Practical Distributism

by Jeb Smith

What Is Distributism

Socialism and capitalism are not at war with each other—they are in cahoots with each other. They have formed that unholy alliance, the servile state—big government propped up by big business, and big business propped up by big government.
-Dale Ahlquist, et al., The Hound of Distributism: A Solution for Our Social and Economic Crisis; Richard Aleman, editor Middletown, Delaware: ACS Books, 2015

Unlike capitalism and socialism, which centralize power in national political parties and their corporate allies in D.C., distributism seeks to localize economic and political power. Its aim is to disperse land ownership, money, means of production, political power and more to families and local business owners rather than politicians and major corporations. The goal is to create as many self-sufficient families and communities as possible, free from government or corporate influence, and for all to achieve real liberty, possible only when producing for themselves.

As governments raised taxes and imposed regulations while corporations manipulated the economy, millions in Europe were forced from their land, leaving them no choice but to migrate to cities to work in inhumane factory conditions. Distributism proposes a “third way” aimed at ensuring all families can own property and access the means of production.

According to distributism, people ought to have liberty to provide for themselves without interference or manipulation from outside forces serving the interests of a national economy – free from bosses or governmental forces – having rights to private property and the means of production for survival. In a distributist society crafting, farming, and trades would be passed down generations unhindered by outside forces. Further, distributism requires no property tax, no or few regulations, generally low taxation, and no government bailouts or subsidies for major corporations, etc.

Each family would constitute a small society, managing its own minor kingdom, producing for itself. Politics and economics would be localized within small, close-knit, like-minded, self-governing communities where trade and barter take place.

Governance would be almost entirely at this local level. Only what could not be done at the family level would pass to the town level; only what could not be done at the town level managed at the county or state level. The higher level would do only what the lower level could not. Government would be localized—with no need for centralized state or national political parties.

Undisturbed by an outside majority, self-government would be restored, allowing families to serve as the primary power bloc and local communities to control their own policies. This would allow for a wide diversity of systems, permitting us to move, live with, and be governed by like-minded people. One town might be libertarian, the next socialist, the next Republican, and so on; no distant, uninvolved and unaware majority overpowering political minorities, robbing them of the politics of their choice. Elections, politics, fundraising, etc., would dissipate and the hatred, anger, and frustration over these issues would disperse.

Distributism and Catholicism

Professor J.R.R Tolkien was a devout traditionalist Catholic, and distributism was most popular in traditional Catholic circles in the early twentieth century when argued and defended by leading Catholic minds—men such as G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Pope Leo XIII in his 1891 encyclical Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor, and Pope Pius XI in his 1931 encyclical Rerum Novarum. This movement and these men impacted Tolkien, and some of their values made their way into his work, as we will see when we investigate The Shire he developed.

Hilaire Belloc said Distributism was based on “old forms of European Christian life,” arguing the Middle Ages were largely distributist, and I agree. The feudal kingships of the Christian Middle Ages had many similarities to distributism (see Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty. For similarities with Southern agrarians, see Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War).

During the Middle Ages, Catholicism dominated society, the whole of which was characterized by localism and decentralization. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches “Subsidiarity,” promoting a decentralized local control of politics and the economy. It reads, “Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.”

In Biblical and medieval periods, society and families were largely independent and self-sufficient rather than interconnected in a national economy. In The Third Way Foundations of Distributionism, Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical was quoted where he wrote, “There is no need to bring in the state. Man preceded the state, and possesses, prior to the formation of any state, the right of providing the substance of his body.” In other words, God gave man the immutable right to private property and the means to support a family before the government came into being, thus he was born free from bosses or government forces, with rights to property and means of production for survival.

Pope Leo viewed a family as a tiny “society” that was “older than any state; consequently, it has rights and duties peculiar to itself, which are quite independent of the state.” Man living with his (often extended) family on a farm producing for themselves and ruling over their own little kingdom was the ideal life. If given his own land, man will love, care for, and work harder with willing labor, as Pope Leo called it, rather than forced wage labor in a factory. Tolkien and distributists believed people should not be transformed into productive units or workers for fiscal gain, but were created in the image of God with dignity and respect.

