As propounded by the prominent English Catholics Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, Eric Gill, and Father Vincent McNabb, distributism was one of the anti-capitalist, anti-industrialist, and anti-statist doctrines that flourished everywhere in the [nineteen-]thirties. Instead of the "corrupt" modern order, distributists favored a decentralized economy of property-owning artisans, farmers, and shopkeepers.
Since these notions accorded well with [Catholic Worker founder] Peter Maurin's romantic "Green Revolution," distributism found a place in early Catholic Worker propaganda. [T]he English movement was essential in pointing [Dorothy] Day and others toward what became enduring concerns of the group:
- the spiritual nature of work,
- the oppressively large scale of modern society,
- the necessary connection of property and responsibility,
- and the quality of everyday life.
Mel Piehl, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and the Origin of Catholic Radicalism in America, Phila.: Temple University Press, 1982.
Dorothy Day on Distributism
Whole Earth: The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon: Agrarian Jurisprudence
John Melish on Early American Distributism
Steve Schaper's Distributism Forum
Independent Review | The So-called Third Way
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