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A Populist Primer for Conceptualizing Political Economy on the Humane Scale
by Ryan Setliff

"To live within a just order is to live within a pattern that has beauty. The individual finds purpose within an order, and security—whether it is the order of the soul or the order of the community. Without order, indeed the life of man is poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
—Russell Kirk

Private Property and Free-Markets as a Moral Imperative

An inquiry into political economy should begin with a moral rationale for private property ownership. "The control and ownership of productive property sufficient for a livelihood gave a man and his family a sense of economic security; it made him independent; he was a real citizen, for he could cast his franchise without fear and could protect the basic principles of his government." 1

The wisdom from hollowed antiquity has long recognized the value of tangible property ownership coupled with stewardship as a means of cultivating character amongst the citizens. This was the linchpin of classical republicanism. Wilhelm Roepke reminds us, "We can breathe the air of liberty only to the extent that we are ready to bear the burden of moral responsibility associated with it." There is an old Greek proverb: "Find an independent income, then find virtue." Economic independence is requisite for attaining liberty, and property ownership is chief among the means of working towards economic independence.

An ownership society nurtures the qualities of personal responsibility, caretaking and civility. All empirical evidence points to the reality that property owners are generally more productive, happier and fruitful citizens. Ownership of a homeplace is desirable, and should be pursued by hard work, frugality and thrift. There was a wisdom in the agrarian republicanism of the American Founders, as they extoled the virtues of the landed freeholders and yeoman farmers. They saw "the importance of private property as the guarantor of individual freedom and the self-sufficiency necessary for what J.G.A. Pocock calls 'the full austerity of citizenship in the classical sense.'" 2 It was recognized that independence cultivated character and virtue, and sustaining these elements are requisite for cultivating honest, healthier, productive and more resilient members of society.

There was, in short, what historian J.G.A. Pocock calls a "sociology of liberty:" liberty was not merely something that could flourish in a vacuum because everyone wanted it; it blossomed only when and if the citizens were socially independent—if they owned their own property, rule their own families, ran their own farms and businesses, bore their own arms in their own defense, took responsibility for their own failures and mistakes, and earned and enjoyed their own rewards, then and only then could men their own selves, as individuals or as people, as a republic. 3

In the context of republicanism, John Taylor opined in an 1814 book, An Inquiry into the Principles and Policies of the Government of the United States: "Wealth, like suffrage, must be considerably distributed, to sustain a democratic republic; and hence, whatever draws a considerable of either into a few hands, will destroy. As power follows wealth, the majority must have wealth or lose power." And this brings us to our next dilemma: capitalism as it stands faces a small predicament today in that it simply needs more capitalists, more entrepreneurs and more home owners!

"Economics can tell us how wealth is created, and how, once created, it is distributed; but it is powerless to tell us how wealth should be distributed, at least not without explicit information about how much people value their material wealth," notes Samuel Gregg.4 Gregg writes further,

The distribution of the end product of economic activity—that is, material income and wealth—is strongly influenced by the distribution of the ownership of basic resources. If someone owns a great deal of land and capital or, alternatively, is gifted with some rare and highly prized talent (such as a beautiful singing voice,) it usually follows that such a person is richly rewarded by the market system. If the distribution of basic resources—land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurial ability—follows a particular pattern, the distribution of income and wealth will follow much the same pattern.5

Taking this aforesaid observation into consideration, a sound critique of political economy characteristically embodies a recognition of the interplay between the body politic and the economy; and in recognizing the perilous consequences of political centralization, coercive wealth redistribution and other state intervention in the economy perpetuated by the managerial state, the ideal is peaceful steps toward political devolution. This entails supplanting the national unitary state with a decentralized federal polity. Samuel Gregg astutely observes:

Economics tells us that changing the distribution of the fruits of economic activity is a costly business. Generally, the distribution can be changed only through the imposition of taxes, subsidies, or regulations of one sort or another. Much theoretical and empirical work by economists shows how severely interventions of this sort can affect the wealth-creating ability of an economic system...6