Being a mainly Catholic movement, distributism adhered to Christian principles. In fact, Biblical law implemented many of the distributist desires. It prevented the power block buildup modern centralized capitalistic, democratic, and socialist societies produce. Preventing governmental expansion, Deuteronomy 17:18-20 limits the king’s power, as does Ezekiel 46:18, and the function of a king under God’s entire law left him libertarian compared to modern governments.
Biblical law only allows for limited taxation and only on increase, with no direct taxes, property tax, national debt, invasion of private property, or many other privileges the modern state employs to gain power. The years of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-28) prevented the mass buildup of both government and large landholders, ensuring land and power were distributed and not centralized or monopolized. Protestant Pastor and author Ted R. Weiland wrote, “The year of Jubilee makes it impossible for a man to amass property or for the government to confiscate private property.”

The Biblical economy leaves self-sufficient individuals alone! Were we to implement Biblical economics, there would be no income tax or heavy taxation, no IRS, welfare, licenses, or regulations. A self-sufficient lifestyle faces no such things. Deuteronomy 14:22 levies 10% on agriculture, and it is a fixed rate aimed only at the head of the household, not women or children. Further taxes are only placed on the increase, and the sacrificial system is no longer in place, so taxes would be reduced from these amounts. Our income is taxed, sent to someone else, and taxed again when spending money. So, each time a dollar is spent, it is taxed in some way in America, leading each dollar to be taxed far more than it is worth; under Biblical tax, no tax is taken more than once.

With no direct taxation, people could live self-sufficient lives without making money or paying taxes! They could live free of government interference if they chose. Further, all the indirect taxes driving prices up and so passing to the consumers do not exist in biblical taxation.

This system would promote self-sufficiency and allow most people to survive independently, free of government or corporations, for jobs. The law against power build-up among the population also prevents dangerous monopolies and bureaucrats from influencing the government.

The tribal patriarchal society of the ancient Hebraic tribes of Israel placed families and fathers at the head of the local authority, not politicians and bureaucrats. They were free to self-govern so long as they adhered to God’s law, chose Him as their Lord, obeyed His customs and did not harm their neighbor.

All of the above aligns closely with distributism, Tolkien, and his Hobbits of the Shire. Let’s take a closer, in-depth look at both distributism and Tolkien’s Hobbits, demonstrating how distributism is reflected in the Shire.

Distributism and J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien was a lifelong enemy of big government in every form, not just the harsher forms we find in soviet Communism, German Nazism, or Italian fascism, but also as it manifested itself in British democratic socialism and the Mongol state capitalism in other parts of the west. Where central governments collude with big business to squeeze out the up-and-comer and reward special interests. The novelist who described himself as a hobbit “in all but size” was socially and politically conservative even by hobbit standards, and his conservatism was closely bound up in his deeply Christian, and specifically Catholic, vision of man and creation.
—Jonathan Witt and Jay W. Richards, The Hobbit Party The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot, Ignatius Press 2014

Of all the fantastic realms and peoples imagined by Middle-earth creator Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, none more accurately portrayed who he was, nor are more beloved by his audience, than the Hobbits of the Shire. From movie watchers to book readers, modern audiences are enthralled by the peacefulness, quiet simplicity and charm of these characters and their lives, free from modern annoyances and obligations.

Tolkien incorporated his worldview into every aspect of his mythology (see The Road Goes Ever On and On : A New Perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle-earth). Thus, the free peoples generally were examples of what he believed to be right and just – how things ought to be – while forces under the Shadow represented and lived out what Tolkien thought was evil.

Many believe the Shire, more than any other of his creations, represented what Tolkien thought was ideal in all modes of life. After all, Tolkien described himself as a hobbit in all but size. And the connections to distributism are unmistakable.

