Roomin' House Blues

I have been considering systems of economic and political thought that stem from Catholic social teaching and try to apply it.  In Rerum Novarum Pope Leo the 13th talked about the need to create greater social equality without extending the power and responsibilities of the state beyond it's proper role.   This proper role was not well defined, but it is clear that Pope Leo say in state socialism the dangers of too much state control over individual human beings and accelerated class conflict.  He did not, I think, have a libertarian view, although it would not be irrational to read that into the document.  But I think the fact that the emphasized that the state did have a proper role runs contrary to libertarianism.  He did say that the poverty and suffering of the workers needed to be alleviated and that greater access to production and property on the part of the workers was needed. It is from this that the idea of distributism,...