Collectivism vs. Distributivism
Which of these divergent paths precipitates true social democracy?
In the previous essay we examined the historical distortion of the essential work of Marx and Malthus. Both were in a sense grappling the same elephant, Marx was revealing the vicious cycle of capital accumulation and profit taking that feeds on itself and breeds ever-worsening social inequality in its wake. Malthus notes the danger inherit in over-breeding progeny, without paying much attention to that same social inequality as providing its very breeding ground . Much more could be written about this latter issue, but it will need to wait for another time. Today we return to the problem identified by Marx, and the two essential and divergent approaches to its solution, the more common “collectivist” approach and the less familiar “distributist” path. In this essay, we’ll examine both.
The standard “Leftist” (i.e., Marxist-Leninist) approach is collectivist. It goes something like this: capitalism perforce breeds amalgamation and monopolism. This tendency is irrefragable, and so-called “anti-trust” legislation is ultimately feckless. Very well then, let us allow, indeed encourage, this conglomeration of capital, of industry, into fewer and fewer hands. When it reaches its ultimate expression of a single well-organized unit of ownership, we’ll simply expropriate it, make it a public utility, as it were, and it will be operated for the public good, workers rather than capitalists will direct its operation, and exploitation will cease, and production and consumption will be organized for maximum public benefit. In other words, capitalism, though evil in its effects, cannot help but set the stage for “socialism,” when its whole economic empire is magically transformed from private to public benefit, and we all live happily ever after. That is the Communist fairy tale, and while it is not the only possible approach to the solution of the problem of capitalism, there is no question that there indicators in the work of Karl Marx that this is what he essentially anticipates, which means that capitalism, though vicious and exploitative, need not be condemned, but may be regarded as a necessary evil, a stage of economic development that yields to the socialist paradise in the fullness of time.
A major flaw in this approach, writ large in the history of the Soviet Union and in today’s China, is that the Communist Party disregards society’s political framework as of scant importance, believing, optimistically, that once the State is captured by “progressive” forces, it can only be productive of good. If the proletariat are the dictators, where are the victims? This will surely yield an “enlightened despotism,” no? No, as it turns out. The American revolutionists took the opposite tack and this meant incorporating the highest development of Enlightenment philosophy, which implicitly condemned all forms of political power not grounded on explicit popular consent, and they ingeniously sought to divide political power against itself with as many firewalls and checks and balances as they could devise when framing the eventual Constitution. That radical Leftists, eventually styled “Communists,” could blow past these assiduously erected political safeguards in their headlong rush to their Workers’ Paradise only demonstrates that, from the beginning, Communist theory was a kind of intoxication, not a serious intellectual enterprise. Notwithstanding, the collectivist approach to resolving the social problem has been given many opportunities to demonstrate its efficacy, and the results have been pretty consistent; some striking technical accomplishments, some reduction of social inequality, but in most cases at the cost of millions of lives lost to political oppression, the loss of political freedom itself, cultural decline and an ultimately economically unsustainable political economy. On the spiritual and psychological level, a whole essay could be written on the loss of personal autonomy, which does not mesh with collectivist ideology.
But we today have the benefit of all this hindsight. It must be admitted that a priori, the collectivist solution has a certain natural appeal. Did not the earliest Christians, according to Luke/Acts, attempt a similar kind of communism in their earliest Palestinian community? We may add that it seems to have similarly dismal results, as Paul was sent a-begging to the gentile Christian churches to provide for its sustenance when it reached the limits of sustainability. It is notable that this communism does not seem to have spread to the gentile churches. But this does go to show that collectivism is one natural tendency amongst those committed to closer community. Even the purportedly religiously guided communism of the early Jerusalem church seems to have soon failed, and how much more so the atheistic Communism of the Marxist-Leninist variety! Underlying the communistic tendency is a very sanguine view of human nature. Unhappily, a candid study of history does not support this optimism. Perhaps this is in part what Jesus means when he says: “This is impossible for mere humans ...”
Modern Communism also has faith in the ability of untrammeled State power to be put to good use. This belief, too, cannot be supported by the tragic record of history, and it was the fruit of the Enlightenment to recognize this, but sedulously eschewed by those on the Communist diet.
The alternative to the collectivist is the “distributist” solution. Aside from its common recognition of the social problem, it is in effect an opposite approach. Whilst Communists celebrate the increasing concentration of capitalist ownership as preparing the ground for “socialism,” distributists decry it as an innate evil, a violation of what they regard as the natural order of things. Distributists apply Jesus’ moral teaching that good fruit cannot come from a bad tree to condemn this increasing expropriation of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and seek ways to redistribute it so that everyone has an equitable share to work with. The various methods will be the subject of future essays, but today we’ll point to the most classic model of this approach, that golden nugget of the Old Testament, the Sabbatarean-Jubilee system of distribution and periodic return of land capital, contained in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. It is a perfect model which covers all the bases for establishing a sustainable, theocratic, agrarian republic. (In a forthcoming essay we’ll make a point-by-point comparison between its provisions and those advocated by Thomas Jefferson; sadly, neither program was ever fully implemented…) First, land capital is equitably distributed to all tribes and to all families within tribal regions, secondly, every fifty years the land is restored without encumbrance of any kind to its originally assigned tenant, third, debts are remitted every seven years, fourth, indentured servitude is manumitted every seven years, fifth, the fields are allowed one year of rest every seven years to renew themselves; sixth, all human beings and their livestock are assured of one day of rest in every seven. These Levitical strictures (had they been fully honored) would have done for economic power what the United States Constitution (had it been fully honored) would have done for political power: it would have forced its continual decentralization and equitable possession by each individual.
On the industrial level, we have the distributist model of the Cooperative movement, with its still-shining star in the Basque Country, the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation. We will be writing about this in much more detail anon. Suffice it to say that distributism does not need to express itself in agrarian production only, it is versatile enough to accommodate itself to any level of human productive activity. But we should note in passing that both the sabbatarean system and the Mondragon cooperative system have Judeo-Christian religious roots. This, to repeat our message, is why a national Recovenant with God is our most fundamental task today. “"This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible." (Matt 19:26)
Socialism is not synonymous with collectivism. No socialist society I am aware of has a 100% collectivist economy with zero private-sector activity. The Chinese collectivized agriculture during the early years of the revolution, later decollectivized it when they felt the time was right to cultivate individual initiative (Carma Hinton produced a long documentary which you can see on Vimeo in which Chinese villagers talk extensively about the de-collectivization process). As you should be aware, China now enjoys a robust mixed economy; a publicly owned central bank directing investment in long-term infrastructure, both material and immaterial, along side a vibrant private sector. One can assume they will pragmatically continue to fine-tune the balance as circumstances require.
This idea that Marxists sit around waiting for a "single well-organized unit of ownership" to emerge from the vibrant chaos of modern capitalism which they can then somehow magically capture is daft. This is not how actually existing socialist societies have been built. That is not a Marxist fairy tale, that is your fairy tale.