Hence, the folly of such state intervention in the economy facilitating wealth redistribution by progressive taxation, inflation and nebulous schemes of land reform. Instead, one must favor political devolution, and reforms which mitigate against the centralization of the managerial state and its coercive schemes of wealth redistribution, in favor of the principle of subsidiarity. This is the philosopher's stone! Political devolution and a renaissance of federalism would contribute to the possibility of achieving the ideals of the humane economy, by structuring economic, political and social institutions on the humane scale. Predictably, within a decentralized republic with vibrant local and regional cultures, the natural tendency of the market for economic development is for a more widespread distribution of property and capital, a broader more affluent middle class, and the preponderance of small-scale enterprise and entrepreneurship. Joseph Scotchie postulates,

A dramatic decentralization of nearly all government functions is the tenet that unites libertarians and traditionalists. If regional cultures were revived, then they would hardly need a cradle-to-grave social security state to guide its citizens through their lives. How would people live? As Allen Tate explained in the dark years following World War II: "It is my impression that [people] get fed and clothed incidentally to some other impulse, a creative power which we sometimes identify with religion and the arts." Thus culture drives economics, as it does politics. Healthy regional cultures might mean liberation from an overbearing centralized state. This is in essence the distributist ideal.7

There are obvious parallels between distributist and agrarian social thought, as both embody reverence for parochialism, tradition, self-sufficiency, stewardship of the land, and local self-government.

In American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, from ISI Books, contributor William Fahey notes:

Distributism is a social disposition held by those who emphasize life as lived out in a local community. Distributists see this emphasis as the best response to the modern tendency of man to be attenuated by participation in larger abstract associations. Distributists hold that there is an organic link between the person, the family, the homestead, the city, and the state; they therefore view concentrated political and economic power with suspicion and seek to influence private and public initiatives in such a way as to encourage a decentralized polity and the widespread distribution of property.8

The heavily centralized unitary national polity, which we toil under today, bears bitter fruits. Its intervention in the economy exacerbates the disparity of wealth between rich and poor, foments class warfare, provides for the political spoilation of production and labor, and acts to swell the proletariat ranks of the poor welfare underclass much to the detriment of Middle America. Even the U.S. government publicly acknowledges, "Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households."9 However, this radical disparity is not a consequence of market failures as the statist liberals would say, but of the artificial patterns of economic development resulting from overly centralized political and corporate structures and their interplay with the market through unnecessary regulatory intervention, monetary manipulation and central planning.

Economist Robert Genetski elucidates upon positive economic alternatives to the socialistic economies of many European nations:

Low taxes make it easier for people to provide for their own needs letting them keep their hard-earned income. Free markets help maximize output, and thus earnings, by providing vital information about the value of goods and services. Markets are free when government is limited and individuals are primarily responsible for their own needs. Property rights protect the accumulation of assets from confiscation. Without rights, individuals would have little incentive to create wealth. A stable currency is needed to provide reliable information about transactions and prevent government from usurping resources by devaluing the currency. 10

Towards a More Humane Scale

Similarly, centralization and statism have beget excessive urbanization and exorbitant concentrations of populations in urban areas rather than a more dispersed population. Jonathan West writes:

Our cities used to be exciting livable avenues of interaction and advancement. They were communities, neighborhoods, and homes to people attracted by job and family. Today, thanks to a welfare-addicted underclass, personal irresponsibility in childbearing, politicized courts, and an undefended border, our cities have been invaded and occupied by aliens. They have been turned into hideous, third world war zones, unsafe and unproductive for redevelopment despite having billions of dollars having been spent on cosmetic repairs.11

With excessive urbanization, we have witnessed a rise in social pathologies and have seen the blighted urban wastelands of inner city Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and New Orleans take form. Cities are no longer built on the humane scale. Russell Kirk observed:

Detroit, the city I have known best, has worshipped the great god Efficiency. During my own lifetime, Detroit has produced tremendous wealth in goods and services. But the city has been a social failure, and so have most of America's other cities. Once called "the arsenal of democracy," nowadays Detroit, become ruinous and ungovernable, more frequently has been referred to as "the murder capital of America.12

