Is it possible to speak of a social and economic philosophy as “poetic”? The name G.K. Chesterton gave to his social philosophy – “Distributism”, which he admitted was “an awkward but accurate name” – conveys its essential meaning of widely distributed property and ownership (as against their concentration in a few hands), but its origins can be seen as poetic more than philosophical.
Distributism lay deeply rooted in Chesterton’s ima…