (with no private property, and everything collectivized as much as possible, which means there is no need for personal income or resources).

I won't, at this point, go into the question of which of these extremes nonetheless provides a better fit with human nature, but it's a very interesting issue. But of one thing you may be quite certain – the opposition or “Resistance” is populated mainly – I daresay overwhelmingly – by people of a collectivist mindset, and their behavior says much more about their totalitarian impulses than it does about their economic sophistication, sense of history, education, and just about everything else. We suddenly – seemingly overnight – have a large part of our citizenry seriously campaigning in favor of eliminating national boundaries and unlimited immigration – and those aren't even the “Bernie” supporters, who, basically, want the government to provide everything to everyone for free (you might call this totalitarianism with an occasionally smiling face – “occasionally” being as often as Bernie smiles, which isn't very often).

Thus we circle around to what is motivating many of these people – and no, it did not start with Donald Trump's now-legendary ride down the escalator. (You'd almost think he could have arranged it so he rode up, but whatever... ) It started... well, like any “trend”, you can trace it back as far as you like. “Modern” communism, or communalism, on a mass scale (as opposed to small, and voluntary, communities holding everything in common, which have always been with us) began, in spirit at least, with the French Revolution. The theoretical underpinnings were supplied by Marx and Engels, and then the first “experiment” on a national basis was Soviet Russia (followed soon after by less-successful ventures in Bavaria, Hungary, and other locales). But at the same time, you had “socialism”, which is watered-down communism and thus more palatable to the timid among us, and that got its start in the U.S. with the Progressive Era, which receded a bit in the 1920s then came back with a vengeance in the form of the New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society, etc., right up to the present day. (Please note that the “ratcheting effect” of governmentalization has resulted in a permanent bureaucracy, AKA the Deep State – and that the vast bulk of most government programs initiated from the Progressive Era on are still very much with us. It helps to keep that in mind when budget arguments at the margins flare up; we're never talking about more than 1% or 2% of the federal monolith.)

Now, I've often thought about what an amazingly durable thing national character is. Russia survived 70+ years of communism and yet Russians are still Russians. The Chinese are still Chinese even after the cultural auto-genocide of Maoism, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Red Guard. The minute the iron hand of totalitarianism is lifted, old ways, customs, and traditions come out of the woodwork where they have been carefully hidden and preserved, sometimes for generations.

But can the same thing be said of America, i.e. of the U.S.? Well, for starters, we have to think about whether there is, or ever was, an American “national character”. There are certainly sufficient iconic quotes, ideas, concepts, and characteristics – and any number of adjectives – available to constitute a national character or at least an image of one – or so it would seem. But these collectively constitute a vision or an ideal... or, let's say, a shared opinion. And it may have been the opinion of the majority at one time, but that is clearly no longer the case. Now, every American iconic word, phrase, or image – if expressed in public or exposed to public view – is immediately met with argument, contradiction, hostility, and scorn, and that type of response extends right up to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (the Bill of Rights in particular) – not to mention the flag and the National Anthem. So among many of the things one could say, or claim, about the American mindset, “unanimity” is not among them – nor, I suspect, has it ever been.

And what, after all, is a national character other than a mindset – not that there aren't other components (race, ethnicity, religion, etc.), but the sum total of attitudes about one's nation and one's role in it, about one's fellow citizens, about the history of the nation and its significance on the world stage, about its current role in the world... even about its ultimate fate – this has to be the foundational aspect of national character if we are really talking about “nation”, as opposed to race, tribe, or religion.

It's also true that at the founding, the American national character was not only assumed to already exist, but was fully expected to override all other considerations, particularly that of social and economic class. The irony here was that the Founders were all, or nearly all, landed gentry, and yet they seemed – on top of a good deal of self-congratulation – to be including all other classes and occupations in their vision – merchants, craftsmen, farmers, hunters, trappers, etc. It was to be a unified America, but with them in charge, of course – a premise which went unchallenged until the time of Andrew Jackson.

