Duncan Brack and Ed Randall, authors of the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, have kindly agreed to let us publish extracts on Lib Dem Voice. Last month, Henry David Thoreau. The entire book is available on Amazon here and can also be bought at the Westminster Bookshop.
A non-party-political movement that grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, dedicated to small-scale mass ownership of land and property as a bastion against collectivism, big business and big institutions, which its founders believed led inevitably to slavery. Distributism flourished under the early leadership of former Liberals Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton, became associated with radical Catholicism and arts and crafts pioneers like Eric Gill, and disintegrated in the 1940s – but was later influential on key Liberal Party policy-makers in the 1950s and green economics pioneers in the 1970s.
The immediate influences on distributism were the ideas of Hilaire Belloc (q.v.), especially in his book The Servile State (1912), and the prolific journalism of G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936). According to its proponents, it was an economic doctrine, but much of what they wrote was also historical criticism and profoundly spiritual.
After the departure of its founding figures from the Liberal Party, mainly over the issue of financial corruption in politics – which they believed reached a symbolic apotheosis over the Marconi insider-trading scandal of 1912 – the movement was politically non-aligned, but its main focus of campaigning was anti-Fabian, anti-modernist and anti-corporate.
The broader influences behind distributism also lay in:
- Roman Catholic social doctrine, the political radicalism (q.v.) of Cardinal Henry Manning (1807–92) and Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), which first propagated the idea – at the heart of distributism – of ‘subsidiarity’.
- English agrarian campaigners in the tradition of William Cobbett (1763–1835) and Jesse Collings (1831–1920).
- The arts and crafts movement’s critique of industrialism and the ideas of John Ruskin (1819–1900) and William Morris (1834–96).
- Guild socialism as propagated by the journalism of A. R. Orage (1873–1934) and other anti-Fabians of the left, around the newspaper New Age.
Distributists tended to be vague about what they were campaigning for. At heart, the movement was a critique of prevailing state socialism, industrialisation and monopolistic commercialism. They proposed the widespread distribution of land and property and looked forward to a revival of the values of small-scale agriculture and crafts, which they regarded as an urgent bastion to defend the human spirit – and distributism was overwhelmingly a spiritual creed – against the slavery of corporatism of right or left.
Apart from Belloc and Chesterton, who remained somewhat apart from the organisation of the Distributist League – founded in 1926 by architect and former Fabian Arthur Penty (1875–1937) and others – the leading figures of distributism were extremely diverse. They ranged from arts and crafts pioneers like Eric Gill (1882–1940) and journalists like ‘Beachcomber’ (J. B. Morton, 1894–1979), to agrarian campaigners like H. J. Massingham (1888–1952), as well as Catholic apologists and land reformers. In some ways, the sheer diversity of the movement militated against its effectiveness, certainly its coherence in the public’s mind.
On the face of it, distributism petered out in the 1940s and 1950s with no lasting political legacy. The whole tenor, certainly of Chesterton’s contribution, was melancholic, nostalgic and almost entirely lacking in detailed proposals. There was an implied pessimism in much distributist writing, about the inevitability of change, centralisation and giantism. Their practical distributism projects, including challenging monopolistic bus-operators in London in the 1920s, and advocating land reform as a solution to unemployment in Birmingham in the 1940s, did not take root.
They were more obviously influential on the prevailing culture, with the founding of the distributist crafts community in Ditchling in Sussex, and were undoubtedly an influence which fed into the post-war English romantic revival.
Distributism came to be increasingly identified, not just with extreme romanticism, but also with a particular kind of Catholic radicalism that looked to Franco and Mussolini as defenders of European Catholicism. Their links to more reactionary agrarian groups in the 1930s meant that distributism sometimes provided a route to the far right at that time.
Distributists were uncommitted on the issue of free trade (q.v.), but they were implacable in their opposition to modernism, or what they called ‘commercial values’. Although most distributist thinkers rejected the link, in practice there were informal connections with the social credit movement that also emerged from guild socialism.
But there are ways in which distributists managed to make a longer impact on liberal politics. Their critique of mainstream Fabianism was available for those post-war political thinkers searching for alternatives to collectivism and corporatism. There were formal discussions between the League and the Liberal Party in the 1950s, and they were an acknowledged influence on Liberal Party industrial policy from 1937 onwards, especially in the writings of the party on ownership and industrial democracy in the Jo Grimond (q.v.) years.
When the influential book Small is Beautiful was published in 1973, author E. F. Schumacher (q.v.) included a critical chapter entitled ‘Chestertonian Economics’ which had a major influence on the emerging field of green economics. There was also an unacknowledged influence on some of the more radical aspects of Thatcherism, including the 1979 decision to sell council houses to their tenants. There may also, arguably, be deeper and more pervasive influences on modern journalism, building on the original influence of Morton and his associates on the concerns of the popular press – for individuals against the big institutions – which is often dismissed as populism.
