There has been a great deal of
progress made this past week in advancing our understanding of how the Just
Third Way can help get the world out of the situation it is in and that offers
a viable alternative to bankrupt (and bankrupting) Keynesian theories that have
resulted in mountains of unserviceable debt in virtually every country in the
world. One message of the Just Third Way
that today’s politicians need to take to heart is that it doesn’t have to be
this way:
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| There is a better way. |
• The Coming Debt Crisis. According
to an article in the Wall Street Journal,
as soon as holders of U.S. government debt realize that the government has been
spending beyond its means for almost a century (yes, it won’t be long before
2033), they will start demanding more interest on the U.S. “bonds” they
hold. Why did we put “bonds” in
quotes? Because bonds, properly
speaking, are financial instruments representing borrowing existing savings,
and thus bear interest. In reality,
however, most government financial instruments known as bonds are in reality
what are called “bills of credit” representing no borrowing of existing
savings, but new money creation, and that should properly not bear interest,
but pass at a discount. That is a
subject for another day, however. The
issue today is the claim in the article, “The Debt Crisis Is Coming Soon” (WSJ,
03/01/19, A-19), that the only way to avoid (or evade, depending on your point
of view) the anticipated crisis is to make a drastic reduction in spending on
entitlements, e.g., Social Security,
Medicare, and other New Deal and New Deal type programs. Unfortunately, having made as many people as
possible utterly dependent on these programs, cutting them is neither moral nor
politically feasible, however weak (or non-existent) the original moral or
political justification for them was in the first place. Oddly, neither the opponents nor the
defenders of entitlement spending do the obvious and investigate a financially
sound and politically feasible replacement for entitlements, Capital Homesteading.
• Premier of New Video Short.
CESJ has completed “People and Things,” a short (less than two
minutes) video designed to intrigue people about the Just Third Way and get
them interested in finding out what this whole “Just Third Way” shtick is all
about. We’d like you to give a quick
view and let us know how it strikes you.
A few caveats: 1) The video makes no pretense to presenting the entire Just
Third Way; it’s sort of a “commercial” to get people interested in learning
something about the Just Third Way. You
don’t expect a 30-second spot on television to tell you all about a product. The idea is to let you know the product
exists and let you know a little bit about what it does. True, once in a while an automobile
commercial (to take an example) will tell you some technical details, but that’s
really to impress you with the quality of the product, not to teach you how to
build or even drive a car! So, give the
video a look, and if you’re inspired to find out more, pay a visit or two to the CESJ website.
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| James A. Farley: betrayed by FDR |
• More on FDR’s Brain(s) Trust.
This past week we received two books that shed more light on the nature
of the New Deal and the influence of the “Brain Trust.” One of the books is Raymond Moley’s 27 Masters of Politics (1949). The book consists of brief sketches of a
number of key men and women in the New Deal, a number of which are barely
remembered today, but who had a profound influence on the direction the country
took as the result of the Fabian influence.
One of the most poignant sketches in Moley’s book is that of James
Aloysius Farley (1888-1976), a Catholic who managed FDR’s first two campaigns,
and whom FDR “politically liquidated” because Farley put loyalty to his Church
and the party above that to Roosevelt. As
Moley commented, “That this has lost him
the friendship of people in politics and elsewhere who have placed their
admiration for Roosevelt above all other considerations in unquestionable. But for many others, it has confirmed a hope
that a man can come through the vicissitudes and temptations of politics and
retain his self-esteem and his basic loyalties.” (p. 116.) The other book is Howard Graham’s Everyman’s Constitution (1968), a
somewhat lengthy tirade against anyone who stood in the way of the idea that
the U.S. Constitution was never intended to mean anything except what those in
power want it to mean. Graham had a special
animus against William Winslow Crosskey (1894-1968), perhaps the greatest
constitutional scholar of the twentieth century, whom he probably feared since
he waited until Crosskey was safely dead before publishing his book justifying
what is euphemistically referred to as “judicial activism,” i.e., the courts making law instead of
interpreting it.
• Revival of the Arco Caribbean
Magazine. Michiel Bijkerk, a CESJ
stalwart in the Netherlands Antilles,, has relaunched his magazine, Arco Caribbean, as an ezine. The first issue, which can be obtained from
the website, http://www.arcocarib.com, is an impressive production, showing a
great deal of hard work and thoughtful effort.
Unusually, the single issue of the magazine is written in four separate
languages, English, Spanish, Dutch, and Papiamentu. This gives the publication a unique cosmopolitan
“feel” that comports well with Michiel’s universal outlook. Of special interest is the fact that Michiel
is putting a great deal of Just Third Way material in the magazine.
• More Short Videos.
Although not a “CESJ Production,” this little recruiting video
(less than two minutes) for a Catholic fraternal order in Arlington, Virginia,
incorporates a number of elements of the Just Third Way. It demonstrates how easily these concepts can
be integrated into virtually any effort by people of any faith and philosophy
consistent with human nature, i.e.,
the natural law. It also demonstrates
what can be done with minimal resources to produce a professional product it care
is taken in the production and the subject matter draws on sound principles.
• Things Getting Bigger in Texas. According to a report from the
National Center for Employee Ownership in Oakland, California, the Great State
of Texas has introduced legislation that will give preference to worker-owned
companies in state contracts, and wants to establish a State Employee Ownership
Center.
• NB, ESOP, & CPA. Also from the NCEO, Nebraska now permits
public accounting firms to be worker owned.
Now you don’t have to make partner to own a piece of the action — in
Nebraska, anyway.
• South Africa and Ownership.
Again from the NCEO, the Democratic Alliance, a political party in South
Africa, has declared a commitment to worker ownership. The ruling African National Congress
previously committed itself to the goal of expanded ownership.
• Newark, NJ, Initiative. Also
from the NCEO, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Ras Baraka, has announced that
his city is committed to encouraging worker ownership.
• Berkeley Cooperates. The
city council of Berkeley, California, has adopted a resolution to encourage
worker cooperatives.
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| "Smile! Who needs a Candid Camera?" |
• 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 37 different
countries and 45 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this
blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, Nigeria, Australia,
India, and Canada. The most popular
postings this past week in descending order were “Just
Third Way Podcast No. 50,” “News
from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 11,” “Distributism
and Ronald Reagan, I,” “A
New Conception of Society and of the State,” and “The
Three Principles of Economic Justice.”
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#