Friday, December 21, 2018

News from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 51


This week in addition to some current events (which you will find at the end of this posting), we have the first half of the annual news roundup from the Just Third Way, from January through June.  One of the things we found ironic was our commenting in the first “News from the Network” for 2018 that the newly achieved “25,000 Dow” was making some people nervous.  Given the market shakeup over the past few weeks, that seems to have been warranted.  It does, however, tend to make the Just Third Way more attractive:

(01/05/18) The 25,000 Dow.  Yes, yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average went over 25,000 for the first time in history.  Where most people are still chanting that a rise in share values necessarily means economic growth, job creation, and the rest of the mantra, increasing numbers of people are beginning to feel very nervous about what is going on.  The fact is that an increase in share values during periods of falling productivity is no more an indication of economic growth than a rise in food prices during a famine is a sign of abundance.  Where the latter is caused by a scarcity of food, the former is caused by non-productive speculation pushing out productive investment for what is believed to be a limited savings pool to finance growth.  Even though the latter is a fallacy, the fact remains that “investors” are choosing to speculate instead of financing new capital, which dries up financing for new capital.
• (01/12/18) Lincoln Park, Michigan, Presentations.  Norman Kurland, president of CESJ, and Dawn Brohawn, CESJ’s Director of Communications, were off today for Lincoln Park, Michigan, a city in Wayne County, to give a series of presentations to key political figures, but the airlines cancelled the flights, and the train was booked before seats could be secured.  Lincoln Part is part of an area of cities and communities known as “Downriver.”  Lincoln Park was organized as a village in 1921, and then reorganized as a city in 1925.  The area was originally home to the Potawatomi Indians who ceded the land to Pierre St. Cosme from France in 1776. It developed as a “bedroom community” of Detroit, with many people living there working in the nearby steel mills and automobile plants.  A sound and financially feasible proposal to revitalize Detroit is therefore exactly what the whole of Wayne County, to say nothing of the state of Michigan and the entire United States (and did we leave out the rest of the world?) needs.  That, of course, is exactly what Norm and Dawn hoped to do in their series of presentations, which are currently in the process of being rescheduled.
• (01/12/18) Official Book Release.  Monday, January 15, 2018, marks the official release date of Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know.  While not expressly a Just Third Way book, the publisher has indicated interest in doing a more JTW-themed book should this one be a success.  One editor has already suggested a theme for a project that would demonstrate the compatibility of the natural law principles underlying Catholic social teaching with, e.g., Capital Homesteading.  A preliminary outline is already in preparation.  A treatment of the real significance of the “parable of the talents” suggests itself, as many people claim to be baffled by what seems to be a contrived situation — it’s not, but that will be covered in the book.
• (01/12/18) CESJ Internships and Fellowships.  CESJ has been receiving a number of internship applications for what has become an important part of CESJ’s outreach to Academia.  One CESJ intern, Eliza R., went on to present a paper at an international conference.  CESJ is proud to say that no intern has ever been asked to get coffee or make copies, but to engage in a meaningful project that will in some way advance the Just Third Way.
• (01/19/18) Government Shutdown?  Until the United States adopts Capital Homesteading monetary and tax reforms, expect this sort of thing to continue and become increasingly frequent.  It is not enough to slow down the rate of growth in the deficit.  It is becoming increasingly important that steps be taken to eliminate it, and put the American economy back on a productive basis, not mistaking stock market gambling for true economic growth.
• (02/02/18) Mabel Kurland, RIP.  We were all saddened to learn of the death early in the morning of January 31, 2018 of long-time CESJ friend and supporter, Mabel Kurland, a ten-year old miniature schnauzer whose humans, Daniel, Karen, and Joseph, are also friends of CESJ and the Just Third Way.  Mabel was a fairly frequent visitor to CESJ, and always had a friendly wag and a bark for everyone.  After suffering massive trauma as a puppy, Mabel went on to lead a full and productive life, affording recreation and companionship to other members of her family.  She will be greatly missed.  She is survived by her humans and her fellow dog, Benny.
• (02/02/18) The Centrist Project.  Norman Kurland has been having discussions with the people at “the Centrist Project” headquartered in Denver, Colorado.  The Project aims to reshape and reform the U.S. political system, not as a traditional third party, but as America’s first “Unparty.”  They characterize themselves as a twenty-first century grassroots organization dedicated to organizing Centrist Americans, supporting Centrist policies and encouraging more independent candidates to run for public office to put the United States ahead of any political faction in order to solve problems.  Their website would well be worth a visit.
