"I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history." -Cardinal Francis George

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Joel Salatin: Herald of the New Christendom

This is what the New Christendom looks like folks. Families living and working together in community with each other as stewards of creation. This is Distributism in action. I am fully convinced that if we are truly to return to a Christian culture, the majority of people need to be owners of productive property, and land is about as productive as property gets.
I particularly love what he says about getting to big: A large "factory" farm could not do what he does. Period. No amount of machines can do what he does. It takes bodies with brains. And bodies can only do so much, which means things can only get so big and still maintain the system as far as quality, and even viability. Sounds like a perfect way for a for a family to make a living.

Watch the short video below, and there will be more to come.

10 comments:

  1. He's quite inspiring, really the forerunner of the new agrarians.

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  2. I noticed he had a nice 4 wheeler, no distributions farm can mass produce that 4 wheeler at a price he can afford.

    I'm not making fun of his choice of lifestyle - I think it is neat, and preferable to 'big farm' - but the ability for him to do so efficiently comes at a cost - a cost only capitalism can shrink.

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  3. You seem to confuse distributism with being Amish or something.

    Why can't there be a four wheeler factory in a distributist system? I certainly never said there couldnt be.

    In fact, Joel is living the distributist way of life. If four wheelers were gone tommorow, his life would barely change. And without Capitalism, the four wheeler would be better quality and not mass produced using predatory labor practices, like paying Mexicans subsistence level wages to make them just to save a buck.

    In fact, there would still be a Mondragon corporation (one of the biggest and most successful corporations in Spain) in a Distributist system.

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  4. Here's a link to loads of videos and other stuff from Salatin: http://www.dailypaul.com/145783/joel-salatins-polyface-farm-video-library

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  5. Thanks Mark. I actually have watched all of those but thanks for the link!

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  6. fyi - Joel Salatin endorses Ron Paul :)

    http://davidkretzmann.com/2011/12/joel-salatins-endorsements-of-ron-paul/

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  7. So do I. But he wont get the nomination, and he won't win. So I will throw my vote away again.

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  8. Aww - don't loose heart :). So far he is on-track to win the most delegates, and they are the ones that count. Straw polls mean nothing (even straw polls on election days).

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  9. Nothing wrong with dreamin' Bob, and nothin wrong with doing the right thing even when you know you will lose, but SERIOUSLY.

    If you had to put money on it, as in a bet, would you put money on Paul? I mean, if you say yes that is really amazing.

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  10. I would say yes - but a qualified yes. Do I believe he has the most fervent followers - yes. Do I believe he has a sizable percentage of followers - yes. Do I believe he has more followers than the other republican candidates - yes.

    The only reason I would bet against him is 'who' likes the other candidates - not 'how many'. The whos are the ones with the power - the ones that count the votes, report the totals, and generally get what they want.

    In other words, I would bet on Paul any day if there was a fair / level playing field. However, the other rule is that the 'house' always wins. In that regard, no I wouldn't bet on Paul.

    I do think he will has already had a better showing and a more lasting impact than anyone else in the past 100 years in terms of shaping American ideas. I will bet all my greenbacks on those ideas.

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