Land Ownership By Families

The following was written by Dr. Peter Chojnowski on The ChesterBelloc Mandate from an article “Distributism: Economics as if People Mattered.” The article explains why and how Distributism circulated as a concept by a group of English thinkers and writers, among them G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc:

"Being Englishmen, the idea that the land meant wealth was inevitably ingrained in their conception of economics. Ownership of the land by the families who themselves worked the land would also mean financial stability, no fear of unemployment, a family enterprise which could engage, in some measure, all members, an ability to put aside food and supplies to create a hedge against destitution, a way of providing not only for one's children but for one's children's children, along with creating an economic structure which is not oriented towards corporate profits but towards providing for familial subsistence and a local market. Belloc speaks of this type of Distributist economy as the one most general throughout the history of mankind, with the possible exception of the slave economy. Capitalism and Socialism are certainly recent interlopers on the human economic scene."

The article in its entirety can be found here.