• (02/09/18) Robert Marshall’s New Book.  Robert G. (Bob) Marshall’s soon-to-be-released (February 20, 2018) new book, Reclaiming the Republic from TAN Books, an imprint of St. Benedict Press, is now available for preorder.  Bob had a long and distinguished record of service to his constituents in Virginia and beyond. First elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1991, he has been a consistent voice for traditional values and constitutional government.  He has appeared on numerous national radio and television programs commenting on public policies.  One of those comments was an endorsement of the Just Third Way, which we hope has a central place in Bob’s recommendations on how ordinary Americans can “win back America” as the cover declares: “I appreciate your efforts educating to empower the family economically. Your work inspires, encourages, and builds up the whole community, the nation, the world. . . . Please send me the packet on the [Capital] Homestead Act. I will assist you in every way that I can.”
• (02/16/18) “Chestertonian Distributism”?  Someone recently protested about a comment we made about the Keynesian Money Multiplier in one of our blogs, i.e., that it is based on a fallacy and relies on counting the same funds multiple times.  Here’s the comment: “[T]he multiplier adds a safety net, a cushion, prevents small businesses going under, maintains employment and service industries, stops destructive market forces — prevents carpetbagging [where did that come from? — ed.] — prevents monopolism and what GKC [Gilbert Keith Chesterton — ed.] calls proletarianism — don’t you understand you’re appealing to annihilating friedmanite/hayekian/libertarian economics [did he mean we want to “annihilate” all non-Keynesian economics, or that non-Keynesian economics is “annihilating”? — ed.] which are the antithesis of distributism — and then applying a ‘homestead’ prepping [? — ed.] ‘save and self-sustain’ [? — ed.] economy which CAN ONLY work in living wage /living low utility cost/low food & transport cost & a safety net of universal free education and free health [you mean “socialism”? — ed.] — principles demanded by rerum novarum and quadragesima [sic] anno [where? — ed.] — but dismissed as commie socialism [isn’t that redundant? — ed.] by you so-called distributists who really haven’t read the outline of sanity’s [Chesterton’s book The Outline of Sanity (1926)? — ed.] apologetic for condemning socialism — and designating that which your US right wing capitalist base line presumptions considers ‘commie’ when it’s actually common sense medievalist guild-frame post-feudal distribution. [? — ed.]”  Our response?  (Which will be posted next week in its entirety) To give in detail the textbook explanation of the Keynesian Money Multiplier and explain — in detail — why it is a farrago of nonsense . . . as is this rant, at least those portions of it we could understand.  Fortunately, this individual (whose name has been omitted to protect the guilty) does not appear to be representative of ordinary “Chestertonians” or “distributists,” but of what seems to be a small coterie of very loud and opinionated individuals who seem intent on giving Chesterton and distributism a bad name.  For this select crowd, we recommend some remedial logic, spelling, and grammar as well as education in some financial basics such as monetary and credit theory, and the principles of banking and bookkeeping, to say nothing of common courtesy and civility (we cut out some of the more egregious insults).  And we’re still trying to figure out where that “carpetbagging” came from.
• (03/02/18) Meeting with Deal Hudson.  On Wednesday of this week the CESJ core group met with Dr. Deal Hudson, who interviewed CESJ’s Director of Research about his new book from TAN Books, Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know.  The lunch meeting went very well, with Dr. Hudson expressing interest in the Just Third Way.  Of particular note was Dr. Hudson’s work with Mortimer J. Adler, the “Great Books” philosopher, at the Aspen Institute.  Adler, of course, was co-author with Louis O. Kelso of The Capitalist Manifesto (1958) and The New Capitalists (1961).  Dr. Hudson seemed particularly interested in CESJ’s proposals for monetary reform, although in a brief meeting it was impossible to do any more than scratch the surface.  To get deeper into these matters, Dr. Hudson has proposed a series of interviews with Norman Kurland on his radio show, “Church and Culture” on the Ave Maria Radio Network, an affiliate of EWTN.
