Of two minds on this one. As expected, Chesterton is clever and persuasive in his argument against eugenics, a practice that is broadly accepted today as an evil pseudoscience. Obviously not every issue is going to map neatly onto the issues of today, but it is easy to see someone generalizing his warning against a "scientifically organized state" exercising its authority to interfere with intrinsic right of a human being to control their own reproduction to the contentious mask/vaccine mandates instituted in the interest of public health. The are two obvious differences here:

1. Mask & vaccine mandates are not significant impositions on human freedom or dignity and
2. There is a direct safety interest involved, rather than a dubious potential improvement to human flourishing in some indeterminate future

It's a shame that distributism is not a mainstream part of the economic policy discourse because I think I could be persuaded (even if there are a number of pragmatic concerns here).


****Reconsideration --> I don't think I would adhere to distributism actually bc I don't agree with Chesterton that property is a sacred/eternal right, it's a conditional and temporary right that should be subordinated to higher priorities