Editing Anarcho-Distributism (section)

==== Social Security opposition ====
Day was opposed to Social Security. In the Catholic Worker, February 1945, she wrote:


Samuel Johnson said that a pensioner was a slave of the state. That is his definition in his famous dictionary. Of course, he himself was glad of his pension, human nature being what it is, and poverty being hard as it is. We believe that social security legislation, now billed as a great victory for the poor and for the worker, is a great defeat for Christianity. It is an acceptance of the idea of force and compulsion. It is an acceptance of Cain's statement on the part of the employer. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Since the employer can never be trusted to give a family wage, nor take care of the worker as he takes care of his machine when it is idle, the state must enter in and compel help on his part. Of course, economists say that business cannot afford to act on Christian principles. It is impractical, uneconomic. But it is generally coming to be accepted that such a degree of centralization as ours is impractical and that there must be decentralization. In other words, business has made a mess of things, and the state has had to enter in to rescue the worker from starvation.