• (03/16/18)  Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know.  As a recent reviewer on Amazon said, this book may be somewhat mistitled, as it should be of interest not only to Catholics, but to Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus . . . in short, anyone and everyone who has an interest in how the current world situation developed.  Underscoring this, yesterday Michael D. Greaney, CESJ’s Director of Research, was interviewed live on “Meet the Author” with Ken Huck on Radio Maria.  It will be re-broadcast Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 1:00 am EDST, and Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at 6:00 am EDST.  We’ll post a link to the show as soon as it is archived so you can listen at your leisure.  Information on how to tune in to “Meet the Author” (or any of their other shows; they broadcast 24/7!) can be found by following this link. Going by the rankings on Amazon, Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know has been doing remarkably well for a “first” book (at least from a major publisher).  If you have not already obtained your copy, do so and be sure to post a review.
• (03/16/18)  Norman Kurland’s Second “Church and Culture” Radio Interview.  The Ave Maria Radio Network, an affiliate of EWTN, will broadcast a second prerecorded interview with CESJ’s president, Norman G. Kurland, on the “Church and Culture” show with your host Dr. Deal Hudson.  Norm’s subject is the need for tax reform.  The interview will air Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 3:00 pm EDST (the second hour of the show, which starts at 3:00 pm) and Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 7:00 am EDST in the U.S.  To locate a station that carries the show in your area in the United States, follow this link.  If you miss the show or can’t get it in your area, you can listen to it later on the  Church and Culture” link.
• (04/06/18) Martin Luther King Jr. Jubilee Summit.  Speaking on “Economic Justice in the Age of the Robot,” CESJ president Dr. Norman Kurland delivered a presentation on Tuesday, April 3, 2018 as part of a “Webinar” sponsored by Virginia Union and Virginia Tech, and organized by the Reverend Virgil Wood, a long-time friend and supporter of CESJ and the Just Third Way.  Norm’s presentation went very well.
• (04/13/18) University of Alberta Friends and Alumni Dinner.  Members of the CESJ core group attended the University of Alberta Friends and Alumni Dinner in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.  Dr. Norman Kurland gave a brief presentation on the need for reform in Academia, with emphasis on the “Justice University” concept.  A number of the attendees expressed interest.
• (04/20/18) Hoover Institute Talk on Philanthropy.  On Monday, a CESJ team attended a presentation on new directions for philanthropy at the Hoover Institute in Washington, DC.  Members from the CESJ chapter in formation in Hartford, Connecticut drove down to join Dr. Norman Kurland and other local members for the event.  While the talk was interesting, and the presenters were clearly of goodwill, notably David Rubenstein, the creative thinking going on was all within the current paradigm.  Norm got a chance to talk briefly with one or two of the presenters, although not with Rubenstein, but was not able to ask the question that might have led to follow up discussions.
(04/20/18) Meeting with Dr. Julianne Malveaux.  Members of the CESJ core group met with Dr. Julianne Malveaux on Thursday.  Dr. Malveaux is a professor of economics and president of Bennet College.  She is a labor economist, noted author, and colorful commentator.  Dr. Cornel West has described Dr. Malveaux as “the most iconoclastic public intellectual in the country.” Her contributions to the public dialogue on issues such as race, culture, gender, and their economic impacts are credited with shaping public opinion in 21st century America.  The discussion that followed was stimulating and lively.
• (04/20/18) Meeting with Alfred Gordon.  Through Martin Smith, the CESJ core group met with Mr. Alfred Gordon on Monday.  Mr. Gordon expressed great interest in the Just Third Way, both as “pure ideas” and as applied by (for example) Equity Expansion International, Inc.  Mr. Gordon, who has been an athletic coach, may be interested in reaching out to teens and young adults to introduce them to these ideas as an alternative to the prevailing jobs or welfare mentality.
(04/20/18) Just Third Way Article to Benedict XVI.  We received a report that an article from a Just Third Way perspective on Pope emeritus Benedict XVI’s focus on the natural law was presented to him on his ninety-first birthday this past Monday.  The article by CESJ’s Director of Research Michael D. Greaney was included in a special edition of Inside the Vatican magazine.
• (03/27/18) Universal Basic Income.  Rowland B. of the CESJ core group sent a link to a New York Times article on the Finnish experiment with a Universal Basic Income, “Finland Has Second Thoughts About Giving Money to Jobless People,” 04/24/2018.  As the article explains, “The Finnish government has opted not to continue financing it past this year, a reflection of public discomfort with the idea of dispensing government largess free of requirements that its recipients seek work.”  Interestingly, despite the proven feasibility of widespread ownership both in securing an adequate income and motivating people to be productive, no one in power (at least no one of which we are aware), seems to be considering the potential of a “universal basic ownership stake” that is self-financing and thus not only decreases government expenditures for welfare and entitlements, it increases the tax base at the same time.
