‘Yes, well, I’m neither capitalist nor socialist, I’m …’

In the circles I’ve moved in, the word you’d expect to follow is ’Catholic.’ The Catholics I know often readiest with something of a developed identity and a line of argument in this vein regard themselves as advocates of distributism, a term with some popularity a century ago, in the English-speaking world particularly, through the influence of G ⁠K ⁠Chesterton in association with his friend, Manchester M.P. Hilaire Belloc. If you know a bit about the history here, the term’s associations may be troubling. (It’s partly from acquaintance with this history over about a decade now that my own concerns about the problem of pinning down fascism have gradually grown.)

But it’s far from true that such a ‘neither capitalist nor socialist’ preface must come from a Christian perhaps on the slippery slope to one of the many forms of fascistic Western-civilizationism. The world’s more complicated than that.

I’m excited lately about a new podcast called Re-Envision Business, hosted by U.K.-based Sheeza Shah, whose roles include heading operations for the international anti-inequity business network Zebras United. For her most recent guest, Umar Nasser, it’s ‘I’m neither capitalist nor socialist, I’m a Muslim.’ Check out their conversation, which ended up long enough that it had to be presented in two parts.

(Update: See also the post that follows this one.)