Maximos on Chesterton
Ho ho! A whale of a discussion thread on economic theory is now hot underway at What’s Wrong with the World. If you happen not to be Catholic or Orthodox, then some parts of the thread might not speak to you; but if you like economics and you can spare a solid hour for some dense reading, to click the hyperlink now is recommended to you.
Some of this writer’s words in the thread:
Maximos is right in my view.
I’m not advocating a wholesale Five-Year-Plan in a distributist vein; but rather an incrementalist, prudential programme, whatever that might turn out to entail. However, I cannot even discuss small and prudent measures without having the grim spectre of socialism summoned forth from the abyss, in order to dispel the very suggestion.
Maximos disputes the false choice between market anarchy on the one hand and Bolshevism on the other. Such a choice resembles the false choice between a wart and its removal by pistol shot. It is not even a matter of position along a linear spectrum, for Bolshevism, like the pistol shot, is the extreme of the wrong axis altogether.
I suggest that there exists a point beyond which sufficiently extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of the few would offend all but the most ardent plutocrat. The United States has not nearly reached such a point yet, but the fact that the point exists should inform us that the definition of right as “that which the undistorted market ordains” is deficient.
The point is central. “That which the undistorted market ordains” is not necessarily much more desirable than “that which the unmowed lawn grows.” The market will ordain something, the lawn will grow something, but neither may serve the interests of the people.
HJH
January 12th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
You can comment below if you want, but if you have a really good comment to offer and the thread is still live and hot, then why not add it to the actual thread at What’s Wrong with the World?
Howard