"Our great cities, a hundred Long streets, are nearly ruined, ravaged by crime, their population corrupted or endangered by deadly narcotics, all community destroyed," lamented Kirk. "Our boasted influence is given the lie by the swift and sinister growth of a geniune proletariat, voracious and unruly, subsisting at public expense." Kirk adds, "Our layers of governmental bureaucracy are increasingly inefficient and vexatious. Our legislatures, national and state, seem willing to yield every demand of a pressure-group, regardless of the true public interest. Our judges, or many of them, have turned demagogues. Our air is polluted badly, our countryside uglified, public taste corrupted. Our children are brought up indulgently on images of terrible violence and gross sexuality." We pay lip service to free-markets in America, and "talk windily still of free enterprise, the industrial and commercial conglomerates move toward oligopoly on a tremendous scale." In summing up, Kirk concludes, "Leviathan, the monstrous society, has swallowed his myriads." 13

Donald Livingston elucidates the conceptualized "humane scale" as it relates to the city:

Aristotle argued that everything in nature has a proper size, below which or beyond which it becomes dysfunctional. A cottage is not a small mansion, and a mansion is not a large cottage. The charm and beauty of both is lost when the size is out of scale. What is the human scale of political order? From Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine down to the present, there has been remarkable agreement regarding the optimal size. A city-state of 50,000 to 200,000 is all that is necessary to produce a flourishing culture. Some would push the limit to 500,000, but beyond that, nothing is gained. Experience confirms this. Athens (with 50,000) and Renaissance Florence (with 40,000) produced cultures that excelled in nearly every form of human endeavor and from which we still gain inspiration. 14

Russell Kirk acquiesced, noting, "My argument is this: unless we begin to think of humanizing our American economy, our cities will continue to disintegrate, and the American people will increasingly grow bored and violent. Some folk in authority are beginning to apprehend that human nature may revolt at having an inhumane scale thrust upon mankind." 15 Livingston explains further,

As the population of a city increases arithmetically, space increases geometrically. Problems of transportation, water, sanitation, crime, poverty, and corruption, which were easily handled on a human scale, increase geometrically as the population of a city moves into the millions. Vast bureaucracies are erected, often creating as many problems as they solve. Corruption and political alienation grow, and entire sections of the megalopolis (which can no longer be called a city in the traditional sense) are written off as blighted areas and resemble the results of carpet-bombing. A megalopolis in the millions, such as Sao Paulo (19 million) or New York (8 million), requires more resources per capita to maintain the monster than would be required for a city of human scale, leaving fewer resources for the cultural luxuries that are the reason for the polity in the first place. Cities of this dysfunctional size appear only recently. The largest cities during the revolutionary period in America hovered at 30,000. New York did not gain 100,000 until 1820. The monster cities of the last 150 years are the creation of the centralized states in which they are embedded. 16

Wilhelm Roepke, while granting respect for private property rights, suggests some level of town and country planning will be needed. Its purpose would be to break up "industrial and habitational clumps" and to prevent the sprawling of big cities. This is not tantamount to "ribbon development" or "suburbisation" either, or any spurious chaotic decentralization. Rather, the beau ideal decentralization "means the creation of fresh small centres in lieu of the big city." The big city people mingle in an "anonymous and mechanical" sort of way instead of constituting "close communities embracing all classes and functions and possessing a geniune community spirit of neighbourliness."17

The distributist dispensation fits the positive aspects of historic development in the early century of the American Republic's growth. It found a parallel as a matter of policy in Congress' Northwest Ordinance, and in policies regarding the sale of public lands in the frontier West. Andrew Johnson could declare, "...The diffusion of an energetic population over our vast territory is an object of far greater importance to the national growth and prosperity than the proceeds of the sale of lands to the highest bidder on the open market..." 18

Later-day Old Right advocates for economic and political decentralization are particularly careful to avoid the charge of demagoguery, as they are adamant that they have no intention of effectuating distributist ideals by forcible redistribution. Besides, the Old Right is a firm respector of property rights, and remains opposed to the means and the instrument of effectuating coercive redistribution, namely the managerial state. Political reappropriation of wealth only inculcates dependency amongst its beneficiaries and further saps the vitality of the body politic. It is not the want of redistribution that civil society needs, but rather a more humane economic structure compatible with the human condition. In recognizing the interplay of political structures with the economy, one of the most prudent means of achieving the distributist ideal is by political decentralization. Within such a polity, the emergence of a "natural economy" (as John Taylor of Caroline dubbed it) would gradually take shape over time. Devolution of political power coupled with the restoration of dual federalism and sound money are amongst the most effectual means of realizing the ideals of the humane economy.