Further reading
- Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State (1912; reprint, Liberty Fund, 1977)
- Hilaire Belloc, Economics for Helen (1924; reprint, Ihs Press, 2005)
- Hilaire Belloc, An Essay on the Restoration of Property (1936; reprint, Ihs Press, 2002)
- G. K. Chesterton, An Outline of Sanity (1926; reprint, Ihs Press, 2002)
- John Sharpe (ed.), Distributist Perspectives: Essays on the Economics of Justice and Charity (Ihs Press, 2004)
- Herbert Shove, The Fairy Ring of Commerce (Distributist League, 1930)
David Boyle
The Dictionary of Liberal Thought is one of the many titles available from the Liberal Democrat History Group. Find out more about them on their website.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
William Wallace: Reading Biggles in Westminster Abbey
The wonder of Liverpool - Part 2
#interrail2025: Day 7 - one last bask in the Italian sunshine...
Welcome immigrants (3)
Friday nights at the Botanic Garden - and Saturday mornings too! #dundeewestend
Starmer's race to the bottom
Tony Paterson
Katharine Pindar
Steve Trevethan
theakes
Simon Mcgrath
13 Comments
One of the biggest problems with distributism was that for it to work it would actually require a very intrusive state which would have to assess what you owned and take away any excess and give it to those who had nothing. While Thatcherites may give a nod to it, they will not acknowledge that distributism involved a strong criticism of anyone who owned more than a family house or a family business. The distributists would be horrified at what is meant by “free market” now. But they never really worked out how to stop it developing in the way it has, because they didn’t like to acknowledge the state intervention that keeping ownership small would require.
Surely small businesses will thrive if we ever withdraw from the statist climate that promotes large corporations & stifles enterprise. We don’t actually need to do that much to create a liberal society. The main role of the intrusive state is to prop up vested interests, which is why the original liberals were seen as radicals who were a threat to the establishment. And, of course, that is still the role that genuine liberals play now 🙂
Re: my statement that “we don’t actually need to do that much to create a liberal society”. Apart from changing people’s attitudes, that is! 🙂
The original distributists were very worried about someone owning a chain of shops instead of just one shop. I do not think they would have liked our modern supermarkets. I also think that much though we might like the idea of small corner shops, in practice it’s not just the evil state which has caused so many of them to go out of business. I remember when I was a councillor much of the business of the planning committee was agreeing to allow some small shop to be used as a takeaway. Up would come the usual outcry from local residents “Why can’t it be a small butchers/greengrocers/etc like it used to be?”. The answer was because we all shop at Sainsbury’s now and no-one could make a profit running it as it was, but someone was willing to try and make a profit running it as a takeaway. Then when the planning offier had explained that it had been derelict for years because no-one was willing to run it as a shop, and the only practical use was as a takeaway and if we rejected that it’d be overturned by government anyway, we’d agree. And local residents would scream at us “Corruption, you’ve all been bribed”.
Asquith – nope, we don’t need to insult people by saying they need to change their attitudes, rather we need to be clear that not all attitudes are incompatible and the ones which are most compatible are the ones which are best. I guess that amounts to the same thing, so, yes!
I don’t go round saying things like “the evil state” because I understand that the state has a role. I’m a liberal, not a far-right wingnut 🙂
The present system is definitely rigged in favour of large corporations. Maybe we wouldn’t all go and shop at corner shops, but in general the small business sector doesn’t need cosseting, it needs the freedom to operate and a fair legal framework.
And by my statements re: “attitudes”, I mean that a liberal society is self-evidently not brought about by coercion, but to be successful it needs to be inhabited by people who share its basic values. In other words, we can’t just legislate liberalism into existence if people are not liberal.
It seems to me stark-staringly obvious that in most sectors economies of scale mean a pure unfettered free market is going to end up with big businesses clobbering small businesses. That is quite obviously what we have seen in our economy. To deny that because it doesn’t fit in with idealistic your world view is just daft. Small business have survived better in other parts of Europe where there is more of a deliberate state policy of protecting them via state cosseting.
I’m sorry for making a paradoxical statement, Asquith, but I do agree with both sides.
Looking at things from a longer perspective the current trend for super-sized private companies building what are effectively monopolies is part of a cycle where the we’ve swung against super-sized state monopolies, as companies increasingly learn to cross national boundaries.
The problem is not just in reconciling the interests of the individual, those of the group or company and state interests, but in continuing to maintain a stable polity as the economic power balance changes.