• (05/11/18) The Hijacking of Personalism.  We recently obtained a number of works on “Personalism,” what Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950) insisted on calling a “movement” because in his day it was not a “completed theory” and thus not a philosophy.  With Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), Mounier worked to fit an emphasis on the dignity of the human person into the existing framework of Aristotelian-Thomism but were inhibited in this task by the intellectual environment fostered by what Alexis de Tocqueville termed “French” or “European” type democracy that vests sovereignty into the collective instead of the human person.  To some degree Maritain’s thought was corrected by exposure to that of Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977) and Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001), but still lacked two important elements that would turn it into a completed theory.  These were, one, the “act of social justice” as a particular act (developed by Pius XI and analyzed by Fr. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D.), and two, the principles of economic justice and freedom from “the slavery of savings” (articulated by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler).  Without these two essential elements, personalism was interpreted as a form of socialism by the socialists, and a form of capitalism by the capitalists.  John Paul II made great efforts to correct this problem, and although he seems to have had an instinctive “feel” for the act of social justice and gave encourage to the work of CESJ in the area of economic justice, was not able to break through the social and intellectual barriers in Academia, Church, and State to begin integrating a completed theory of personalism as applied Thomism to social and political problems.  As a result, personalism has been relegated to just another form of Christian or democratic socialism without most people realizing it is the antithesis of any form of socialism.
• (05/11/18) The Forgotten Social Justice Apostle.  In connection with searching out the roots of social justice, we came across the life and work of Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam (1813-1853), founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.  Although “beatified” (one step away from canonization) by Benedict XVI, Ozanam remains largely unknown, and is almost always misunderstood.  A strong opponent of all forms of socialism, those relatively few people who know anything about Ozanam insist he was a Christian socialist and a Neo-Catholic, a euphemism for socialism.  This is despite the fact that a pamphlet he wrote at the age of 18 was a refutation of the errors of the New Christianity (socialism) of Henri comte de Saint-Simon, and he repudiated the work of de Lamennais when de Lamennais attacked the Catholic Church, although he had formerly admired de Lamennais as a champion of human liberty and democracy.  Ozanam’s ideal society was a purified U.S. type of democracy, described by Alexis de Tocqueville (whom Ozanam greatly desired to meet, but was prevented by his own early death), because it was established not on the sovereignty of “the people” as French democracy that leads to socialism, or of an élite as English democracy that leads to capitalism, but of the human person that leads to personalism and its application in the Just Third Way.  Ozanam of course condemned slavery and the treatment of native Americans but saw “Democracy in America” corrected of these errors as the necessary wave of the future, and seems to have understood that widespread private property in capital is essential for strong families as well as a stable political order and the growth of religion.
• (05/18/18)  The Hijacking of Personalism, Part II.  Lat week we reported that we had obtained a number of works on the “personalism” of Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950).  Since then we have obtained materials on the personalism of Pope John Paul II, which has resulted in a reassessment of Mounier’s work on our part.  It turns out that a number of sources cite Mounier as John Paul II’s starting point, but on investigation it does not appear that John Paul II ever actually referred to Mounier’s work in any substantive way, or at all that we have been able to determine.  Instead, the sources given for John Paul II’s “Thomistic personalism” — which he had no problem describing as a philosophy, albeit within the parameters of classic Aristotelian-Thomism, are Martin Buber, Edith Stein, and others of a more traditional bent.  John Paul II did confuse some people by applying phenomenological techniques within the Thomist framework, giving some people the impression that he had abandoned Thomism, but he seems to have been extraordinarily adamant that he was adding to Thomism, not turning away from it.  We have therefore changed our opinion that Mounier’s personalism was hijacked then corrected by John Paul II, to Mounier’s personalism was a blind alley that John Paul II simply bypassed.