But did the non-landed gentry – the non-elite – worry too much about not having a sufficient “voice” in the running of the country, the way countless aggrieved minorities do now? It seems that they didn't, and I suspect it was simply because, one, they did have the right to vote (never mind, for now, that said right has become more and more illusory over time), and two, the federal government and its scope of action was minuscule compared to what it has become. Somebody one commented that the only time, outside of war, that the average citizen ever encountered the federal government in earlier times was at the post office. Now its unavoidable, as the regulatory state has enabled the government to intrude into every imaginable aspect of life, and into every nook and cranny of the environment. The citizenry is now reduced to a life of timidly walking on eggs – of the legal and regulatory sort as well as the more obvious political-correctness sort.

Another way of putting it is that the dreaded “government shutdown” would probably have been noticed by very few people, say prior to the Progressive Era; some might have gone months without noticing. Now it would take about ten seconds. And of course, the collectivists and totalitarians among us will applaud this fact, and say that this is the way things should be – “mission accomplished”. But what on earth it has to do with the intentions of the Founders is anyone's guess. Their premise – implied if not always spoken – was that Americans would continue to be self-sufficient... free and independent within the very broad limits set by the Constitution. The main threats to this freedom in the first century-plus of our existence were those caused by war and the early, gradual growth of what is now called the “warfare state”. This was followed, out of sheer necessity, by the regulatory state and the taxation state; if “war is the health of the state” it is also, in the long run, the death of freedom, independence, and the self-sufficiency of the citizenry.

It's an interesting question whether gradual growth of any government is an inevitable process – one of the iron laws of history – or whether it was somehow built into the Constitution in our case, or whether it was (and remains) an inevitable consequence of our national character, or whether it's a consequence of human nature in general. Arguments can be made for any or all of these, but right now I'd like to get back to the development of our own national character (or lack thereof) and the consequences.

Given that we started out with a relatively benign class structure with the landed gentry on top (add rich merchants and shipowners if you like), we could at least brag that we had lopped off the topmost layer that the rest of the world was so prone to – namely royalty and rule by inheritance. (One can quibble about whether our landed gentry were the American equivalent of European nobility.) And for a while we could boast a relatively uniform culture – the colonists were, after all, Englishmen either by inheritance or adoption, and remained so in many respects even after the Revolution. And of course there were always minorities of various sorts – Dutch, Catholics, and, yes, slaves – in the mix. But the great American quilt became more of a patchwork over time, as it continues to do... and the success of “assimilation” (AKA the “melting pot”) came more and more into question. At this point in our history, it would appear that the melting pot, assuming it ever existed in reality, has grown cold and is no longer functioning – and that, or course, can only be bad news for anyone who wants to claim that the “American national character” still exists in any coherent or significant way.

That's one major trend. The other is in what is termed “class consciousness”. Now, there has always been such a thing as class consciousness; I consider it a part of human nature for one thing, and for another, all attempts to eradicate it down through history have been miserable failures. The most that ever happens is that an old social/economic/political hierarchy is replaced by a new one.

So in our case, the first significant eruption, if you will, of class consciousness was Jacksonian Democracy, if I correctly recall my high school history. And events from that point on have served to amplify, diversify, and in many cases aggravate things – to name a few: Irish immigration in the early 19^th Century, mass immigration from other parts of Europe later in that same century, industrialization and the rise of unions, concentration of wealth, communications, technology... and, oh yes, the abolition of slavery. These have all been fragmenting influences, against which the ideals of the Founders have been weakened almost to the point of non-existence in our time.

And what influences, if any, have been unifying? I can think of only one, namely war. And this, by the way, is not an insignificant motivation for governments to go to war – the Regime is well acquainted with human nature, and knows that nothing unites people, and serves to mask or put off all other issues, like war. So the increased frequency of wars in our time, which have now converged into continuous war (the current term being “the War on Terror", which is designed to be unwinnable), is no accident; as the nation fragments more day by day along countless fault lines (race, social class, occupation, geography, gender, etc.) war is seen as the only reliable counterbalancing force (although it would appear that it can't keep up with the fragmentation process – at least not until it becomes much bigger and more difficult to ignore).

