tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143345146086242203.post260766201351580691..comments2023-09-21T09:23:08.671+01:00Comments on The World Is My Cloister: A new book for meCloisterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01420935883178551476noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8143345146086242203.post-59134194034020691742010-07-31T19:20:18.928+01:002010-07-31T19:20:18.928+01:00I read this quite quickly in the end. McNabb is a ...I read this quite quickly in the end. McNabb is a dreamer and an idealist. His prose is so passionate it can move you to laughter and to tears. He takes no prisoners. He is sharp and critical of the status quo. However, his distributionist dream to relocate the masses to the countryside is not sensible or practical - it is the product of the idolization of the simple life by the middle classes. You have to be rich to live a simple life on the land, or at least, rich by the standards of those that work for the minimum wage serving in the city. This has always been the case. At the time when McNabb was writing, I would have thought that it was almost impossible to secure a living wage from life in the country without vast subsidies being paid by someone. The poor have always made their living by making that which the rich no longer have time to make for themselves, to argue that everyone should wattle out their own broomstick, rather than allow a skilled an imaginative entrepreneur to develop a machine that can make 10 broomsticks more effectively and cheaply, strikes me as a foolish notion. And, I say that as someone who has serious misgivings about capitalism and the place of the market. Still, I love his faith and his passion, his simplicity and his unwillingness to stand by while others took advantage of those most in need.<br /><br />xxxxCloisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01420935883178551476noreply@blogger.com