Hobbit Distributism – “Hardly any government”

No department of un-motorized vehicles, no internal revenue service, no government officials telling people who may and may not have laying hens in their backyards, no government schools lining up hobbit children in geometric rows to teach regimental behavior and groupthink, no government-controlled currency, and no political institution even capable of collecting tariffs or foreign goods.
-Jonathan Witt and Jay W. Richards, The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got and the West Forgot [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014]

The Shire exemplified the lack of regulation and taxation, and the robust private property rights, the distributists sought to enable a free agricultural society. We read it had “hardly any government.” The only police force was composed of volunteer ‘shirriffs’ who carried no weapons and wore regular clothes. They did not harass, fine, or imprison hobbits but guarded the borders and returned stray animals. The shiriff, Robin Smallburrow, summed up his duties as “walking around the country and seeing folk and hearing the news and knowing where the good beer was.”

The hobbits of the Shire enjoyed true liberty, free from any authoritarian governmental control. There were no politicians seeking election to regulate and redistribute wealth, setting one hobbit against another; there were no banks or bankers, stock markets, bureaucrats, insurance companies, regulations, or industry to manipulate the economy. It was a libertarian’s dream system of an agrarian society led by moral families and aristocratic gentle hobbits.

Distributist Self Sufficiency

In many ways, the Shire made the distributism goal a reality. Distributists desired all families to have the means (if they desired) to have enough private production and property and supporting conditions, and this was an actuality in The Shire as hobbit families passed down their ancestral lands through the generations, and families governed their own matters. In The Hobbit, we read “the Bagginses have lived in the neighborhood of the Hill for time out of mind.”

Living out the aim of distributism, most hobbits were self-sufficient farmers, but various family and small privately owned trades such as Millers, Smiths, Ropers, and Cartwrights flourished. In an agricultural area like the Shire, where individuals produce for their own benefit, hobbits had freedom in their choice of work. They took pride in their work, working with their hands and crafting what they desired. Using their creative abilities, they did not engage in mindless, repetitive industrial work for a large, impersonal corporation. Once more, achieving a primary goal of distributism.

There was also liberty to do as you pleased when you pleased. There was no splitting up of families, dumping your children off at government-funded daycares (public education), or “going to work.” When Gandalf and the dwarves came through with fireworks for Bilbo’s long-expected birthday party, crowds of all ages gathered, rumors started, and chatting ensued. Old Gaffer Gamgee didn’t even pretend to be working. Hobbits could up and leave what they were doing when they wanted to since they were their own masters, either as craftsmen or farmers.

Not thinking “globally” or even “nationally,” the hobbits were “localists,” desiring to support the local community. Some hobbits were upset at Bilbo because he was purchasing items from dwarves and distant areas for his birthday instead of buying locally. But Bilbo cleared out locally as well and also desired a grand display needing unique items. And he was so generous with his gift giving the hobbits quickly forgave him.

Distributism Through Kith and Kin

Like the Shire, distributism desired decentralization in the extreme. Families were thought of as the most fundamental society—a mini kingdom, if you will—and should, like in the Shire, govern almost all affairs and be self-sufficient. Crafting, farming, and different trades could also be more easily passed down through the generations as a means of self-sufficient support for families needing no outside sustenance for survival when living in such a society.

Tolkien tells us in the Shire, “Families, for the most part, managed their own affairs” where “many generations of relatives lived in (comparative) peace together in one ancestral and many tunneled mansion. All hobbits were, in any case, clannish.”

Extraordinarily decentralized and placing the families at the center of authority, the Shire was divided into four farthings, east, west, north and south, to which had been added Buckland and later the Westmarch, and then into even smaller folklands, “which still bore the names of some of the old leading families.” This is reminiscent of Tolkien’s beloved Anglo-Saxon England, which operated with a mix of smaller autonomous clans under a monarchy. The Anglo-Saxon “hundreds” were the divisions of families within each Shire (county). In other words, as distributism calls for, families were large autonomous self-governing units.

It is also reminiscent of the Biblical tribal and patriarchal system after Abraham and his descendants. The Biblical family is essential to constructing and maintaining society. For example, in Tolkien’s Letters no. 214, Tolkien stated the hobbits “were universally monogamous.” Hobbits were given full autonomy and self-rule, free from any centralized government. The ancient Hebrews in Biblical times were tribal, and God communicated His statutes and laws through unwritten customs and word of mouth until they were finally written down under Moses. Likewise, in the Shire, the Hobbits were tribal wanderers operating under unwritten customs for thousands of years before settling in the Shire and eventually writing those customs down into law.