• (05/18/18) New Vatican Document on Finance.  The Vatican has released a new document, Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones (“Economic and Financial Questions”): Considerations for Ethical Discernment about Some Aspects of the Current Financial-Economic System.  It contains the by-now standard moral criticisms of the modern financial system, ironically framed within the assumptions that led to the problems in the first place.  This is not to say that the criticisms aren’t valid — they most certainly are, and we could add a number that aren’t even addressed or even thought of — but there is no acknowledgement that it is the system itself that is flawed as the direct result of taking some very bad assumptions for granted, viz., the legitimacy of backing any part of the money supply with government debt, the necessity of existing accumulations of savings to finance new capital formation, the wage system as the only legitimate way for most people to gain income, the tacit acceptance of the labor theory of value and production, the Servile State as an acceptable political-economic arrangement, and so on, and on, and on.  All of these are, frankly, rooted in an inadequate understanding of natural law, particularly the right to own embedded in human nature itself.  This leads to an inadequate (in some cases completely erroneous) understanding of money and credit, and the necessity of linking all money and credit directly to production by only creating money backed by actual current or reasonably expected future production, and by ensuring that every consumer can be a producer, and every producer a consumer by implementing a program of expanded capital ownership.  As Pope Leo XIII said over a century ago, “We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.” (Rerum Novarum, § 46.)
• (05/25/18) End of the UBI Experiment?  Finland, which rocked the financial world with news of their experiment with the Universal Basic Income, is terminating the program.  Apparently, instead of easing people’s fears of insufficient income due to inability to find a paying job, the effect was to discourage people from seeking any kind of employment at all for fear of losing income for which they don’t have to work.  Instead of providing a stress-easing sense of security, it actually created more stress by motivating people to actively avoid finding work.  Tension levels increased every time recipients thought they were in danger of being offered a job.
• (05/25/18) Mis-defining Social Justice Causes Problems.  When social justice is defined as being a replacement for individual justice and charity instead of a way to make individual justice and charity operable again, it has a tendency to cause more harm than the underlying problem, according to a report from the Foundation for Economic Education.  Construed as a collectivist concept instead of a way to empower individuals, social justice — like the Universal Basic Income — undermines the very system it claims to be protecting.
• (06/08/18)  Analysis of Mondragon.  A recent analysis of the Mondragon Cooperatives in the Basque Region of Spain made some interesting points.  Far from being a New Age Utopia or quasi-socialist Workers Paradise, Mondragon has some often-overlooked strengths and weaknesses that could raise a few eyebrows or even cause a few shocked looks among Fabians ’n friends.  For example, while frequently touted as a model of a local economy within the “small is beautiful” paradigm, Mondragon is inextricably tied in to the global economy.  Most of what it produces in its large factories — not small cottage industries or artisan workshops — is for export to the rest of the European Union.  There is also something of a casual disregard of the environment and the rights of foreign workers and women, who are usually denied ownership rights or treated as second class citizens.  Being based on the past savings model, profits are retained to finance new capital formation instead of being distributed to the workers, with the result that most workers do not receive much if anything in addition to their wages, requiring two-wage-income families instead of a single wage paycheck, but multiple ownership dividend checks.  In addition to a number of other weaknesses, the program only covers workers, giving them inadequate wage incomes instead of supplementing it with ownership incomes for everyone.  Given those easily corrected flaws, however, Mondragon remains a good model that, however, could use improvement.
• (06/15/18) Cardinal Newman versus the Socialists?  As the result of a chance remark by CESJ’s intern, new information regarding the attacks by the Rev. Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) on John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) has been uncovered.  It turns out that the vicious attacks made by Kingsley to (in Kingsley’s words) pay off an old “score” and that resulted in Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864), may have been motivated more by Newman’s repudiation of liberal Christianity and socialism than by Newman’s conversion to Catholicism.  According to the Rev. Moritz Kaufmann (1839-1920) in his book Christian Socialism (1888), Kingsley and Hugues-Félicité Robert de Lamennais (1760-1854) were among the leading socialist thinkers in England and France, respectively.  Kaufmann hinted that Kingsley was a follower of de Lamennais.  While still a member of the Church of England, Newman wrote a somewhat favorable essay about de Lamennais and liberalism of the European type, which he retracted in print after becoming a Catholic (John Henry Cardinal Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, Volume I.  London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897, 173-178).  Kingsley’s vague accusations about Newman’s alleged dishonesty and lying published in Macmillan’s Magazine in 1864 may have resulted more from Newman’s abandoning any accommodation to Kingsley’s “New Christianity” (“Muscular Christianity”) than from Newman’s conversion itself.  Interestingly, although Freiherr Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz (1811-1877), was an active opponent of socialism and strictly orthodox in his religious thought, Kaufmann declared he was one of Germany’s leading socialist thinkers, a liberal, and a Neo-Catholic!
