Taking "free markets" from rhetoric to reality For three decades free-market leaders have tried to reverse longstanding Keynesian economic policies, but have only produced larger government, greater debt, and more centralized economic power. So how can we achieve a truly free-market system, especially at this historical moment when capitalism seems to be in crisis? The answer, says John C. Medaille, is to stop pretending that economics is something on the order of the physical sciences; it must be a humane science, taking into account crucial social contexts. Toward a Truly Free Market argues that any attempt to divorce economic equilibrium from economic equity will lead to an unbalanced economy—one that falls either to ruin or to ruinous government attempts to redress the balance. Medaille makes a refreshingly clear case for the economic theory—and practice—known as distributism. Unlike many of his fellow distributists, who argue primarily from moral terms, Medaille enters the economic debate on purely economic terms. Toward a Truly Free Market shows exactly how to end the bailouts, reduce government budgets, reform the tax code, fix the health-care system, and much more.

In recent years, prominent scholars, public intellectuals, and politicians have advocated reforming America’s economic model to embrace “common-good capitalism.” Catholic social teaching is a major influence on this movement. Is common-good capitalism compatible with the historical American commitments to private property rights and ordered liberty? What resources from Catholic social teaching can help orient free enterprise towards the common good? This book is the first scholarly inquiry into these exciting new questions. We can better understand common-good capitalism by exploring the political economy of distributism. Formulated in the early 20th century by prominent Catholic intellectuals such as Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, distributism emphasizes the importance of widely dispersed property ownership for human flourishing. Distributist thinkers, opposed both to capitalism and socialism, sought a humane approach to politics and economics that reflected the truths of Catholic social teaching. Some of the distributists’ claims about markets and government must be revised in light of contemporary social science. Nevertheless, their political-economic vision contains profound truths about the human condition, which social scientists would be unwise to ignore. Distributism’s insights about the nature of liberty and the social foundations of human dignity can improve ongoing conversations among economists, political scientists, and philosophers. The Political Economy of Distributism explores distributism both as a research program and a blueprint for political-economic reform. As many are reconsidering the relationship between markets and government, this timely book demonstrates the perennial relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition to public affairs. Academics, public servants, policy experts, and concerned citizens can all benefit from this timely study of common-good capitalism’s prospects.

A Solution for Our Social and Economic Crisis In 1891, Pope Leo XIII wrote the groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum, which featured the Catholic Church's response to the conditions of the working classes and unleashed modern Catholic social thought. Inspired by Leo's call for the law to "induce as many as possible of the people to become owners," famed writers G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc crafted an alternative against the dispossession caused by the monopolizing ends of socialism and capitalism, which come at the expense of justice, the common good, and our natural resources. In a world obsessed with growth and globalization, Distributism is a political economy championing the sustainability of decentralized, local economies with the aim of ensuring the widest ownership of the means of production. The solution to our present socio-economic malaise is an economy as if people and God mattered. The Hound of Distributism is a collection of essays written by leading distributist authors from around the world. Given our present social and economic crisis, this timely and rich volume challenges the sterility of our present by recovering the value of the socio-economic theory of Distributism.

What will the future of work, social freedom, and employment look like? In an era of increased job insecurity and social dislocation, is it possible to reshape economics along democratic lines in a way that genuinely serves the interests of the community? Of Labour and Liberty arises from Race Mathews’s half-century and more of political and public policy involvement. It responds to evidence of a precipitous decline in active citizenship, resulting from a loss of confidence in politics, politicians, parties, and parliamentary democracy; the rise of "lying for hire" lobbyism; increasing concentration of capital in the hands of a wealthy few; and corporate wrongdoing and criminality. It also questions whether political democracy can survive indefinitely in the absence of economic democracy—of labor hiring capital rather than capital labor. It highlights the potential of the social teachings of the Catholic Church and the now largely forgotten Distributist political philosophy and program that originated from them as a means of bringing about a more equal, just, and genuinely democratic social order. It describes and evaluates Australian attempts to give effect to Distributism, with special reference to Victoria. And with an optimistic view to future possibilities it documents the support and advocacy of Pope Francis, and ownership by some 83,000 workers of the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain. This book will interest scholars and students of Catholic social teaching, history, economics, industrial relations, and business and management.

G. K. Chesterton’s famous thesis explores the subjects of poverty, agriculture, machinery, capital gain, and concentration of wealth from an anti-capitalist viewpoint. This fascinating volume argues the threat to smaller businesses as corporate companies become more dominant. Fiercely relevant almost 100 years after its first publication, The Outline of Sanity is G. K. Chesterton’s insightful exploration of humanity’s future. He criticises both the scientific management theory and Marxist Trotskyism, questioning the longevity of democracy. First published in 1926. The contents of this volume features: - Some General Ideas - The Beginning of the Quarrel - The Peril of the Hour - The Chance of Recovery - Some Aspects of Big Business - The Bluff of the Big Shops - A Misunderstanding about Method - A Case in Point - The Tyranny of Trusts - Some Aspects of the Land

This short work is a program for property distribution as an alternative to how it is planned by socialist states or naturally happens in capitalist societies. It is a landmark of European social thought, attempting to rectify the wrongs in both of the major economic theories by approaching the problem from an entirely new angle. The essay is thus an anticapitalist and antisocialist work of Christian and Catholic social thought in which basic truths about society and human nature are applied to socioeconomics. It is a manifesto and a program for the Distributist League, of which Belloc and G.K. Chesterton were the primary figures. It marks a key point in the history of economic thought, and it is a fundamental text illustrating the influence of religion and philosophy on social thought and their practical application to societal questions.