The threat is in losing that balance, where one, other or all become shut out and then tries to forcibly reintegrate with the equation.
Currently the paradigm is in favour of big multi-nationals, but we need to encourage taking the opportunity to exploit gaps in the market to make sure that their dominance doesn’t overwhelm.
On Matthew’s point, I think the inbalance reflects the weakness of planning authorities to make plans with are sufficiently able to adapt quickly enough (which means over years and decades) to cope with changes in behaviour. To ignore or prevent changes in social behaviour is one thing, but to fail to cope with them is just as bad.
Supermarkets like Tesco are diversifying out of the big trading estate mega-hangar sector partly because they remain vulnerable to any social shift away from our mass dependance on private car transport, especially in the face of the prospect of huge rises in petrol prices.
I’m not sure if it is worth being worried about current business models when we can predict potential changes and prepare for them in a more adequate way, but that does require planning authorities opening up and taking more heed of the full variety of different stakeholding participators earlier in the planning process than when consultations are currently made.
The lack of, and failure of forward planning is a growing concern as the land is increasingly built up and developed.
It seems to me that there is growing conflict over planning issues – which can be reduced as to between ‘green’ communitarian nimbies and a nexus of capitalist and statist developers – but this also particularly highlights the failure of current government to adequately address and coordinate concerns over planning.
IMO This can only be resolved by our ability to show our relevance and institute a more open and liberal regime throughout.
There, I’ve gone and made a serious point, dammit!
Hello, this is Roy F. Moore, contributor to the news and opinion web log “The Distributist Review”, based in the U.S.A.
I’m glad there is a good discussion about Distributism here among you here in the U.K. The development of this alternative to BOTH Socialism and Capitalism didn’t die with the deaths of Belloc and Chesterton.
Permit me to refer you to both The Review and our colleagues at the “The ChesterBelloc Mandate” for further information, as well as a spur for further discussion among yourselves.
“The Distributist Review” – http://www.distributism.blogspot.com
“The ChesterBelloc Mandate” – http://www.distributist.blogspot.com
Thank you very much for your time and attention. And may God bless you and your families.
I would like to add that “Small is Beautiful” by Fritz Schumaker mentioned in the article is a superb read.
As for the question of how much “government” distributism would take, I respond that the best way to know what a system would require is to look at what it does require. And we can do this with distributism because it is not an abstract system, but one on the ground and working, in many ways and many places. There is, for example, the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation of Spain, with its 80,000 worker-owners doing $20 Billion/annum of sales in over 200 coops. It has a 50-year history of success. There is the cooperative economy of Emilia-Romagna, where 40% of the GDP comes from coops, and which boasts one of the highest living standards in Europe. There is the remarkable success of the “Land to the Tiller” program of Taiwan, which catapulted that nation from feudal backwater to industrial powerhouse in only one generation. There are ESOPs, and micro-lending, and successful coops everywhere. Indeed, distributism goes from triumph to triumph, while capitalism goes from government bailout to government bailout.
I’m fascinated by this discussion, and have becoming increasingly attracted by the Distributists over recent years. But there’s no doubt, if you read them now, they really hadn’t got the foggiest idea what they wanted to do and how they could achieve the kind of society they wanted. Having said that, I think there are areas where we could learn from them now.
First, their analysis of how socialism and capitalism tends towards slavery and conformity, which is very much clearer and sharper than anything similar the Lib Dems currently have in their armoury.
Second, the vital importance of very tough monopoly regulations if we are going to retain diversity and innovation (and, if you agree with the Distributists, freedom). I think it is pretty disastrous that the Lib Dems have followed the rest of the political world away from this over the past half century.
I disagree with Matthew therefore (and I usually agree with him) that the survival of small shops is to do with state molly-coddling. Quite the reverse: we have allowed the most enormous advantages to the big four supermarkets in the UK. They buttress these because they have enough monopoly power to force suppliers to accept payment in 90 days rather than 30 (clear evidence of anti-competitive market in my view), and have used this massive interest-free loan (not available to their competitors) to destroy smaller local rivals.
Liberalism used to be about protecting the market against monopoly and, one reason why people are so badly served these days by government and private sector alike, is that we have stopped doing so.
If I may add to my colleagues’ contribution to this essay, Distributism manages to bring together both the left and the right. In fact, in most cases, it appears to create an alternative thinking that is neither, with many shedding the baggage carried by both of these dichotomies.
Schumacher has been mentioned, but how many realise that Solzhenitsyn also shared distributist views?
While we are beginning in the States, our movement is branching out worldwide, and the U.K. in particular. If you are interested in Distributism, visit our website and send me an email to join our distribution list.
Unlike our academics or politicians, we are aiming at a popular movement.