Now, some might argue that economic crises (depressions, stock market crashes, etc.) are also unifying forces, and it might seem that way in that everyone is impacted to some degree (most in a negative way, but some in a positive way). But in the balance, I think economic crises tend to bring class distinctions (the doers-to vs. the done-to) into sharper relief; witness how readily blame for these crises is heaped on not only government, but also big business, the stock market, and the banking industry (both national and international) – and deservedly so, I might add. So no, good economic times might unite to some extent, but bad economic times can only divide.

So if the fabled, and fanciful, Great American Melting Pot has run up on the rocks, and if class consciousness – a most un-democratic impulse – is growing more with each passing day, does that exhaust the major trends that we encounter in our search for the elusive American national character? No – there is at least one more, and I will term it conditioned helplessness, with the leading edge being the “snowflakes” who currently infest our college and university campuses – and who threaten to spread out into society upon graduation, assuming they don't perish of fright first.

But where does this pathology come from? – especially if we are carrying the same DNA as did our forefathers – you know, the brave explorers, colonists, pioneers, and settlers of song and story who opened up the West and put the Indians in their place, etc.? Aren't we all pretty much descendants of a bunch of rugged, bad-ass, no-nonsense ruffians who found Europe much too stifling and so decided to try their luck in the uncharted wilderness of America? Even these “snowflakes” must have a few people with functioning gonads in their background. What the hell happened?

Well, one thing can be assumed right off the bat, and that is these sorts of rugged, early-American attitudes are not programmed in; they are not part of our DNA. Because if they were, we wouldn't see the dramatic changes that have occurred in just a few generations. People respond to their environment, after all – and if your environment demands that you chop wood, hunt deer, and fight off Indians... well, you either do it or you perish. And if your environment demands that you do nothing more than sit on your flabby butt behind a desk, eat junk food, watch TV, and trudge off to the polls every couple of years to vote for the corrupt political hack of your choice... well, you do that. Very few are inclined to rebel against things as they are, in other words – even if it's the rebels who get all the attention (and who, occasionally, manage to change things for the rest of us).

But if people are so conditioned by their environment (which includes their upbringing, schooling, choices of entertainment, etc.) then how do you explain change? How do you explain “progress”? Why aren't we just all floating lazily in a warm bath of contentment at all times? It's because – thank goodness – there are a few rebels in our midst, just as there have always been... and they are responsible for pretty much anything that changes, either for the better or for the worse. (Whether their rebelliousness is in their DNA or is a product of their environment is a good question.) And you'll notice that in any given society only a certain number of rebels can be tolerated; there's a sustainability issue here, if you will. A society with no rebels will eventually sink into the ooze, and a society with nothing but will self-destruct – so in an odd kind of way there is an almost Darwinian phenomenon going on here. A society with the right proportion of “trouble makers” – or let's say within a certain range – with show a kind of vigor... restlessness... inquisitiveness. Too little, and you get stagnation... too much, and you get fragmentation and endless infighting -- a "Mad Max" world, if you will.

That's on one level. But these rebels are not content to simply sit around in coffee houses talking revolution. They hit the streets (and the airwaves) – they become demagogues, college professors, authors, movie directors, talk-show hosts, comedians... they use any and all means of persuasion to awaken the sleeping masses, and they succeed to some extent – or at least to a sufficient extent to keep the program going. And you'll notice they all wind up leading a mob of some sort – a group of, basically, unthinking dullards whom they have managed to stimulate by appealing to some generally materialistic, if not explicitly carnal, motives. So yes, the sleeping masses can be awakened – but not by “ideas”, as is so often contended by the marketers thereof, but by base motives disguised as ideas. Also true – the masses can be put to sleep again through any number of means... not as readily as they were aroused, but just as effectively. This is the job of what is called propaganda. Everyone assumes that “propaganda” is all about rising up and revolting, but that's just half the story. It can also be about relaxing and not worrying (“Nothing to see here, folks.”). What are called the “mainstream media” in this country are currently engaged in rabble-rousing to a degree not seen since the early days of World War II, but if you think back to the 1950s they were, basically, doling out tranquilizers and opioids. They will do, in short, whatever fits the needs of the Regime. If the populace has to be aroused from its slumbers, it will be; if it has to be lulled back to sleep again, it will be. This is Job One for the media, and always has been. (Someone once commented that “the media are more snooze than news”.)

