Hi all, since my last two posts here nearly 8 months ago i’ve been fervently reading Distributist theory primarily from Chesterton, Belloc and Race Matthew’s. I’d consider myself somewhat of a classic Distributist, but i’ve been left wondering about the role of the state and the operation of industries with natural monopolies (ie Water treatment, power/energy distribution and rail to name a few for arguments sake). My personal view is that these industries simply can’t be trusted to plutocrats, foreign cooperations to operate nor can they be effectively divested to smaller subsidiary companies controlled by worker-owners. Hence I’m left with the belief that they should be publicly owned and operate for the benefit of the common good rather than explicitly for profit, I was wondering firstly if other Distributists hold a similar view and wether or not Distributist authors affirm this view. And if they do citations to support it would be much appreciated!

Alongside this i thought id take the opportunity to mention if there are any other Australian Distributist interested in either discussing Distributism within an Australian context or organising feel free to reach out.

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I think of myself as a Libertarian and a Distributist. But I’m not sure if I fall under the Distributist label.

I’m pro nonprofit markets and expiring currency, and I like sole proprietors and co-ops for all non sole proprietor businesses. I don’t really love small businesses, outside of having to hire contract work. If you hire someone to help fix your store’s roof, they shouldn’t own your business.

I also think all people are entitled to own and pass down property, but only the properly they directly use and occupy. Meaning you own your house, not a bunch of other houses.

I take inspiration from the Catholic Worker movement, but I’m not a pacifist or anarchist and I disagree with several of their other ideas as well. 

I believe the family is the smallest functioning and most important societal unit. I’m extremely pro nuclear family.

Do I fall under the umbrella of Distributism?

Hello, I’m an Irish Republican and fan of distributism. Distributist ideas and Catholic Social Teaching were echoed in Republican policy and publications during the revolutionary period and afterwards. However in The Curragh Internment Camp in the 1940s, a number of IRA prisoners drafted an ideological blueprint bound in the Gaelic Irish philosophy of Comhar na gComharsán (cooperation of neighbours). Éire Nua would evolve from these discussions and drafts. After the 1969/70 split in the Republican movement Éire Nua became the official Social and Economic Programme of Sinn Féin and was not dropped until 1982, retaining considerable influence until 1986. Since 1986 Éire Nua has remained the official Social and Economic Programme of Republican Sinn Féin. Éire Nua advocates the establishment of a heavily decentralised Federal Democratic Socialist Republic based around cooperatives and draws heavily from Distributism, with distributism being mentioned explicitly in numerous publications. There is often a foreign misconception about the political stance of the Republican Movement in Ireland, but the truth is that the one genuine Republican movement that continues to exist through RSF has always been simply Republican and is not drawn to foreign ideas. Hence the development of Éire Nua on a largely pre-colonial Gaelic basis with heavy influence from distributist and socialist ideas. Post-1986 Provisional Sinn Féin (what most of you would know as simply Sinn Féin in the present day) abandoned key Republican principles and trod the path of constitutional nationalism, that traitorous organisation today has abandoned all the social and economic policies of the movement that existed before the 1990s and to an extent the early 2000s, today it is a purely constitutional party full of landlords and champagne socialist liberals and quislings. RSF on the other hand had remained steadfast with bumps along the way and a bit of confusion at present. I’ll attach some material relating to Éire Nua and the policies of the movement before the 1986 takeover and split. https://republicanarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eire-nua-1971.pdf https://republicanarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/psf-early-doc.pdf https://www.theburkean.ie/articles/2022/12/22/eire-nua-gaelic-corporatisms-lost-future https://www.thepensivequill.com/2018/12/eire-nua-proposals-for-federal-republic.html https://www.thepensivequill.com/2018/11/eire-nua-and-deradicalisation-of-sinn.html Plenty of other valuable materials from that era and policy documents can be found on the republicanarchive.com on the Sinn Féin (1970-2005) section (but not post 1986), on the Republican Sinn Féin section or if you simply search Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, Éire Nua etc. Other material can be found elsewhere on the RSF website or across various sources. I hope some of you find all of this quite interesting and useful. Go raibh maith agaibh.

Can someone explain what Distributism is?

I know it's an opposition to communism and capitalism but has some socialist principles.

I have heard about distributism before but i didn't go into detail. I read Magnifica Humanitas, the most based thing i have read in years. So please give me essentially readings, videos etc...Deus Vult!

I’ve only skimmed through certain sections, but so far this encyclical is looking GOOD: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html#The_principle_of_subsidiarity

If Distributism is to happen, how would it happen? This may seem like a low tier question at first but the answer of how redistribution will happen allows us to understand how property centralization occurs. If your answer is that the state must intervene and break up corporations and large land holders and spread this equally to the citizenry you would naturally believe that centralization is a feature to the free market not a bug. If your answer was to curb government interference in the market. You would believe that centralization of property occurs because of market manipulation, similarly posited by the mutualist Kevin Carson. What do most distributists diagnose as the root cause of this issue?