The quintessential conservative Edmund Burke avowed, "to be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affection. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind."19 For the Old Right, the emphasis on the timeless principle of subsidiarity as it relates to the institutions of civil society is vital.

A community of higher order (e.g., the state) should not interfere with the internal life of a community of a lower order (e.g., a private charity,) thereby depriving the latter of its rightful functions; instead, higher order communities should support lower bodies in case of need and help to coordinate their activities with the rest of society. 20

The burden of proof is always on the high-level institutions to justify abdicating the exercise of power and authority from local institutions.

If the functional autonomy of social units is to be respected, if localism, regionalism, and the whole spirit of voluntary association is to flourish, power wielded by government must be distributed into as many as hands as possible—not abstract, desocialized political hands but those who actually see in the social order, those of workers, enterprises, professionals, families, and neighborhoods. Centralization, Lamennais wrote, breeds apoplexy at the center and anemia at the extremities. 21

Anyway, it is through the embrace and recurrence to this fundamental principle of subsidiarity that we can sustain the benefits of a prosperous broad-based market economy on the humane scale. Roepke describes the "humane economy" ideal:

In such a society, wealth would be widely dispersed; people's lives would have solid foundations; geniune communities, from the family upward, would form a background of moral support for the individual; there would be counterweights to competition and the mechanical operation of prices; people would have roots and would not be adrift in life without an anchor; there would be a broad belt of an independent middle class, a healthy balance between town and country, industry and agriculture. 22

In a willingness to advance the distributist dispensation, the Old Right are apt to eschew the demagogic elements of early avowed distributists. G.K. Chesterton once quipped, "To give nearly everybody ordinary houses would please nearly everybody; that is what I assert without apology." 23 Admittedly, his proposition is reductio ad absurdum. Belloc's conception of the Servile State, however, offered some hard-hitting and needed cultural criticism. The old school distributists argued rather persuassively that "without the widespread distribution of private property there could be no real economic or political freedom, only a form of serfdom, a condition to which America was rapidly approaching. If this trend toward disposession was not reversed, they said, it was likely that the economic collectivism of modern large-scale capitalism would be replaced by the collectivism of socialism."24

Aristotle spoke of a "revolution within forms," when "one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about revolution in the state."25 Insofar, as America has crept to socialism in Fabian fashion, where the government—federal, state and local—now consumes nearly forty percent of the gross domestic product, one cannot help but to see that the revolution has reached fruition.

The Republican Party calls themselves "conservatives," but insofar as they parrot the rhetoric and public policies of the political Left, and refuse to embrace free-markets and limited government, they reveal themselves to be beautiful losers. The foxes are happily esconed guarding the henhouse, and they've all sold out to the lobbyists and special interests. Whether Republicans or Democrats are at the wheel has become increasingly irrelevant. The United States continues to trod the same tried and failed path to a Keynesian socialist worker's paradise, which ostensibly promises national salvation over the horizon supposedly if only the government had just a little more power and a little more taxpayer's wealth to reappropriate. Yet the problem of an economically insecure middle class, underemployment and unemployment, diminished economic prosperity for the masses, and rootlessness looms large.

In contrast to the Keynesian scribblers and Progressive social engineers of time's past, the enduring cultural criticism of twentieth-century socio-political thinkers such as Robert Nisbet and Wilhelm Roepke resonates with the Old Right's heirs today. Ironically, neither Nisbet nor Roepke were avowed "distributists" nor did they identify themselves with the Old Right. Nor did they conceive of capitalism as an ideology as did Michael Novak in his musings on democratic capitalism. Rather they posited the ideal social conditions in which a free market order could thrive based on an empirical interdisciplinary study of economics, history and sociology. Furthermore, the humane economy ideal has sponsors who tend to embrace economic laissez-faire as well as economic protectionism.

