Interestingly, the January 3rd-9th
issue of The Economist just arrived,
with a cover story on “Workers on Tap: Technology, freelancing and the future
of the labour market.” Our first
reaction, of course, is to wonder why a British magazine doesn’t use “the
Oxford comma.” Our second reaction was a
bit delayed until we read an article in today’s Wall Street Journal on “New Year, New Laws on Pay, Pot, Pets.
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| "I am not an economist." |
Okay, we won’t comment on pot or pets (unless you’re turning
the family feline into a casserole à la
Alf), but it did seem odd that no one seems to grasp the fact that as wages are
forced higher, it becomes more attractive to employ technology or move jobs
elsewhere. Even the Economist had nothing more to say than that workers would have to
learn more skills in order to compete with technology and remain employed.
Or die trying, like John Henry.
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| "It's obvious. Just open your eyes." |
If the workers owned the technology that is replacing them,
of course, it wouldn’t matter one bit.
Louis Kelso, in fact, suggested this back in 1964 in an article in Life magazine: “If the Machine Wants Our
Job, Let’s Buy It.” That was also the
point of Kelso’s two collaborations with Mortimer Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto (1958) and The New Capitalists (1961).
Perhaps soon people will start paying attention. Until then, here’s what’s been keeping us
busy:
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| $5, a Half-Eagle, that's all we ask. |
• We are still working
on launching the Campaign for Economic Justice as soon as possible. Certain difficulties have cropped up, but they
are being resolved. If you feel you
can’t wait (or if you want to get a charitable deduction for this year), send
your check to “CESJ”, P.O. Box 40711, Washington, DC, 20016, U.S.A. Be sure to note on the memo line that it is
for the Campaign for Economic Justice. Any amount is fine, but because it costs time
and money to process any contribution, we ask that you give at least $5. Any contributions received in excess of
actual needs will be applied to other CESJ programs, so everything advances
economic justice, one way or another.
• Deacon Joseph
Gorini, CESJ Counselor, was scheduled to go to Rome this coming week for the
international convocation of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, but family
commitments came up, and he will not be able to make a planned meeting with
Cardinal Burke to introduce the Cardinal to the Just Third Way — again
(Cardinal Burke was very briefly introduced some years ago at the National
Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC).
Nothing is fixed, but Father John Trigilio, CESJ Counselor, CCC
president, and author of Catholicism for Dummies, or Msgr. Sal Pilato, CCC vice president, might be able to meet with
the Cardinal. Fortunately, with e-mail,
it will be easy to get any documentation or support to Father Trigilio or Msgr.
Pilato almost immediately as attached files.
• Deacon Joe’s first article on economic justice has been
submitted to Catholic Online, with very positive reactions.
• Deacon Joe has also
been dialoging with Deacon Keith Fournier of
Catholic Online. Deacon Fournier is,
in his words, “rolling out Common Good Foundation (a 501c3) - Common
Good Alliance (a 501c4) and Real Common Good Pac (a super pac)” this
month. He has indicated interest in
collaborating with CESJ, and efforts are currently under way to arrange a
meeting between him and Dr. Norman G. Kurland.
• CESJ’s Director of
Research, Michael D. Greaney, has had an article on the business cycle accepted
by the American Journal of Economics and
Sociology.
• The first draft of
the paper on the roots of the change in the definition of distributive justice
has been completed.
• Construction begins
next week on some renovations to the CESJ office building. Please excuse any communications delays, etc., that this might cause.
• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 57 different countries and 55 states and provinces in the United
States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from
the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Canada, and Russia. The most
popular postings this past week were “Two Key Questions for the Georgists,” “Thomas
Hobbes on Private Property,” “Aristotle on Private Property,” “Book Review: The
Field Guide for a Hero’s Journey,” and “Bernie ‘Backwards’ Sanders.”
Those are the happenings for this week, at least those that
we know about. If you have an
accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at
mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we’ll see that it gets into the next
“issue.” If you have a short (250-400
word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog —
do not send them to us to post for you.
All comments are moderated, so we’ll see it before it goes up.
#30#