Distributists have agreed with the model shown through the hobbits – families are meant to govern themselves. The next “higher” level after the family is the village made up of groups of families, (like the Shire, divided into its four farthings). This level would do only what families by themselves could not, such as the work done by the post office. The next layer would be the county, (in Tolkien’s world, the entirety of the Shire). The higher level would do only what the lower level could not, so the government was localized—there would be no need for a centralized state. Thus a national political party would be in direct opposition to the decentralized, distributist life, as it was with the hobbits.

The majority would have no power since families were the highest rank. Because the family was above the collective, the government should not intrude on family matters, including property rights and issues. According to Leo, the solution to problems must come from the church, not a national party.

Socialism Displaces Distributism In The Shire

Returning to The Shire after the ring had been destroyed, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin found their homeland in ruins, their distributist paradise under the control of a socialistic, capitalist, industrial, totalitarian government overseen by ruffians and ruled by a mysterious entity called “Sharky.” We ultimately find out “Sharky” is none other than the once powerful industrialist wizard Saruman, now totally fallen and come to the Shire with his broken slave Wormtongue to wreak petty vengeance. Their liberty had been replaced with his tyranny, a multitude of rules governing the Shire.

Most government intrusions start with something small and keep growing until the people can no longer control or resist it. In the Shire, it all started with beer. The hobbit Robin Smallburrow recounted, “The chief doesn’t hold with beer. Leastways, that is how it started.” Once the government took some, it began to take all. First, it targeted individual businesses like the Green Dragon and the Floating Log. Eventually, the Inns of the Shire were closed. Over time, laws were passed regulating food and housing, including the Shire’s number one export, pipeweed. Both pipeweed and beer were confiscated

Bureaucracy and socialism were instituted in the Shire. There were groups of “gatherers and sharers…going around counting and measuring and taking off to storage, supposedly for ‘fair distribution.’” Yet it just ended with, as one hobbit said, “Them getting more, and we get less.” The hobbit Hob said to Merry, “They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again.” Farmer Cotton and his daughter, Rosie (the future wife of Sam Gamgee), both referred to the government’s gathering and sharing as thieving.

The self-sufficient organic farming community was decimated as the gatherers and sharers confiscated the food, pipeweed, and beer. The Shire was transformed into an industrial, publicly owned economy. With their production stolen by the “gatherers and sharers for fair redistribution,” the small organic farms were forced out and replaced by government-owned factories where hobbits now worked as hardworking laborers.

The Left and socialism the distributists had warned the public about had already mastered their servants, and the toll it took on the happy hobbits was significant.

The Shire resisted the socialist “gatherers and sharers” in Tolkien’s chapter The Scouring of the Shire just as powerfully, if not more so, than in Distributists’ sentiments. Pope Leo objected to socialism because it encouraged envy of the rich by the poor and set men against one another instead of uniting them. Socialism would hurt the class it claims to help, and it is unjust and immoral since it encourages theft of other’s products and income.

Furthermore, it violates a man’s private property guaranteed by God. On the public ownership of land Pope Leo wrote, “God has given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race can in no way be a bar to the owning of private property” and private ownership in “accord with nature.” Pope Leo observed socialism sought to take the hardworking man’s earnings from him, thus working against what they claim to desire, elevating the poor. Much as the “gatherers and sharers” drove hobbits into poverty. Moreover, it killed man’s hope to work hard and improve his condition since his production would end up being stolen by the state. If socialism were implemented, Leo rightly predicted “what an upset and disturbance there would be in all classes, how intolerable and hateful slavery citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual abuse, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry…that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the leveling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation.” How prophetic these words!

Capitalism Replaces Distributism In The Shire

However, distributism also warned about the capitalists on the Right. Historically, it was the capitalists who initially increased and centralized the size and authority of government to manipulate the economy. They aimed to compel everyone to move into cities and factories for industrial wage labor, creating a supply of cheap labor and minimizing competition. This allowed them to monopolize economic and political power. The strengthening of government power by “the right,” aka the capitalist, led to the rise of “the left” and socialism. (For its American historical context, see Defending Dixie’s Land; for its 14th-century origins, see Missing Monarchy, and Smith: Capitalism, freedom and family: The Rutland Herald). And so it was in The Shire.

