The June Jobs Report is out, and the
stock market is soaring. Evidently, if
you can’t produce marketable goods and services, you can produce jobs; the jobs
market is booming. The only problem is
how to pay for the jobs that are produced, especially government jobs, which
are the fastest-growing product in the jobs market. Be that as it may, a few genuine things
happened this week:
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| Banking and monetary reform are key. |
• Members of the CESJ core group had a meeting on Wednesday
night with a representative of a candidate for president in an African
country. The discussion centered on
whether the Just Third Way could provide a model platform for the candidate to
present as a way of delivering justice to the country. The representative’s report to the candidate
resulted in the candidate scheduling a meeting with the CESJ core group to take
place later this month. The discussion
centered on the underlying philosophy of government, and the need to make
monetary and tax reform the cutting edge of any program of social
reconstruction, particularly since money and credit are the predominant means
of acquiring and possessing capital, and the tax system defines in large
measure to what degree someone actually “owns” that to which he or she holds title.
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| The Fabian socialist wolf in sheep's clothing. |
• We received a copy
of Edward R. Pease’s authoritative history of the Fabian Society, titled
(logically enough) “The History of the Fabian Society.” Reading the book revealed that many elements
of the Fabian program — government control of money and credit, full employment
as the goal of economic policy, taxation for social engineering, and (of
course) socialism (something mentioned on almost every one of the 300+ pages) —
have been adopted by virtually every government on earth today. It becomes evident why, in light of the
Fabian demand that everyone be forced into a wage system job and become a
dependent of the State, willy nilly, Hilaire Belloc wrote his scathing
indictment of Fabian socialism, The
Servile State (1912), and why G.K. Chesterton and Msgr. Ronald Knox saved
some of their wittiest barbs and pointed criticisms for the Fabian blend of an
expanded Henry George-style socialism and spiritualist pseudo philosophy (and
why Pope Pius XI seems to have included a few jabs himself in Quadragesimo Anno and Divini Redemptoris). Interestingly,
Chesterton seems to have drawn a parallel between what some renegade
Franciscans did in the thirteenth century in an effort to invent a new religion
under the name of Christianity, and the attempt by the Manicheans of the same
period to invent a new form of government under the name of democracy, with the
Fabian program. Ironically, many latter
day Chestertonians and distributists — to say nothing of interpreters of
Catholic social teaching — have also adopted the Fabian program in full.
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| Elizabeth I Tudor: at the mercy of court factions. |
• We also received a number of books relating the politics
behind the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
One of the things that comes shining through is how Woodrow Wilson
managed to turn vacillation and indecision into a high art, and then make it
look like deep political wisdom. It sort
of reminded us of how the Tudor dynasty got a reputation for being the ultimate
Machiavellians whose torturous thought processes no one was able to fathom —
the real case was that, with the exception of the first Tudor, Henry VII, they
were almost completely at the mercy of court factions; whoever had the upper
hand at the moment (usually gained by flattery) dictated policy, which made for
some incomprehensible programs. Tudor
behavior wasn’t wily, it was weakness.
After reading up on Woodrow Wilson, one is tempted to call him “Waffling
Woodrow,” and not in a good way.
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| Early 19th Century jobs market. |
• Speaking of waffling, on Thursday night’s business report
from Tokyo on NHK World Television (the Japanese government station) the U.S.
business commentator first noted that the experts were worried about the “jobs
market” because of the fear that the private sector may have created too many
jobs for existing consumer demand to support, the implication being that public
sector jobs are better because they only require tax money to support . . .
which comes from taxing the income of people in the private sector who produce
something to meet consumer demand. Then,
a few moments later, the commentator noted that a rise in the stock market was
anticipated due to the expected good jobs report for June.
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| "But I'm too cute to be replaced by a robot!" |
• Speaking of Japan, the rate of development of robots that
can take over jobs in the service sector is accelerating, especially in the
United States (where the rise in the minimum wage rate has suddenly made it
cost effective) and in Japan (where they’ve been at the cutting edge of
robotics for years). One of the latest
is an old science fiction standby, the robot bartender, usually termed a “robobar”
or “autobar,” with the robot often played for laughs when it breaks down or
needs servicing and starts getting drink orders bizarrely wrong in ways that no
human bartender could match. Other
robots in development or already in service (Quantum of the Seas, Royal Caribbean’s state-of-the art cruise
ship, has a robot bartender), are ones that can shampoo and blow dry your hair,
round up and milk cows (even normally cantankerous cows seem to love these
things), maintain inventory, greet customers, act as bellhops, make and serve
fast food, and even act as practice patients for medical students who can hone
their medical skills without killing a human being. Of course, the Japanese fondness for
robo-prepared food might be explained by the fact that Uke Mochi (保食神), their
goddess of fast food, has one of the most bar-none disgusting myths of all
time. Evidently, anything is preferable
to how she fixed a quick snack, for which Tsukuyomi (月読), the Japanese moon god (or Inari Ōkami (稲荷大神),
the god of rice ’n other stuff, who is variously male, female, and androgynous,
and even transformed into Uke Mochi — in myth, you can even marry yourself),
killed her.
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| Fast Food Goddess |
• CESJ’s latest book, Easter
Witness: From Broken Dream to a New Vision for Ireland, is available from Amazon
and Barnes
and Noble, as well as by special order from many “regular” bookstores. The book can also be ordered in bulk, which
we define as ten copies or more of the same title, at a 20% discount. A full case is twenty-six copies, and
non-institutional/non-vendor purchasers get a 20% discount off the $20 cover
price on wholesale lots ($416/case).
Shipping is extra. Send enquiries
to publications@cesj.org. An additional discount may be available for
institutions such as schools, clubs, and other organizations as well as
retailers.
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| "I'll never smile again ... not even for CESJ." |
• Here’s the usual announcement about the Amazon Smile program, albeit moved to
the bottom of the page so you don’t get tired of seeing it. To participate in the Amazon Smile program
for CESJ, go to https://smile.amazon.com/. Next, sign in to your account. (If you don’t have an account with Amazon,
you can create one by clicking on the tiny little link below the “Sign in using
our secure server” button.) Once you
have signed into your account, you need to select CESJ as your charity — and
you have to be careful to do it exactly this way: in the
space provided for “Or select your own charitable organization” type “Center for Economic and Social Justice
Arlington.” If you type anything
else, you will either get no results or more than you want to sift
through. Once you’ve typed (or copied
and pasted) “Center for Economic and
Social Justice Arlington” into the space provided, hit “Select” — and you
will be taken to the Amazon shopping site, all ready to go.
• As of this morning, we have had visitors
from 48 different countries and 44 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, Brazil, India, and the Philippines. The most
popular postings this past week in descending order were “Thomas Hobbes on
Private Property,” “The Purpose of Production,” “Aristotle on Private
Property,” “News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 23,” and “News from the Network,
Vol. 9, No. 25.”
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#