Thursday, December 23, 2010

How Cold the Night

How cold the night, how still the air
That wraps and chills these empty walls
As cold as stones on hills that wear
Their crowns of blades of grass once fair,
Now shriveled in the winter air
Foreboding winter falls.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Another Kind of Economy

Will someone please tell me what is wrong with capitalism?

I find the antimony between the pro-market Catholics and the Distributists puzzling. I hope I am not the only one. There are two problems with capitalism: its friends and its enemies; and the same may be said of Distributism. Distributists (may their number ever increase) insist on the importance of family over finance. They believe that human beings are best served by an economy wherein private ownership of land is widespread and working for wage, renting, and borrowing are the exception rather than the rule. I do not think they are wrong. But the Distributists insist on presenting their truths as if they were practical—which is silly. What is practical depends entirely on what you want to get in the end; and if one wants to make money (as most Americans do) then Distributism is not practical at all.