According to the Hobbits of the Shire, it is “proper” to, like Bilbo, give away your wealth if you have gained too much. Gold, treasure, money, monopolies, and power are not to have a hold on you as they did the great dragon Smaug, who lusted for, and became enslaved to, his wealth. Rather, wealth is a blessing and opportunity for charity, not to find ways to use it to make more and expand. Following a very medieval Catholic view, Tolkien tells us the pride and desire to become a lord, wealthy, and mighty is immoral.

Sam Gamgee, the real hero of the Lord of the Rings according to Tolkien, only held this desire: “the one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.” He did not desire to boss around others as wage slaves for his financial benefit. When the insightful queen Galadriel looked inside his thoughts and desires, she found all he wanted was a “nice little hole with – with a bit of garden of my own.”

Greed led to the downfall of many characters in Tolkien’s world, such as the great and mighty dragon Smaug, Thorin Oakenshield, and the dwarves digging too greedily for Mithril in Moria – but here, its negative influences would spread from one to all of society.

In the Shire, Farmer Cotton said it started with the greedy capitalist hobbit Lotho Sackville-Baggins, aka “Pimple.” Although he had become wealthy through trade with Isengard sending tobacco south, “he wanted to own everything himself, and then order other folk about…he already did own a sight more than was good for him; and he was always grabbing more.” As his wealth grew, so did his ambition – the perfect contrast to Sam Gamgee.

Seeking to monopolize and centralize power, Pimple began to purchase land, farms, tobacco plantations, and mills in the Shire. To help dominate the market and force all the other hobbits to serve his ambition, he brought in the ruffians, imprisoned the mayor of Michel Delving, took over the government, and expanded its authority (uniting the “left” and the “right”) to help his own business and power, becoming the chief shiriff.

Previously hobbits had farmed leisurely while also focused on singing, enjoying a mug of ale, eating eggs and bacon, nurturing friendship, working in the garden, talking, smoking a pipe, or having a cup of tea. Thinking, hiking, fishing, and similar pursuits took up much of their time. But now, they were busy laborers forced to work for the new totalitarian government to increase its wealth through production and taxation. Modernity had replaced the old order. The merging of capitalists and socialist totalitarians placed efficiency and profit above the hobbits’ well-being and was bought at the expense of the environment, leisure, beauty, freedom of mind, and happiness.

Like the hobbits, distributists supported families, liberty, and decentralization, and opposed all forms of centralization. Socialism and capitalism work to put all the wealth and power into the hands of the few in the political class, and in the few business corporations allied with them in these beliefs. Both, when in power, set rules and laws advantageous to maintenance of power centralized in the few, using the vast majority as wage slavery, while bleeding them through taxes. This ugly truth was played out during The Scouring of the Shire.

Distributists’ primary objections to capitalism are very similar to why and how the hobbit capitalist Lotho began the degradation of the shire and the uniting of the “right” and “left.”

Suppose a small number of capitalists want to propagate large amounts of money and offer jobs to those who want to be wage slaves. That is fine – allow them to do so. But inevitably, they will use their power and influence to change government machinery to their advantage as Pimple did in The Shire. They will then consume more and more of the competition, offering lower prices (or burdening the opposition with taxation or regulation, controlling the market and advertisement, limiting the choice of purchasers, or alone receiving special grants, subsidies, etc.) and taking away the competitor’s ability to live independently.

In the name of open market fair competition, men will be removed from the land, their business, and their livelihood, and forced to work as a wage slave earner for a capitalist to survive. The result is an oligarchy of bosses controlling the “free market.” As Witt and Richards point out, “it was not open competition once some monstrous Smaug dragon-like corporations come in, wipe you out, leave you with no alternatives as the dragon did to the dwarves of Erebor.” Warren Buffet said, “If you’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you’ve got a very good business.”

Once the free-market oligarchs hold a monopoly, they set their own prices and profits; they begin to take a more significant portion of the earnings to themselves and less to the employees and customers. They eradicate all competition, and the end game of “free market” capitalism is a dictatorship of the few wealthiest capitalists and political allies. A larger and larger disparity between the rich and poor results, thus separating society further – just as all the hobbits were disposed of their lands and forced into factories as hourly workers for Sharkey and his minions.

