6 Comments

  1. Robert John Lennon
    September 29, 2016

    I think my largest problem with the “manifesto” as it were, was the lack of fire in it. The whole thing is jammed with the same boring jargon, the same god-words, as any corporate statement of values. There’s no spirit! It’s bloodless! I didn’t feel a single stirring of emotion as I read it. No one would die for this program, least of all the drafters.
    A loathsome zeal I can understand, but trumpeting *this* milquetoast? I got nothing.

  2. Piers Forrester
    September 29, 2016

    Po’s Law has me on this one. Can’t tell if this isn’t just satire with a really narrow target audience.

    1. Gabriel Sanchez
      September 29, 2016

      No, I think they are quite serious…

  3. Ephemera V | Opus Publicum
    September 29, 2016

    […] pace of life on the Internet is brisk. Earlier today I wrote a few words on the “Tradinista Collective” and its attempt to craft what they […]

  4. jackquirk
    September 29, 2016

    My “umbrage,” as you put it, arose from the fact your misunderstanding was the very thing that made me counsel others to stop using the word “socialism” for things that are really distributism. In the manifesto you refer to, someone is doing it again.

    The Tradinista! manifesto calls for cooperatives, But nothing could be further from socialism, as classically understood, than a cooperative. The ownership of the means of production widely distributed couldn’t be more different than such ownership in the hands of the state. But for reasons that are not altogether clear to me, some writers, yes, even in Christian Democracy two or three times, are using what I call the “s” word in this incorrect manner.

    The “s” word shouldn’t be used for distributism mostly because it creates confusion and miscommunication. But I am compelled to point out that you are providing an exemplar. I have to wonder aloud whether you would be calling for proof of their Subsidiarity bona fides if they had simply used the word “distributism” instead.

    That said, I think you are providing a public service. This sort of confusion is exactly why they shouldn’t be using the “s” word. I don’t know what compels them to do this, but, given that it seems to be done largely by young people, I have to suspect it is partially due to the fact that they have no personal memory of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it is that they have only a peripheral awareness of the horrors of Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot that allows them to so easily appropriate the “s” word. Maybe the same factors play into the lack of appreciation of the magnitude of Bernie Sanders’s tactical mistake in allowing the term to be applied to himself, though he was little more than an old-line New Deal Democrat.

    I cannot charge someone with heresy over a mix-up in terminology. Still, I cannot wish for you to stop exemplifying the kind of confusion that can arise if these young distributists insist on calling themselves socialists. Words are for communication, not obfuscation.The more recent popes have acknowledged the development of the term “socialism” since Leo XIII’s day, and therefore no longer unqualifiedly condemn everything that adopts the term. But a social and political idea ought to present itself for actual implementation. Given the popular understanding of the term, the use of the “s” word obstructs rather than helps the effort.

  5. […] “Catholic socialism” of the self-proclaimed “Tradinista Collective” (see here and here). Although McCall spends the bulk of his work attacking the errors of political, social, […]

Comments are closed.