In a (very) large number of previous postings on this blog,
we’ve covered the basic mechanics of how ordinary people without savings can
become capital owners without having to cut consumption (which they can’t do),
or take what already belongs to others (thereby destroying the whole concept of
private property).
How? Monetize the
present value of future increases in production instead of using past decreases
in consumption. This is what commercial
banking and central banking were designed to do. Kelso’s genius was realizing that such “pure
credit” (i.e., credit that does not
depend on existing accumulations of savings) could be used to finance
widespread capital ownership, instead of being restricted to making the rich
richer. Only people who do not
understand the fundamental meum and tuum of private property (i.e., the distinction between individual
and collective ownership) and the nature of contract have trouble with the
distinction between past and future savings.
We’ve said that, and explained that, and now it’s time to
get on with the principles of economic justice, and take the means of
implementing them as a given, at least for the purposes of this posting. We want to discuss the “why” today, not the “how.”
Members of the CESJ “core group” recently had a meeting with
the newly appointed president of a small Catholic college in the Midwest. The goal of the meeting was to discuss how
religious leaders and groups could organize to address in a concrete way Pope
Francis’s concern with today’s systemic inequality of economic opportunity and
the tyranny of today’s money system, which have engendered global poverty and
growing powerlessness among the majority of the world’s people.
Specifically, we discussed three potential areas of
alignment and collaboration:
• To urge Pope Francis to issue an
encyclical on Economic Justice, which, as defined by the late lawyer-economist
Louis Kelso and Aristotelian-Thomist philosopher Mortimer Adler, is comprised
of three systemic, interdependent principles that can operate fully only within
the context of just and open markets, and universal access to private property
in productive capital. These three natural law principles, which aim to protect
and develop the dignity and empowerment of each human person, are (i) the input
principle of Participative Justice, (ii) the out-take principle of Distributive
Justice, and (iii) the feedback and corrective principle of Social Justice.
Defined by Pius XI in Quadragesimo
Anno, social justice is the virtue that deals with how each child, woman
and man relates to his or her institutions, and to the common good as a whole.
As applied at the level of the economic system, Social Justice guides us in
identifying and lifting all monetary, tax and financial barriers to
Participative Justice (the right of equal opportunity and full access to the
means to contribute to economic production as both a worker and an owner of
wealth-producing assets), and Distributive Justice (the right to receive the
full, market-determined value of his/her labor and capital contributions to
economic production, without violating the private property rights of existing
owners).
• To “teach the teachers” through
meetings and collaborations with leaders in organized religion, academia, and
the media on projects to promote understanding of the principles and
applications of Economic and Social Justice.
• To surface individuals and
organizations that will support, endorse or participate in CESJ’s “Justice
University” initiative to reform academia (which has drifted away from an
understanding of the natural law, as well as its expression within Catholic
social teachings) and teach the system concepts of Economic and Social Justice.
#30#