Distributists did not object to capitalists’ claimed desire for free markets or private ownership. On the contrary, they were far more libertarian than capitalists. The problem was the prominent capitalists buy out, force out, and eat up the smaller capitalists. They were then forced into wage slavery and dependent on the more prominent capitalists for survival. The boss became like a slave owner; he determined hours of toil, pace of work, division of labor, levels of wages, and could hire and fire at will. As G.K. Chesterton said it, “The problem with capitalism is not capitalist; it’s that there are not enough capitalists.” Capitalism was its own enemy, since it reduced its numbers, consumed the significant means of production, and set the rules for the game to ensure an oligarchy of rulers as Pimple and the ruffians did to the hobbits.

In America, the “religious right” is the supporter capitalism, yet it is, in actuality, very Darwinian. Only survival of the fittest and financial gain matters. Competition has no morality. Bigger is better; money is elevated above man. So the same boss who cuts corners, is willing to mistreat and exploit his employees, and degrades them to machinery, is the one rising to the top of secular capitalism by stomping out other smaller businesses. Like Lotho in the Shire, the capitalist who wins is the greedy, selfish one willing to subjugate servants (employees) to harsh servitude in building and making more affordable products. Efficiency is the goal as small shop owners are run out of business.

The Right tells us this is American greatness. In actuality, it fits better as a form of tyranny against the former shop owner who now works for a tyrant corporation as a servant instead of a freely owned business. In this way, as democracy pushes the worst politicians to the top, capitalism pushes the worst capitalists to the top.

Pope Leo argued capitalism would not arise in a Christian state made up of a Christian people. Christians would not be so overcome by materialism. Christians would not treat others as slaves, forcing hourly labor in challenging conditions. Wealth would be better distributed. Capitalism needed a secular world to flourish or a corrupted Sauron or Saruman at war with Eru (the God of Middle-earth) working behind the scenes as he did in the Shire.

A Capitalist’s final step comes straight out of Pimple the hobbit’s playbook. The capitalist buys former owners’ lands or shops, incorporates them, grows in wealth and power, then uses the resulting power and influence to hire politicians (ruffians) through endorsements. Helping the politician get hired, paybacks are expected through subsidies, regulations and taxes other smaller businesses can’t survive. Thus the Capitalist’s dominance of the market grows further.

Conclusion

Distributists watched, as millions of people across Europe were forced off the land due to the rise of capitalism and socialism in their time. Pope Leo said men who were happy but “drained and exhausted by excessive taxation” could no longer survive on their own—they needed the intercession of something bigger. The hobbits were kicked off their land for the same reason during The Scouring of the Shire.

So we come to the final endgame of the capitalist, socialist society the distributists warned about. The worst thing about the two is they work together to manipulate humanity. Both capitalism and socialism are forms of servitude; either wage slavery to capitalists or government slavery to socialists. And they both seek the same end results through different avenues. Chesterton writes, “Socialism and capitalism are today fundamentally the same. They both aim at the control of a servile nation by a bureaucratic class—centralization, which, of course, means centralized financial control.” Modern distributist Dale Ahlquist writes, “Big government has its hands on big money. Big money has its hands on big government.”

Liberty, self-sufficiency, and self-reliance are all destroyed. Through property tax, regulations, subsidies, and bailouts, governments continually kick people off the land to prevent them from being self-sufficient. Instead, they force them into cities and the more socialistic, capitalist economy. This provides an abundant, cheap workforce for the capitalist and a large, dependent voting block for the socialist. In doing so, with every recession or trouble coming along, people become desperate and near starvation, with no local community, extended family, or church to care for the oppressed. Their hope then becomes which politicians offer the most to desperate people. If the starving masses resulting from government policies and urbanization are not provided for, a revolution must begin, or theft and crime will result. So even those in the city, such as wealthy capitalists who would suffer, are willing to comply with socialist welfare to keep the mob contained. Thus, cities are politicians’ and tyrants’ ideal mode of habitation for their subjects.