• (06/29/18) Dave Hamill.  Dave Hamill, well-known as the voice of the Just Third Way podcast, has been appointed to the CESJ board of directors.  It is expected that Dave will continue his fine work with the podcast and his outreach initiatives, especially in connection with the new version of the CESJ newsletter that will soon be coming out.
News Items, Week of December 21, 2018:
• CESJ Board Meeting.  The 417th consecutive CESJ meeting took place on Monday, December 17, 2018.  Most participants telephoned in, with some coming from as far away as Guatemala and Australia.
• CESJ Newsletter.  Some new proposed graphics and format have been proposed for the revived CESJ newsletter, which is tentatively scheduled for January 2019 and quarterly thereafter.
• Fundraising.  Work is proceeding on obtaining funding for such projects as instructional videos and Justice University.
• Kelso Documentary.  Joyce Hart, award winning producer of Sisters of Selma, is working on a concept video to gain funding for a documentary on Louis Kelso.
• CESJ Publications.  A number of publications are in editing, such as What Happened to Social Justice, the Father Ferree Compendium, and the revised Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen.  A concept “book trailer” video (i.e., a 30-60 second commercial) is being put together for What Happened to Social Justice.  A number of Just Third Way-themed manuscripts have been submitted to TAN Books, with others nearing completion.
• Grosscup Articles.  In the early twentieth century, Judge Peter Stenger Grosscup, one of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Trust Busters,” wrote a series of articles that, except for the fact that Grosscup relied on past savings, conform almost perfectly to the Just Third Way.  There is a slight possibility that Grosscup, who also associated with Archbishop John Ireland of Saint Paul, Minnesota, may have influenced G.K. Chesterton in the latter’s views of corporations.  This past week, CESJ surfaced the last three of Grosscup’s known articles needed for its collection, “The Government’s Relation to Corporate Construction and Management” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 1908), “Prosperity With Justice” (North American Review, December 1909), and “Is There Common Ground on Which Thoughtful Men Can Meet on the Trust Question?” (North American Review, March 1912).  Also located was a booklet Grosscup published in 1897 warning judges about letting their personal interests interfere with decisions.  Ironically, Grosscup and Roosevelt broke temporarily when Grosscup overturned a decision in which Roosevelt was interested: the Standard Oil rebate case, in which the original conviction was overturned on what Roosevelt considered a legal quibble.  They got back together when Roosevelt ran for President on the Progressive Party ticket, with Grosscup endorsing Roosevelt in 1911.  An extract from “Prosperity With Justice” illustrates why CESJ is interested in Grosscup’s writings.  Instead of allowing the rich to concentrate ownership even further by leaving their fortunes to a few heirs, Grosscup suggested that favorable tax treatment should be given when estates are broken up among the workers who helped create the fortunes in the first place.  As he said about the part of the estate taken in taxation,
Such part might be distributed — more equitably, it seems to me — among those who, in services, had contributed to the success. And once the idea took hold, that it is one of the functions of the corporate form of holding property, as our homestead and pre-emption laws made it one of the functions of the Government's ownership of the landed domain, not to concentrate, but to distribute the ownership of the ever-growing corporate success of the country, other means will readily be found. Indeed, the work at the present time, in this field of corporate reform, is to put upon its feet the right idea — to switch the public mind from the conception that there is no middle course between concentration in corporate ownership and outright communism, to the far nobler conception of a proprietary co-partnership in corporate success, broad enough, and on foundations secure enough, to include all whose services contribute to the success — a conception for the future that, accepting as inevitable the spirit of justice that underlies the dream of the socialist, harmonizes that spirit with a truth equally inevitable, namely, that as the material civilization that the world knows now was built upon the free play of individual capacity, it can continue, if it continues at all, only in an atmosphere in which the free play of individual capacity is given the fullest liberty and encouragement. (Peter S. Grosscup, “Prosperity With Justice,” The North American Review, Vol. 190, No. 649, December 1909, 732-733.)
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 36 different countries and 43 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, Germany, Canada, India, and Australia.  The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “De Tocqueville’s ‘Wage Slavery in America’,” “A Suitable Pretext and the Usual Suspects,” “The Wisdom of Social Justice,” “‘Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles’,” and “News from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 50.”
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.
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