I BEGAN THIS SERIES BY POINTING OUT that although Michael Moore is right about the dangers of capitalism, he is mistaken when he assumes that the only alternative is socialism.
"When wealth is better distributed, justice will be as well."
I drew on G.K. Chesterton's plea for distributism as an example of a third approach.
I don't, myself, think any of these three, in some pure Utopian form, is the solution.
Instead, we should be aiming at a balance of the three by:
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embracing free markets insofar, and where, they work,
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using distributist policies to keep the economy both strong and fair, and
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using a minimalist "socialism" to keep our infrastructure strong and our society free and prosperous.
Such an approach can't really be called "socialist", "capitalist", or even "distributist", so we need a whole new name for it.
I would suggest we call it "democratic"—with, of course, a small "d".
The whole structure would be aimed at making our societies economic structure as democratic as its legal structure.
In the process, it would also make the legal structure more democratic as well. Let's face it, we all know that the law works in favor of the wealthy most of the time.
When wealth is better distributed, justice will be as well.
How would a democratic policy work in practice?
To begin with, it would involve a real commitment to free markets.
But truly free markets are more like a level playing field than a free-for-all.
We don't assume that a free country can exist without government intervention, and we shouldn't assume that a free market can either.
This means serious financial regulation, but regulation aimed at keeping the market both fair and free.
It also means, if we are serious, that something has to be done about the pooling of wealth—both in corporations and in the hands of individuals.
Money is power, and we're kidding ourselves if we think any government can remain fair and free, or in any sense a democracy, if some individuals and institutions are allowed to amass a significant excess of power.
Extreme wealth is, by its nature, an anti-democratic force.
That doesn't mean there should be no difference in wealth, or even sizable differences. But it does mean that the situation we currently have, where the top one percent own over a third of the financial wealth and the rest of the top five own half of what's left, is intolerable if we wish to remain a democracy for long.
It's also intolerable if we really intend to have a healthy economy, or even a healthy populace.
But pooled wealth is not a natural thing. It's the result of the way our laws are written. Without those laws, corporations, for example, wouldn't even exist. A corporation is just a legal fiction.
If we can write laws which encourage wealth to pool in large quantities controlled by a few people, we can also write laws to encourage wealth to pool in small quantities controlled by many people.
One obvious approach is taxation.
Next time, a democratic
approach to taxes...