So, basically, if it weren't for the rebels of this world, nothing would ever change. But if they just minded their own business nothing would change either. They have to become missionaries, in other words – and it is this missionary work that creates societal evolution (again, for good or ill). So if you take a broad-brush look at American history, what have the revolutionaries in our midst been up to all this time – what have they attempted to do, and where have they succeeded? Again, we have to go back to the Progressive Era when, basically, the Constitution was turned on its head. All of a sudden, it was not that the federal government had certain strictly delimited rights and functions; now it turned out that it could do anything it was not expressly forbidden to do – and that covered quite a bit of ground. And this trend – this mindset – has continued unabated up to the present day; government gets bigger not only because the country gets bigger (population-wise), but because new things keep getting discovered that – why, of course – the government simply has to get involved in.

Now – to the libertarian-inclined among us, this is a sad and dismal trend, and a clear path to serfdom, collectivism, and totalitarianism. But the populace in general is easily seduced by notions of cradle-to-grave care, security, entitlements, and free stuff... and yes, these are the descendants of the hearty pioneers. Call it human nature, concupiscence, whatever – the Regime has a way of tapping into the Seven Deadly Sins, Original Sin, and our “sin nature”, and using them all against us, and it becomes easier with each passing day to capitulate rather than resist. “Political correctness” is nothing more than conforming our actions, speech, and desires to the agenda of the Regime; it has no moral validity whatsoever. And as government intrudes into even the most trivial minutiae of our lives, political correctness becomes omnipresent, like some great suffocating blanket that has descended upon us.

So we have a classic example of the vicious circle here – take the “gateway drugs” offered from the Progressive Era through the New Deal and you create a nation of partly-addicted citizens. Drugs – even “good” drugs – are habit-forming, and that dependence leads to a kind of self-assumed and self-imposed helplessness: “I” am no longer “the master of my fate and the captain of my soul”; I now depend on the kindness of strangers, like Blanche DuBois. And – again like the relationship of the junkie to the pusher – this dependency leads to a demand for higher doses, which the pusher is only too happy to provide, in exchange for one's freedom, liberty, and self-respect. So in the long run we wind up with a nation of slaves – happy slaves, by and large, because the drugs have a numbing effect – but slaves nonetheless. And because of this conditioned (over time and many generations) helplessness, we become easy victims of the Regime and of its propaganda apparatus (AKA the media).

Every once in a while someone wakes up, like the cow in the Gary Larson cartoon who hollers to those around her, “Hey, wait a minute! This is grass! We've been eating grass!” But troublemakers like this are, at the very least, told to hush up because they're upsetting everyone – and they may wind up on jail (or in the cow's case, on the barbecue grill).

And at this point, you might say “But, but... what about all the protests going on every day? Surely those people aren't asleep.” Oh, but they are – no one ever said that their slumbers were quiet and untroubled. Their problem is not lack of energy, but total lack of insight as to who's in charge and who's manipulating and exploiting them, and using them as pawns. They enjoy freedom of speech all right, but just try and talk about the Regime and its activities; no parade permits for you!  And no more media coverage, no more nothing. Consider the total blackout the media imposed on the Ron Paul presidential campaign, for example. No – rioting, looting, and burning in the streets are not anti-establishment activities; they are precisely what the Regime wants, and the more the merrier. Please note, for instance, that the “antifa” types who are always in charge of these protests are very disciplined and very methodical. They are clearly following a well laid-out plan. They are well-armed. They even wear uniforms! They are inserted into the midst of every group of “useful idiots” in order to facilitate things; it's a classic tactic which has been around since the early days of the anarchists in the 1800s, the Bolsheviks, and the Brown Shirts. If the mob is the dynamite, then they are the fuse.

