Economic empowerment…

Look, Ma, it ain't just Chesterbelloc and the Catholics going on about distributism, them humanists are going on about it, too.

"[W]hile I argue [pace Marx] it is false to claim that surplus value is unjustly appropriated by … employers, landlords and middlemen who are contributing to the value of a good or service, it is undoubtedly true that those who work for them, rent from them or sell to them would be financially better off if they could keep the financial benefit of this transaction - the surplus value - for themselves.

"This in a nutshell is what distributism is all about.

"Distributism is not trying to make the poor rich by making the rich poor, but empowering the poor and the not-so-rich to accumulate more of the demand-based value of their labour, more of the demand-based value of their produce, more of the demand-based value of their accommodation. …

"The key work to understanding early 20th century distributism is Belloc's seminal work, _The Servile State_. A savage denunciation of laissez-faire capitalism, which Belloc argued was re-establishing feudal servility on economic lines, _The Servile State_ is no less savage towards state socialism, which (ironically presaging the later words of free market economist Friedrich Hayek) Belloc called no less a road to serfdom. …

"The laurel for outstanding success in implementing distributist aims must rest with the Spanish, where following the Spanish Civil war, Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta founded the Mondragon Co-operative in the Basque region. From a handful of unemployed oil lamp makers, Mondragon has grown to become the ninth largest corporation in Spain. … The lot of the poor is improved not through welfare but through economic empowerment. Capital is seen not as the enemy but as an instrument for social progress. …

"[I]f capitalism is simply about maximizing profits and standing back even if that leads to monopoly ownership, then Mondragon isn't capitalism. And if socialism is about collective ownership rather than private profit, Mondragon isn't socialism either, because Mondragon is all about making individuals and their families wealthier."

-- Distributism as an equalitarian economic policy - www.hsnsw.asn.au