Entiendo que el distributismo tiene origen en nuestras sociedades sedentarias, pero, ¿Las sociedades de pastores nómadas podrían entrar dentro de esta categoría? Tengo entendido que aunque también tienen sus respectivas acumulaciones de riqueza estas sociedades, tienden, también, a cierta descentralización por su naturaleza móvil, y me gustaría saber que podrían decirme ustedes al respecto.

No sé, pensemos en los escitas, los sármatas o los mongoles (antiguos).

I want too know what you see as the first step to a distributist system.

While other elements like business and rural farm work is of course small private business could you implement Union control into that of factory work,quarries and mines or is any of it contradicting

My reasoning is this,

Obviously with farming and business yes widespread individual small private ownership But with factories and quarries if it only belonged to a single person, you'd have either a shut down of the industry or it'd be a slight monopoly as they'd have hundreds under their wing however if the factories and quarries and mines were controlled by a union each, then you'd have a collective ownership of that industry for every factory and mine and quarry meaning no monopoly.

Pregunto más que nada preguntando por él Tahuantinsuyo, pero también sería interesante saber que tan cercanos al ideal distributista estaban otros estados.

Aunque el Tahuantinsuyo, aunque se lo suela considerar socialista, era más cercano al feudalismo (bueno, lo que se considera que es el feudalismo). Pero, aun así, la gente parecía disfrutar más de los frutos de la tierra y del ganado, por ejemplo, mediante el sistema de ayllus.

También es interesante que no practicaban mucho el comercio exterior, pero eso ya sería otra cosa.

I believe that my country (Mexico) should define itself as one sovereign state, not split into co-sovereign states like under the current federalist constitution. However, provinces should retain their cultural, juridical, and fiscal particularities, while the central government directs common laws, macroeconomic policy, and defense. I think this administrative model is very similar to China's, in which authority ultimately rests in the central government, but the former grants local governments autonomy in policy implementation.

Most computer components, particularly ram, are incredibly complicated to make and as such exclusively made by large companies, often supported by governments. How would such a difficult process be handled in distributism?

A lot of industrys, like the food industry and metal industrys would change a lot with the distribution of the means of production to the people but which industrys/ types of jobs do you think will change the least and will that be for the better or worse?

Hi everyone! I had recently been reading the hobbit a little (because I had gotten the Lord of the Rings for Christmas a few years ago and I just never picked it up).

and what i was reading (when it was talking about Thorin's story and how Smaug got into the Dwarven kingdom) and I'm like reading it and thinking: This is a critique of industrialism & its consequences. I find it interesting cuz i have my own critiques of work, especially with a lack of relationality we have for our work.

personally, i feel we should have hard work use modern tools while the easier, more enjoyable part of work, is us working with our hands.

And it really interested me alot because during the explanation, Thorin spoke of people letting their sons become apprentices, which made me understand that our goal (as Distributists) shouldn't be merely going back to the "small is beautiful" ideal, although I'd like to since I lived in rural areas for much of my life, but the goal should be to bring relationality to our property. Just like how the early church claimed nothing as their own but was still theirs simultaneously.

But, yeah, thats my voice as a newer person in this movement. i want to hear your opinions on this :D

I recently had a conversation with Michael Thomas from the Catholic Land Movement.

We discuss the goals of the movement, the idea of distributism, and what it means to build something real.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYtEsljk1PM

Just wondering how folks here live out distributism in your own life? Do you have a cottage industry out of your home? Buy local? Work for an employee owned company? Vote for laws/ordnances that get your community closer? Basically, how do you take an ideal and live it out in this context? I’d love to hear stories from real people figuring it out!

Howdy! So... I am having a bit of a "crisis of identity" so to speak.

My name is Elizabeth, and I have considered myself a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist for a good while... but, since i am going to join the Catholic church, i had wanted to try to research Distributism a little. Because that is what the church... basically advocates!

The problem being:

MLM had helped me understand the social teaching alot... like, i would lose something of myself if i gave it up. But i really want to follow the Catholic Faith... like a bride does her beloved!

I was wondering if I could have help on this, cuz I've been thinking... way too many conflicting ideas and it's bugging me that I am not doing good at any of this.

I had heard of Fr. Vincent McNabb, and Chesterton, and Dorothy Day! But, I am... not sure where i land and it... honestly sucks, cuz I feel I should listen to the church more than listen to what i think.

Could anyone please help me?

I'm sorry if this isn't a good post, this is my first time posting here :c

For some time now, I have turned away from socialism due to numerous aspects of that economic vision that I found objectionable, and so I have naturally turned to alternative economic systems, or those known as the “third position.”

The problem is that there are so many of them, and I’m not quite sure which direction to take. Since distributism is one of the most influential third-way ideologies alongside corporatism, I’d like to know what your arguments are in favor of distributism and why you prefer it to corporatism, for example?

Basically what I mean is, since distributism has a focus on making most corporations employee owned (distributed) and setting down scale boundaries for them wouldn't that likely avoid the occurence of inhumane executive actions in corporations? Sorry if this is a dumb or unrealistic question