Distributism?

Production is becoming ever more mechanized, automated and computerized and thus is not as dependent on workers as it was fifty years ago. It is therefore a historical and tactical error to fight against unemployment in order to be useful. It would be logical, on the contrary, to take note of the following: 1. we must no longer use automation to redistribute wages; 2. as long as our system is subjected to the vagaries of the market, it cannot provide what we ought to be able to expect from it at all levels (social, environmental, technological and scientific).

When we had a short life, restricted means and a limited education, everybody had to do what was asked of him or her in the shortest possible time. Only a few privileged people escaped these conditions. Today, there is an abundance of material and manpower. The market can only take this material and manpower into account if it has a market value. It would therefore also be a mistake to fight for a fairer market. Logic dictates that we free ourselves from a form of valuation that has become archaic. We have to invert the origin of income and funds. They could then be distributed in proportion to the quantity of available products and no longer redistributed according to profits made.

The changes that result from this inversion are considerable. We would no longer have to fear either unemployment or retirement. Regardless of our age, we could devote our efforts to the activities of our choice – to no longer have an income, because we’ve already got one! We would no longer have to accept humiliating or unhealthy working conditions. Research, inventiveness, and happiness would no longer depend on the vagaries of the market. We could wave goodbye to generalised competition and the violence it induces! We would at last create products and services based on the value of their use and not their redistributive function.

It’s important to note that moving from a redistributive system to distributism is only the material and economic aspect of the suggested reversal. For the first time in history, the use everybody makes of his or her life and the uses with which social groups identify themselves will be at the centre of politics.