This past week was marked by good
meetings and good contacts, and it looks as if next week will be just as
productive. In addition, a number of
publications are moving forward, and a publisher has expressed interest in a
new book on Capital Homesteading! Take,
and read:
 |
| C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity |
• The American Conservative and Mere Orthodoxy.
On Tuesday of this week the CESJ core group had a very productive
meeting with a number of people from both The American Conservative,
that promotes a “Main Street” conservatism that opposes unchecked power
in government and business; promotes the flourishing of families and
communities through vibrant markets and free people; and embraces realism and
restraint in foreign affairs based on America’s vital national interests, and Mere Orthodoxy, a group of
committed Christians guided by the way that G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis met
the challenges and struggles that England faced in their day, demonstrating
how a classically minded, “creedally centered” (i.e., adhering to a specific religious creed) orthodox Christianity
can be an attractive and persuasive alternative to the
ideologies of their day and ours. Both
groups have an interest in sustainable development centered on the human person
instead of an amorphous “humanity,” so there appears to be grounds for a great
deal of cooperation and collaboration with CESJ, even though CESJ is interfaith
and can endorse no specific religion per
se. Keep an eye on this blog for
future developments.
 |
| "Your replacements are here. . . ." |
• The Rise of the Machines? According
to an article in today’s Washington Post,
“Several Thousand Service Industry Workers Will Strike to Demand Unions”
(09/28/18, A-16) “several
thousand” employees of fast food companies in seven states are planning on
going on strike for the right to join a union.
The effort is being organized by the “Fight for $15” that has popularized
the movement to raise the hourly minimum wage to $15. Now, the Just Third Way supports the right of
people to organize for any legitimate purpose.
If the labor movement in the United States had not gotten organized,
largely through the efforts of Terrence Powderly (1849-1924) for all his
faults, who knows where we’d be today?
But people should organize for the right reasons and have the right
goals. As it is, organizing for higher
wages and benefits in the fast food industry is an open invitation to
automate. If they want to unionize, they
should form ownership unions and strike for a piece of the capital pie, not
increased wages. This is what labor
statesman Walter Reuther advocated before his untimely death.
• The Petrobras Scandal. The Brazilian State-owned oil company, Petróleo
Brasileiro, SA (“Petrobras”), has agreed to an $853 million settlement in what
is one of the largest corporate scandals ever uncovered. A cartel of construction companies was
overbilling the company and bribing government and corporate officials to look
the other way. As a result of the
investigation, it was discovered that the company has lost billions of dollars
siphoned into the pockets of the cartel and company and government officials,
the value per share has plunged, and a number of prison sentences have been
handed out, including the president of Brazil, who is now behind bars, along
with a number of company officials. The
whole scandal might have been avoided had the citizens owned the oil company
directly, and internal controls were in place to provide transparency.
• Outreach to Prime Movers. A
CESJ core group member in Australia has sent material to Dr. Kai Fu-Lee and
reached out via email and phone. Dr. Kai advocates that human beings own the
robots that are replacing them in the production of goods and services. He was able to talk briefly with a person at Dr.
Kai’s Taiwan office who told me that his correspondence will be delivered to
Dr. Kai. He also sent a letter to the Prime
Minister of India, which he copied to two ranking members of the Committee of
Banking and Finance in Parliament. He also attached a book for him with a printout
of the “green growth” paper from the CESJ website.
• Graduate Student Meeting. CESJ is scheduled to meet
next week with a graduate student working on his master’s degree in sustainable
urban development at George Washington University. He has expressed a great deal of interest in
the fact that CESJ’s approach is consistent with Catholic social teaching (as
well as the teachings of every other “natural” religion and philosophy).
 |
| G.K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy |
• New Capital Homesteading Book? Saint Benedict Press under
its TAN Books imprint has expressed interest in developing a book about the
compatibility of CESJ’s Capital Homesteading concept and Catholic social
teaching. Tentatively titled Capital Homesteading: Practical Distributism
for the Global Economy, the book would focus on the possibility of
attaining the Distributive State of G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc (with a
nod to Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option”) without relying on the currently wealthy
surrendering any of their current wealth or reducing current consumption levels
in order to save. We expect to have a
more fleshed out proposal completed by the end of next week. TAN Books is the publisher of Ten
Battles Every Catholic Should Know by CESJ’s Director of Research that
came out at the beginning of this year.
• Other CESJ Publications. The revived CESJ newsletter is moving
steadily to its first new issue, and contributions will soon be solicited. CESJ has been promised free space in the Truth Be Told newsletter/ezine as soon
as sponsorship details can be worked out between the editor and publisher of Truth Be Told and the Central Bureau of
the Catholic Central Verein of America in St. Louis. The book What
Happened to Social Justice is still in editing, and the outline of Retooling the Future is moving on apace. The editing draft of the Ferree compendium is
completed, and it may go into preprint and formatting within the next two weeks.
 |
| Hilaire Belloc: "I am smiling." |
• Shop online and support CESJ’s work! Did you know that by making
your purchases through the Amazon Smile
program, Amazon will make a contribution to CESJ? Here’s how: First, go to https://smile.amazon.com/. Next, sign in to your Amazon 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.
• Blog Readership. We have had visitors from 35 different
countries and 41 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this
blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, Canada,
Kenya, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Liberalism
Strikes Back,” “Thomas
Hobbes on Private Property,” “The
Newmanites,” “CESJ
Looks at Money, Part I,” and “News
from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 38.”
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#