Third Ways
I recently read Allan C. Carlson’s Third Ways: How Bulgarian Greens, Swedish Housewives, and Beer-Swilling Englishmen Created Family-Centered Economies—And Why They Disappeared — it’s always nice, isn’t it, when a subtitle is so long that it obviates the need to describe the book? I started reading it because I wanted to know a little more about Distributism, the small-is-beautiful, cottage-industry, a-man’s-home-is-his-castle model of political economy promoted by G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc; but the other Third Ways Carlson describes are pretty interesting too. (By the way, a PDF of the chapter on Distributism is available via the link to the book.)
Carlson traces these histories well, but I found the book somewhat disappointing, because it did not help me to answer the chief questions that I brought to it. To be fair to Carlson, I don’t think it was his chief purpose to answer these questions, but they’re in my mind all the same. Here’s what I’m wondering:
We all know that, in this country anyway, there is no chance of any such Third Way model succeeding — in the sense of its proponents actually coming to power or even having a significant role in national government (forty Distributist congressmen, that kind of thing). Given that reality, what should a person who is attracted to these Third Ways do? Can their values be successfully promoted on the local level, if not on the national? Can the recommending of such alternatives be a sort of public service, an ongoing reminder to people that there are alternatives to business as usual? Or is this just quixotic tilting at windmills?
These questions are much on my mind as I face yet another election season with no parties or candidates I want to vote for. I need a Third Way I can believe in, even if I’m its only adherent.
Isn’t distributism something that, by definition, can’t be implemented from above by some national policy?
True, national governments can pass laws that make distributism hard or impossible, so I guess you could ask which federal laws create the biggest obstacles for distributism, but I think, at core, distributism requires:
1. a movement of people committed to owning small, local farms and businesses, and
2. a movement of people committed to buying from these local farms and businesses, even if their products are more expensive than the products offered by huge national & multi-national corporations.
Unless you imagine the federal government outlawing such large corporations or using taxes to make them less competitive or something like that.
— Michael Straight · Sep 3, 05:00 PM · #
Amen, Michael.
Other options include belonging to a credit union, rather than banking with traditional banks and participating in local currency programs (e.g., Berkshares: http://www.berkshares.org/).
We could make few, if any, inroads via electoral politics, but, particularly at the most local of levels, any opportunity we have to support someone advocating any of the ideas of Distributism and other Third Way paths is worth the effort, even if it just means that one city councilor fights for a better way.
Evangelizing — tactfully — through weblogs, et cetera, is a key as well. We have to convince people why they should support the small, local, and particular in their own daily lives.
— Nathan P. Origer · Sep 3, 06:23 PM · #
Reihan hints at one solution: move, and live around other like-minded people. I know communities of choice are considered deeply illiberal, but there’s no “virtual” approach to community that can do what actual proximity does.
— Matt Frost · Sep 3, 06:45 PM · #
Michael, I think Chesterton acknowledged the paradox that a Distributist system would need to be brought about by a powerful central government/economy deliberately dismantling itself. Another reason to doubt that Distributism could ever actually happen.
— Alan Jacobs · Sep 3, 06:56 PM · #
I also think the question of how to act locally — along the lines of what my commenters have mentioned — is quite different than the question posed by Distributism and allied movements, which is whether people committed to such local action should also strive to promote large-scale political programs that would encourage the widespread adoption of their values.
— Alan Jacobs · Sep 3, 07:07 PM · #
I half-seriously considered for awhile writing a book called The Soul of Wit: How Overly Long Subtitles Confuse Librarians, Erase Brevity, Destroy Restraint, Eliminate Discipline, and Contribute to the Long Sad Decline of the Publishing Industry into Hysteria and Hyperactive Media-Manipulation— A Polemic for the 21st Century Reader.
— Freddie · Sep 4, 12:03 AM · #
Freddie, that sounds like a book I’d enjoy settling into some evening, after a long day of Jew fooling. :)
Alan, as to your response to Michael: it seems a strong possibility that our powerful central government/economy is in the process of dismantling itself — though not deliberately, of course.
— Ethan C. · Sep 4, 01:56 AM · #
By the way, that also reminds me of what Bill McKibben says about Cuba. They’ve got a pretty distributist food economy going on down there, not so much because the government created it, but because the government so massively failed in its centralized plan that distributism was the only way for survival.
— Ethan C. · Sep 4, 01:59 AM · #
There is always the Amish option.
— Julana · Sep 4, 04:51 AM · #