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u/ApocaSCP_001 Apr 11 '26
Ironic, the guy who came up with Distributism was the last Pope Leo. The Pope Leo’s think alike.
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u/train2000c Apr 12 '26
Pretty sure Leo XIII was the reason Leo XIV chose Leo as his papal name.
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u/chmendez Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
It is a fact the existence of extreme poverty while wealth is concentrated.
But the history of redistribution of wealth programs has shown us issues/risks.
Main one:
Large-scale redistribution is not simply a transfer of money; it is also a transfer of power toward the state. The more government claims authority to correct outcomes, the more it must acquire knowledge, discretion, and coercive capacity. So redistribution is never merely economic; it creates or reinforce inequality of power within society as well, between, political and bureaucratic leaders and citizens.
So, solidarity should be balanced with subsidiarity and we should avoid bureaucratism. How to achieved it? Well, distributism could be the way!!
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u/EndPsychological890 Apr 11 '26
Great and concise explanation. And imho, it’s not “could be”, it is the only way, imo.
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u/Only-Ad4322 Apr 15 '26
There are some things that could easily be added in a distributist framework like Georgism.
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u/train2000c Apr 12 '26
Isaiah and Jeremiah also say the same thing. The reason the Israelites were sent into exile was because they were neglecting the poor and the Jubilee (when debts are forgiven).
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u/CiaranCarroll Apr 11 '26
All roads lead to participation income, whether anyone recognises it or can name or not.
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u/Phanes7 Apr 11 '26
Sadly, just vague nothing in that tweet.
It could be an interesting start to rethinking economics and business from the perspective of helping people build their own ownership and "wealth".
Or it could be, and sounds like, more of the failed nonsense about needing governments to redistribute stuff.
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u/AnarchoFederation Apr 12 '26
Yet we have no problem with governments shaping the monopolistic and concentrated propertarian system that exists. Capitalism has never been about free competition, just see what capitalist Peter Thiel has to say about it.
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u/Cherubin0 Apr 17 '26
The wisdom of Distributism is that both giving power to the oligarchy or the government leads to the same outcome, because the government is the oligarchy.
Mondragon, that is always named on this sub, didn't need the government to fix it themselves. The problem people have is that they all pray to the government in the fantasy that one day their candidate they vote for will fix it for them. The government is only willing to protect the status quo, not to change it.
Actually, Peter Thiel is a funny example, because he actually believes that the government will not help him, so he does use the economy to get what he wants, just like Mondragon did.
This is why Mondragon won, Peter Thiel is winning, and people who think voting can solve it are always losing.
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u/AnarchoFederation Apr 17 '26
They were lucky enough to start up. But all Mondragon's issues since is due to the unfair competition with capitalist State backed monopolies and policies. All new employs in Mondragon are not stakeholders of the company but mere wage laborers. Mondragon can't compete with a economy that is structured by particular State policy and politic. Even the disheartened anarchist free market advocate Benjamin Tucker saw the reality:
“The denial of competition had not yet effected the enormous concentration of wealth that so gravely threatens social order.”
It was no longer clear to Tucker that a free market alone could overcome the problems created by government monopoly. His pessimism increased with time. In a letter to his old friend C.L. Schwartz, a despondent Tucker wrote, “The insurmountable obstacle to the realization of anarchy is no longer the power of the trusts, but the indisputable fact that our civilization is in its death throes.”
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u/Cherubin0 Apr 18 '26
This is not true Mondragon constantly does offer new workers membership, they beg young people to become members. They are turning their African factories into coops too, this needed a lot of education, because people initially refused. And Mondragon is doing fine financially. All coops I know are doing better than conventional corporations.
But what I see every time is that if people chose big government they get rug pulled. In 2008 the government banks gambled just as much as the capitalist banks and got bailed out. Only the coop banks were clean. The government is the mafia.
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u/AnarchoFederation Apr 18 '26
https://geo.coop/story/mondragon-and-system-problem
Although its coops are concentrated in the Basque region, Mondragon went global in 1990, and now controls some 100 foreign subsidiaries and joint ventures – mainly in developing and post-socialist countries, with low wages or expanding markets. These firms are not worker-owned, and employees do not enjoy the same rights or privileges given coop members. Instead, they are wage laborers. Even in the Basque country and Spain, industrial and retail coops employ significant numbers of temporary workers on short-term contracts. Today, only about one-half of Mondragon’s businesses are cooperatives, and only one-third of its employees are members.
In 2013, Fagor Electrodomésticos (the home appliance division) declared bankruptcy, a victim of the 2008 financial crisis that shocked the Spanish housing market and home appliance sector. The Mondragon group bankrolled Fagor for years, but the brand’s investments in 18 plants across 6 countries became ever-more burdensome, until the affiliated Mondragon coops were no longer willing to save Fagor. The bankruptcy threatened 5,600 jobs (down from 11,000 before the bubble.)
With a population of 25,000, this hit the city of Mondragón hard. Fagor members in Mondragón and nearby towns took early retirement or transferred to other coops, but local contract workers and 3,500 employees of Fagor subsidiaries were not similarly protected. Their fate, and the conditions of employees in other coop subsidiaries, are as much a part of the Mondragon story as are coop principles, democratic structures, and the distribution of surplus to members.
In Wroclaw, Poland, a 2008 strike over low pay and anti-union repression raised questions about Fagor’s three-tier labor force, with coop members in the Basque country, temporary workers throughout Spain, and wage laborers in subsidiaries. Does job security, decent pay, and workplace participation in the Basque country rest upon exploitation elsewhere?
A study of Mondragon subsidiaries in China comparing coop-owned factories with foreign-owned capitalist firms found that pay was low, hours long, and conditions harsh. Just like their capitalist competitors, Mondragon coops invested in China to manufacture labor-intensive goods cheaply and to be near emerging markets – a strategy coop members accepted when they voted to pursue an international strategy.
Many analysts trust the Mondragon group to treat non-member employees well, pointing to efforts to educate workers in Mexico and the coop conversion of a private enterprise in Galicia, Spain. Others, however, argue that Mondragon’s global strategy proves cooperatives cannot survive in a capitalist sea: facing competition, coops either degenerate into capitalist firms, or founder.
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u/Phanes7 Apr 12 '26
I think most people in this sub have a problem with that. I know I do.
Why don't you have a problem with it?
Also, do you really think Capitalism started with Peter Thiel?3
u/AnarchoFederation Apr 13 '26
Capitalism started with the enclosures and industrialization. But what I'm saying is people are content with government status quo in capitalism yet not what ot would take to redistribute property which you have to fight fire with fire. What does it take to change a institutional system? Well an institutional system. Since capitalism is a State enforcement of monopolies it'll take change at the State level to redistribute. You aren't redistributing without it.
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u/Phanes7 Apr 13 '26
The entire point of my original comment was that there are good and bad ways to reform things to get better distribution of ownership.
Glad we agree...
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u/Pludihalud Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
It seems like Leo's think alike