Which brings us back to the question that stimulated this post – what is wrong with these people? Why the hate? Why the vitriol? Why the raw fear? Why the borderline (or not so borderline) psychosis? All referring to what is called the “Resistance” to Donald Trump and his administration, which – amazingly enough – includes large segments of said administration, particularly the FBI and the Justice Department (and, I suspect, the State Department as well). Can it possibly be that the Resistance rose completely spontaneously “ex nihilo” on the day Trump declared his candidacy? Of course not – the foundations had been laid for many generations... the minds of many generations had been brainwashed... the fears and anxieties had been stoked... the words, catch phrases, and memes had been drilled into otherwise empty heads. You'll notice that the dominant feeling tone of the Resistance is not indignation (although there is plenty of that), or anger (ditto), but fear – raw, cold sweat-inducing fear. And frankly, when I look at Donald Trump I don't see a particularly fear-inducing character. I see a loose cannon of sorts... a bit of a boor... an egotist, for sure... but also a guy who's pretty damn smart and whose negotiating skills can put to shame all the “diplomacy” those wimps in the State Department can come up with. What I see is a winner in many areas of life who decided there was one thing left to conquer, and dominate, before he retired – namely the presidency. The presidency was on his bucket list, in other words! (Frankly, I can think of worse reasons to run for said sacred office.)

But the point is that, being the ultimate outsider and not by any stretch a charter member of the Regime, or cabal, or what have you, he is considered to be an annoyance and a roadblock – someone who can thwart, at least for a while, the agenda of the globalists, and who, in particular, can seriously slow down their momentum by gumming up the works in the U.S., which is clearly the foremost player on the globalist team (by which I mean the biggest, not the smartest and not the one in charge). As Hillary said during the campaign (channeling pretty much any black preacher you can name), “We've come too far to turn back now.” This was her being a good and faithful servant of the Regime, not of any oppressed minorities. She was their mouthpiece – but in that she has plenty of company, like most of Congress, most of the judiciary, and – once again amazingly – much of the Trump administration, AKA the “Deep State”.

So the reaction to Trump was, and is, no more than the Regime plowing fertile ground – made fertile over the generations by successive increases in the reach, scope, and power of the federal government along with a myriad of entitlements designed to placate the citizenry and make them forget (assuming they were ever conscious of) their historical/political roots. It is, in the most general sense, a phenomenon which partakes of fallen human nature – susceptibility to temptation of the masses, and a lust for power of the ruling elite. And as such, it has reduced this country to the questionable status of being pretty much indistinguishable from any other country or nation or empire, past or present. I have speculated before that the American Empire is the ultimate – and possibly terminal – expression of what is termed American Exceptionalism. The seeds of what is going on now were sown over 100 years ago, but the fatal flaw in our self-image as a nation has been there from the beginning. It was supposed to be a secular Utopia, and it did get off to an impressive start in that respect – but the cracks started forming early on, the way they will in a poorly-designed and constructed building. The Civil War should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn't – and neither have all of the wars we have fought since. Give this nation credit for depth and durability if you like! And for the persistent resourcefulness of many of its citizens in the face of overwhelming temptation from the Welfare State. Our strength and dominance in the world only makes our decline more pitiable, in a way – but what empire has ever easily moved off the world stage? I can think of none, with the possible exception of the British; everybody else had to be thrown out of wherever they had managed to set up colonies. We were thrown out of Vietnam, but have managed to hang on elsewhere – at least so far. But I suspect that those days are numbered. And frankly, the end of spending more than the rest of the world combined on “defense” (AKA empire) would be most welcome – and yet you don't see these street protesters dealing with that issue, precisely because they are working for the Regime, and the Regime wants the American Empire to persist as long as possible, regardless of its moral and economic impact on the American citizenry.

