SO FAR I'VE TOUCHED ON capitalism, socialism, and distributism—a third alternative supported by G.K. Chesterton.

The capitalist dream is what we're suffering under at the moment...

...except insofar as it has been mitigated by liberal interventions: things like social security, the five-day work week, public fire departments and police forces, Medicare, fair labor laws, and other "socialist" interventions by "big government".

The truth, of course, is that none of those things is truly socialist, at least not in the pejorative sense which is equated to the old Soviet Russia and the destruction of freedom.

We have not come even remotely close to a truly socialist society, in which government owns all the capital.

What we have is a very slightly modified form of capitalism, which works a whole lot better than old-school communism, quite a bit better than completely unbridled capitalism, and nowhere near well enough to suit most Americans.

The third alternative is one we toyed with a tiny bit, back in the forties and fifties—you know, the good old days—which worked well then, and which Chesterton advocates.

It consists of arranging the tax laws to discourage wealth from pooling at the top of the economy.

Time for the Utopian dream:

Imagine how our economy, and our politics, would change under a distributist policy.

Imagine a country in which most of the wealth was distributed among the middle class and the poor, instead of hoarded by the wealthiest five percent of the populace and the giant corporations.

More people would work for themselves.

There would be no businesses that were "too big to fail". So the free market would work much more efficiently.

With a more efficient market there would be less need for government regulation—and less need for government bailouts.

There would be much more real competition—competition based on better services and better products, instead of on mergers and fancy financial tricks.

The capital, and the income, would be kept close to the bottom of the economy, which would mean a higher standard of living for the working poor and the middle class, which in turn would mean more money being spent at the bottom, and less debt, which would mean a healthier economy.

A healthier and more prosperous economy for the poor and middle class would mean less crime, more home ownership, more investment in communities, better neighborhoods, better lives, and less expense to government—which, in turn, could mean a smaller government, which did a better job.

The people who actually did the work would be the ones who reaped the profits.

Politicians would raise the majority of their campaign funds from the people they represented—because that would be where the money was.

Astroturf—pretend grassroots movements actually financed by the wealthy—would disappear.

Real grassroots organizations—the kind that are started and primarily funded by the poor and middle class—would flourish.

With a whole new level of competition between people who owned their own businesses, there would be a whole new level of innovation—more invention, more creativity, more excitement and pleasure in work.

As news sources and entertainment sources became more diverse and less concentrated, more points of view would become available, and the quality of our information would improve. No longer would a handful of people own most of the media.

In a thousand small ways, power would be distributed. More people would have more choices. More people would have a voice.

There would be less coercion, fewer people doing things they didn't believe in because they were afraid of losing their jobs.

Since small businesses provide the most employment, there would be more jobs, and more jobs means more competition for workers and higher pay.

But there would also be more respect for workers, because they would be more able to leave for other employment if they weren't treated well. And workers who are respected do better work.

I could go on and on, but that is the Utopian gist. It needs to be corrected with some real world thinking.

Crime would not magically end, though it's likely it would become less.

Not everyone would end up working for themselves.

Some rich people would still have influence with some politicians.

Less coercion doesn't mean no coercion.

Chesterton's idea was to institute a whole range of policies aimed at distributing the capital of the nation, in order to replace a handful of large capitalists with millions of small capitalists.

In short, we're talking about a direction rather than a goal.

But I think it would be a good direction, for everyone.

A handful of men and women—well, let's be honest: mostly men—would lose an enormous amount of power, which was always disproportionate to their contributions to society as a whole.

But they wouldn't be impoverished. Chances are their daily lives wouldn't noticeably change. They would still be able to afford multiple yachts and houses, still send their kids to exclusive schools, still play golf at exclusive clubs.

They just might have to stop short of buying that senator.

In exchange, they, their children, and their grandchildren would live in a country with less crime, with greater safety, with fewer potholes, and with a better education system and better workers.

Their companies would be able to count on a stronger domestic market, since their customers would be wealthier.

Their great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, many of whom would not have been rich anyway, would live in a better world.

That's a pretty fine legacy.

And, of course, the middle class and the poor would not complain.

Next time, how it could be done...