Conservative luminary Patrick J. Buchanan endorsed the "humane economy" of Wilhelm Roepke, as the New York Times quotes him:

We have to ask ourselves as conservatives what it is we want to conserve in America. I believe in the market system, but I don't worship the market system. I don't worship at the altar of economic efficiency as I believe some so-called conservatives do. To prefer a 100,000-hog confinement to hundreds of family farms, it seems to me, is not conservatism. I mean, that is to worship as a supermarket civilization. 26

Saving Social Security

As America embarks on her new millennium, a great degree of financial uncertainty lies in the hearts of most Americans. As such, a key issue stands out in the political arena: namely, the need to reform our virtually insolvent Social Security system and the need to obtain real economic growth, higher productivity and a better quality of life. With innovative solutions it may be possible to solve these problems simultaneously. By privatizing Social Security and eliminating the current unfunded pay-as-you-go system in favor of a system of mandatory savings accounts, these problems can be solved concurrently.

According to a recent survey of small business owners: "67 percent of small business owners want their Social Security dollars automatically placed into a personal account — such as a 401(k) or IRA — versus only 33 percent who would rather have an account that's managed and distributed by the government." 27

In the early 1980s, Social Security was said to be on the verge of collapse as receipts were not apt to cover expenditures. To avoid such impending doom, Congress responded by a seismic increase in payroll taxes and slashing certain benefits. The media onlookers and politicos hailed this as the solution that would save Social Security for generations to come. Now once again, we are told that the system is on the brink of disaster in 2012 with the Trust Fund already insolvent, and the expectation that projected liabilities and expenditures will soon surpass payroll tax receipts.

Despite the claims of politicains, Social Security doesn't represent any wealth but only a claim on the earnings of current and future taxpayers. It should more accurately be dubbed a liability in which the whole nation shares the burden. The Social Security liability represents an immense sum of over $9 trillion dollars, nearly twice the official recorded national debt. This lofty liability will continue to grow as long as the present system goes unchanged.28

Perhaps one of the most insidious examples of Social Security mismanagement is the borrowing of money from the Trust Fund and replacing it with government bonds which are basically IOUs. This oft evasive tactic is utilized to disguise the true staggering size of federal budget deficits.29 Of course, there is no need to worry, after all these IOUs "are back by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government," or so we are told.

Wilhelm Roepke made this keen observation:

[A] pension system resting on capital accumulation makes a considerable contribution to national capital formation as a determining factor of the national product. The system thus tends to increase the national fund of goods out of which the social payments, translated as goods, are made. A pay-as-you-go [Social Security] system, on the other hand, would stop this source of capital formation and, unless a substitute can be found, hamper the growth of the social product.30

Unlike private pensions and individual retirement accounts, the status quo system does not invest the money it collects in stocks and bonds but disburses out over 90 percent of benefits almost immediately from the time they are received as tax receipts. This leads to another unfortunate characteristic of Social Security, namely its low dismal rate of return. One cannot expect to get back what one contributes nowadays. The unfunded Social Security system cannot match a comparable private pension system's high rate of return since its capital is either idled in government coffers or disbursed immediately. A study by the Cato Institute demonstrated that a worker in 1950 who invested his payroll tax contributions instead in either bonds or stocks would be far better off than he is with Social Security as it stands.

The fundamental problem with Social Security is that it is base on the principles of a Ponzi or pyramid scheme. In such schemes, the original investors get paid off with funds from a second group of investors. The returns decrease for each successive group of investors until finally, the later ones realize what a bad deal it is and the system goes broke. Ponzi schemes are generally illegal, unless they are run by the government.31

There are those who suggest using Social Security trust funds to secure stocks and bonds in private capital markets. While this may very well extend the life of the faltering Social Security system, this solution is not without its faults. Putting responsibility of managing everyone's retirement in the hands of bureaucrats would inevitably lead to corruption and special interest peddling. Some investors would undoubtedly be tempted to send kickbacks towards the parties managing such substantial assets when vying for a cool billion in investment capital. This kind of socialistic, publicly-managed retirement system would be at odds with the American spirit of free enterprise and private property.