Real Life is Small and Local

I made the following observation in a recent Facebook post:

The rich and powerful have always been in charge. Always. You say, "But what about communism?" Well, any communist dictator (and communist countries all have dictators) is powerful by definition, and it's funny how they always manage to accumulate a huge amount of wealth as well. "But how about socialism?" Again, the rulers are powerful, and socialist countries have banks. That's where their money is, and someone runs them. "But how about democracies?" (like ours) Politics is the way to power, and also the way to wealth. Wealth is the way to political power. It's a perfect symbiosis, and the bigger government gets the more extreme the power/wealth gap becomes. People think that if we only had even bigger government we could eliminate that gap; actually, it's just the opposite. We will not return to (or have, for the first time) a true democracy until we drastically reduce the size and scope of government, and start thinking in terms of distributism and subsidiarity. If we are not willing to do this, we have to live with Leviathan.

A correspondent commented thusly:

(This) led me to find and read some commentary on the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI on subsidiarity. Also, the work of Chesterton and Belloc on distributism was a central discussion point of the recently read "Hobbit Party". Those authors...wholly Libertarian (best government....no government)...don't like distributism, essentially seeing it as merely another form of communism/socialism.

To which I reply:

OK, let me see if I can break this down a bit. Subsidiarity, to begin with, is not about the form of government per se as it is about a concept of government – not just “that which governs least governs best” but the notion that government “of the people” should be as close to the people as possible, i.e. not thousands of miles away in some capital full of whited sepulchers. Any function appropriate to government should be performed at the lowest, i.e. most local, level possible. Among other things, this has the advantage of taking into account things like racial/ethnic composition, religious faith and observances, local economies, local customs, the history of a place, physical constraints (climate, geography, soil, etc.) -- and also makes government officials more accountable since they are known and accessible by the populace. The result should be more like true democracy, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers – not a “people's republic” where there is a remote, elite ruling class and a bunch of faceless serfs who are all treated the same way. This idea is certainly compatible with libertarianism – or can be. What it's not compatible with is tyranny and radical (i.e., enforced) collectivism, or what I call “hard socialism”. But on the other end of the scale, it is not at all the same as anarchy; there is still structure, but it's a kind of structure that is more compatible with human nature as it is, not as we might like it to be. (Even defense could be provided on different levels – defense against foreign invaders on the federal (as should be now), regional defense by state national guard units (ditto), and local defense by the “militias” of 2^nd Amendment fame.)

So much for the easy part! Now, as to distributism, this is the radical notion that the laborer should own his tools, and have an economic interest or share in the success (or failure) of the enterprise. It's not the same as a “workers' paradise” where the government owns and runs all of industry in the name of the worker or of “the people”. (We already see how it's compatible with subsidiarity on the conceptual level.) Obviously, for the self-employed, the situation obtains automatically. But not everyone can be self-employed, i.e. not all industrial, commercial, or even agricultural enterprises will lend themselves to self-employment – which is to say that economic subsidiarity has its limits.

But here's where the challenge comes in, and I think this is what you were referring to. In a highly industrialized, mechanized, high-tech economy where even “traditional” occupations like agriculture have become mechanized and high-tech, there will be a tendency, over time, for economic and commercial enterprises to become more centralized, with greater numbers working for the few. This can happen (or perhaps is more likely to happen) under conditions of “free enterprise” and “capitalism” -- and this is what Marx was talking about, as perhaps the most serious drawback of the Industrial Revolution. What happens is that competition and the desire for profit tend to enforce economies of scale, and push the individual craftsmen, artisans, and small businessmen out. (Please note that Hitler had no use for the “Arts and Crafts” movement, considering it scandalously inefficient. For him, standardization and mass production were the keys to success.)

