Smallest is best… as in less government.
Distributism is an important component of Catholic social doctrine/teaching. The Distributism movement came as a response to the perceived twin evils of Communism and the unrestricted Capitalism generated by classical liberal ideology. These systems emphasize the materialist dimension of man and are marked by a false faith… that reduces man to the sphere of economics and the satisfaction of material needs.
A hallmark of Distributism is widely-diffused, privately-owned, productive property.
Learn it, teach it… live it.
Teach the whats, whys, and hows of Distributism continuously via chapter meetings, guilds, the printed word, etc. and the spoken word.
Three must-read books:
The Church and the Land by Fr. Vincent McNabb,
Distributist Perspectives, Volume I, and
Distributist Perspectives, Volume II.
Distributism puts great emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity. This principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political) should perform a function which can be performed by a smaller unit. Pope Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno, provided the classical statement of the principle: “Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and
subordinate organizations can do.”
Thus, any activity of production (which distributism holds to be the most important part of any economy) ought to be performed by the smallest possible unit. This helps support distributism’s argument that smaller units, families if possible, ought to be in control of the means of production, rather than the large units typical of modern economies.