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       Distributism
       March 27th, 2018
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       I've been thinking about politics too much lately, so I thought
       I'd liven things up by jumping into economics! I'll keep this one
       short, I promise.
       
       I'm no fan of capitalism, especially "free" market economics. It
       is tantamount to slavery both in its literal abuse of the third
       world or the consolidation of wealth into the corporate leading to
       wage-slavery in the first world. The appeal of endless growth is
       clear, but it's so obviously unsustainable that I can't keep up
       the lie to myself. Eventually you will run out of peoples to
       exploit and the workers will have no money to spend. It will
       consume itself or transform from economic oligarchy into political
       oligarchy.
       
       No, the modern fascination with democracy is mirrored by the lust
       for wealth that capitalism promises. In reality, the regulation
       that free-market champions condemn are the very things that have
       kept us from the brink thus far. The world economy teeters on the
       edge of absolute ruin and it will be the greedy, get-rich-quick,
       that take us all there.
       
       There are alternatives, and they don't all involve us devolving
       into an agrestic commune. Distributism [0] is my economic
       structure of choice. Here's the extremely brief key points:
       
         - personal property is a right of the individual
         - don't assign to higher association what lesser and subordinate
           organizations can do
         - small production and local culture is favored over central
           systems and mass production
       
         AKA, keep it small and owned by the workers.
       
       The best examples I can give in today's culture are credit unions
       and farming co-ops.
       
       Of course there's a lot more to it, and no system in place today
       functions in its pure form. We have some elements of distributism
       in the United States in the form of anti-trust laws. Still, I'd
       prefer more.
       
       Capitalism has no soul, no morality. Distributism shares the
       morality of the community its attached to. I like that.
       
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