A more practical solution to the long ignored problem of Social Security reform would be to implement a private system of obligatory mandatory individual accounts. Such a system could be better managed by competiting brokers and mutual fund managers in the private sector. People should, of course, be free to choose their own investments, and may select any traditional investment vehicles already allowable in IRA's or 401k plans, (i.e., annuities, stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc.) Those unfamiliar with investment could rely on the advice and counsel of professional investment advisors.

The accompanied elimination of payroll taxes would reduce distortions in the labor market. The positive effect would be to lower the cost of labor to business owners so as to enhance productivity and real economic growth. Compulsory individual contributions required to fund projected benefits could be lower than the present 15.3% payroll tax contribution of the present system. 32

After undergoing privatization, this new funded system should not be subject to excessive governmental scrutiny and over-regulation which may coerce the allocation of investments and jeopardize its potential for success. The only legitimate role of government is to prevent the fraudulent mismanagement of investments.

The continued deterioration of the current system will inevitably force politicians to reform the faulty system. Should they embrace privatization, the rewards would be enormous. This would eliminate the necessity of increased payroll taxes further disrupting the labour market. Such reforms would increase national savings, raise real income, spur real (non-inflationary) economic growth, and lower the cost of living. This would ensure a dignified retirement for all Americans and future generations to come. Additionally, private investment of trillions of dollars would result in unprecedented economic growth. This would lead to the creation of more widely dispersed 'real wealth' and tangible investment capital in the hands of Middle America.

On a lighter note, a new privatized system should not be dubbed Social Security, as the private system represents financial security, tangible wealth that people hold title to in their own name. It embodies a real retirement system with rewarding benefits. The dull-witted aphorism Social Security best serves as an acronym for socialism, debt and fraud. So it should come as no surprise that the best way to save Social Security is to eliminate it altogether.

Towards a Humane Economy

"American society is imperfect; but all human societies are imperfect in some degree," observes Russell Kirk. "The American economy has its faults; but they are faults that may be modified. A free economy, because of its opportunities for choice and competition, has always within it the possibilities of improvement; it does not repress the reformer." 33

It will not do for us to be complacent about our American economy. We have many grave problems. We need to humanize mass-production, and to restore craftsmanship and personal accomplishment to work, and to teach ourselves how to make our leisure something better than boredom. We need to infuse in modern life a sense of community and purpose and hope and deep-rooted security. We need more geniunely educated businessmen and more geniunely responsible labor-union leaders. We need more decentralization of industry and more penetrating regard for the claims of rural life. 34

In envisioning the humane economy of Russell Kirk and Wilhelm Roepke, we should observe that the benefits are not predominantly economic, but rather cultural and spiritual—as it makes possible, the broadening of the range of human freedom and the diversification of the possibilities for human endeavor.

Politics is an aesthetic art. A statesman needs to realize that proposition before he can lead. As the proverb goes, 'where the people lack vision, they perish.' A grassroots civil society needs a grassroots philosophy. These precepts aptly summarize the humane economy vision, and may be prudently appropriated in articulation of public policy:

• Maximize citizen choice, individual empowerment, and overall human potential
• Facilitate greater involvement in the political process (e.g., through local and state-based referenda)
• Being of concrete help to those in the developing world
• Emphasize epistemic virtue, so that politics are grounded objective reality
• Cultivate character through a civil society that rewards conscious moral choices and does not remove them from the table
• Expand community by people creating value for each other in reciprocal relationships
• Possess a foundation of traditional values and common sense
• Enlibra, which presents itself as the productive middle approach to environmentalism 35

"A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar and unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy, is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead."
—George Eliot