So – if distributism is a “good thing” from the point of view of the nature of man, and self-fulfillment, etc., but a “bad thing” in the strict economic sense (setting aside politics)... and if capitalism and free enterprise naturally aid and abet its opposite... what is to be done? Well, let's take a case that is by now familiar to everyone, namely the Wal-Mart syndrome, where the Wal-Mart out on the bypass “kills Main Street” (as it has in my home town, for example). It's the product of free enterprise, after all, and should be just groovy with both “conservatives” and libertarians. (And the only reason liberals dislike Wal-Mart is that it puts a lot of money into the hands of just one family. If it were a government agency they'd be happy as clams.) And the thing is, Wal-Mart didn't kill Main Street – it's the people who shopped at Wal-Mart instead of on Main Street who did that. And what converted them into big-box shoppers? Low prices, selection, bright light, mood music, etc. Do they miss the kindly old gent who knew every single item in the store? Not that I'm aware; they're perfectly content dealing with idiots at checkout and no one who really knows anything. But – bottom line -- are they to be denied the freedom to shop where they like? (Especially, should sentimental reasons and nostalgia trump free enterprise?)

And I'm not talking about the monopolies and “trust busters” of old. This is a very here-and-now question. Should the government step in and try to enforce distributism, the way Mao had everyone building back-yard iron smelters (with disastrous results, I might add)? And, are Wal-Mart workers any more “alienated” (Marx's term) than the guy who used to work at the small town shoe store? If you look at the obituaries in the Pittsburgh paper, they are full of guys who spent their entire working life at U.S. Steel or one of the other industrial monoliths, and proud of it! Did they mourn the fact that they weren't the proprietor of a one-man body shop or shoe repair? Not that I'm aware. They probably made more and had better job security (think: unions) in the gigantic mill. And would all the people who work for giant agriculture conglomerates in the Midwest want to go back to dirt farming like their grandfathers? I'm sure some would, but I'll bet a lot wouldn't. (This, by the way, is what “farm aid” is all about. The agra-business giants don't need charity; they're happier than pigs in shit. It's the small, independent farmer who, like the small businessman, is being shoved out of the economic picture by the big boys, with the government's help.)

I think the answer on the distributism question has to be, number one, don't leave it up to government to enforce things one way or the other. That is, respect economies of scale when appropriate, but also don't punish small businessmen the way they do now. But “if government doesn't do it, who will?” -- the common plaint of people who can't imagine life before the New Deal. I think what has to happen is that “capitalists” should have a more charitable attitude toward their workers – and yes, there is such a thing as profit-sharing and rewarding performance with stock in the company; this is not a Utopian pipe dream. (We have a distorted view of these things because of the adversarial history of labor/management relations in this country. But the experience in Europe and Japan is entirely different.) But at the same time, the consumer needs to have his or her consciousness raised, and again this is a matter of charity directed to the craftsman, artisan, tradesman, small farmer – a “preferential option” (to borrow a term from the popes) to, whenever possible, deal on the local, personal level even if the cost is a bit higher. It's a matter of values, in other words. And again, we see this everywhere these days, with farm markets, artisanal foods and beverages of all sorts, local crafts, etc. And it's certainly not enforced by any governmental body on any level – on the contrary, it's frequently discouraged for all kinds of bogus reasons. (The FDA has agents prowling around farmers' markets looking for “violations”.)

So... if people want to shop at the big box stores, let 'em. True societal change comes about very slowly and is typically not so much a matter of changing hearts and minds as of the older generation dying out and being replaced by people with new ideas. People gripe because they can't find “home cooking like Mom used to make” at McDonald's – well duh. They could find Mom's old recipe book and try it out themselves the way I do. A conscious attempt to shop locally will inevitably have “distributist” results. And so on. The main thing is, just keep government out of the way. I don't think you can “enforce” distributism any more than you can enforce charity; the minute coercion gets into the picture, charity no longer exists – then it morphs into politics. So yes, a libertarian will be suspicious of distributism because he thinks it means collective farms. Well, it might – if those collectives were strictly voluntary (like the hippie communes or Utopian communities of old). But I can't imagine a libertarian objecting to any of the thousands of co-ops scattered across the land.