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.
#30#