Bibliography / Further Reading

References / Citations

1. 1. Frank Lawrence Owsley, "Foundations of Democracy," Who Owns America: A New Declaration of Independence, Herbert Agar and Allen Tate, eds. Hardcover: 304 pages. (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 1999), p. 89.
2. 2. Gregg, Gary L., II, Vital Remnants: America's Founding and the Western Tradition, (Wilmington, DC, ISI Books, 1999).
3. 3. Francis, Samuel, Revolution from the Middle, (Raleigh, NC: Middle American Press, 1997,) p. 84
4. 4. Gregg, Samuel, Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded, (Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America, 2001,) p. 49.
5. 5. Ibid. pp. 49-50.
6. 6. Ibid. p. 50
7. 7. The Paleoconservatives. Joseph Scotchie, ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999), p. 19.
8. 8. Fahey, William, “Distributism,” American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia. Bruce Frohnen, Jeremy Beer, and Jeffrey O. Nelson, eds., (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006), pp. 235-36.
9. 9. CIA World Factbook. 22 Nov. 2006. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/***
10. 10. Genetski, Robert J., A Nation of Millionaires: Unleashing America's Economic Potential, (Palantine, IL: The Heartland Institute, 1997), p. 16.
11. 11. West, Jonathan, The Tragedy of Freedom: An Indictment of Liberal Democracy and A Call For Patriotic Resistance (West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2006,) p. 3.
12. 12. Kirk, Russell, Politics of Prudence, (Bryn Mawr, PA: ISI Books, 1993), p. 122.
13. 13. Kirk, Russell, Politics of Prudence, (Bryn Mawr, PA: ISI Books, 1993), pp. 111-112.
14. 14. Livingston, Donald W., "Diseconomies of Scale: Dismembering Leviathan," Vermont Commons, 22 Nov. 2006, http://vtcommons.org/node/184
15. 15. Kirk, Russell, The Politics of Prudence, (Bryn Mawr, PA: ISI Books, 1993), p. 123.
16. 16. Livingston, Donald W., "Diseconomies of Scale: Dismembering Leviathan," Vermont Commons, 22 Nov. 2006, http://vtcommons.org/node/184
17. 17. Roepke, Wilhelm, Civitas Humanitas, (London: William Hodge, 1948,) pp. 159-164"
18. 18. Message to Congress, December 3, 1866
19. 19. Burke, Edmund, Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches, Peter J. Stanlis, ed., (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1963), p. 539.
20. 20. Gregg, Samuel, Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded, (Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America, 2001,) p. 43.
21. 21. Nisbet, Robert, "The Twilight of Authority," The Portable Conservative Reader, Russell Kirk, ed., (New York, NY: Viking, 1982.)
22. 22. Roepke, Wilhelm, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free-Market, (South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1960, p. 35
23. 23. Chesterton, G.K. What’s Wrong with the World, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 74
24. 24. Edward Shapiro, "Introduction," Who Owns America: A New Declaration of Independence, Herbert Agar and Allen Tate, eds. Hardcover: 304 pages. (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 1999), p. 89.
25. 25. Buchanan, Pat, Where the Right Went Wrong: How the Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, (New York, NY: St. Martin's, 2004), p. 213.
26. 26. Francis, Samuel, Revolution from the Middle, (Raleigh, NC: Middle American Press, 1998), p. 238
27. 27. "Report Shows Small Business Owners Losing Confidence in Social Security, Seek More." Reuters, 15 Oct. 2008.
28. 28. "Social Security's Bad Returns," Investor's Business Daily, March 14, 1997.
29. 29. Dreyfuss, Robert, "The Biggest Deal: Lobbying to Take Social Security Private", The American Prospect, May-June 1996
30. 30. Roepke, Wilhelm, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free-Market, (South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1960, p. 35; Feldman, Martin, "Privatizing Social Security: The $10 Trillion Opportunity." The Cato Institute, Jan. 31, 1997.
31. 31. Genetski, Robert J., A Nation of Millionaires: Unleashing America's Economic Potential, (Palantine, IL: The Heartland Institute, 1997), p. 28.
32. 32. Feldman, Martin, "Privatizing Social Security: The $10 Trillion Opportunity." The Cato Institute, Jan. 31, 1997.
33. 33. Kirk, Russell, The American Cause, (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2002), p. 116
34. 34. Kirk, Russell, The American Cause, (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2002), p. 117
35. 35. Wikipedia, entry: Radical Center