All the “Big News” in the media is
on things other than those affecting he Just Third Way, at least directly. If you know something that you’re not telling
us that you think should go into the weekly news roundup, of course, just drop
us a line per the instructions at the bottom of this posting. In the meantime:
• Saving Social Security. Yet another
proposal has been put forth to “save” the Social Security system, again without
considering the underlying flaws in the system itself. In “How
to Save Social Security? Some Candidates
are Looking at Your Capital Gains,” Yahoo Finance takes a look at attempts
to bolster Social Security revenue by broadening the base of people paying in
and the types of income subject to the tax.
The problem is that if the number of people paying in is increased, then
the number of people eligible for benefits also increases, and the same problem
remains: how to meet increasing demands on the system? We, of course, advocate returning the Social
Security system to its original purpose: a pay-as-you-go safety net, not a
retirement savings plan (which it legally is not; no one owns what is in his or
her account; what is paid in is a tax, not a contribution). We advocate merging the Social Security tax
into the general tax rate (thereby automatically broadening the tax base),
keeping current promises, but making future qualification for benefits
need-based, and instituting an intensive program of widespread capital
ownership, such as Capital
Homesteading.
• A Nod in the Right Direction.
Bernie Sanders has announced a proposal to broaden the base of worker
ownership in the United States. As
reported on the
NCEO blog and in the mid-monthly bulletin of the National Center for
Employee Ownership, Sanders wants workers to have up to 20% ownership of the companies
that employ them. When we first heard of
this, there was no mention of paying for the shares, just a distribution to
some kind of trust of newly issued shares that would grant beneficial (not
direct) ownership. As fleshed out in the
NCEO blog, there is mention of a fund to assist workers in purchasing shares,
so we are not talking direct redistribution, just veiled redistribution
through the tax system. Sanders gets
points for supporting worker ownership and not forcing direct
redistribution. That being said, here in
no particular order are the major problems with his proposal from the Just
Third Way perspective: 1) It is still “past savings based.” That is, the proposal covers only existing
wealth, not future wealth. 2) Only workers are affected. What about people who don’t work for private
sector companies, can’t work, or don’t work?
Don’t they also have the right to own capital? 3) Why
only 20% Why not 100%? 4) Why not direct ownership with the full
rights of control and enjoyment of the fruits, i.e., full dividend
payout, voting of shares, and right of free sale? There are doubtless more, but we think that
is enough to suggest to Sanders that he might want to modify his proposal to be
more just and democratic.
• University of Chicago Law School Gathering.
On Thursday, Dr. Norman Kurland, president of the interfaith Center for
Economic and Social Justice (CESJ), attended a function given for alumni of the
University of Chicago School of Law.
Norm met a number of fellow attorneys, and handed out some business
cards, referring them to the CESJ website when they expressed interest.
• Publications. Work proceeds apace on a small book on
economic personalism. No publication
date has been set.
• Quarterly Board Meeting. The CESJ
Quarterly Board Meeting will take place Monday, October 21, 2019.
• 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 28 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, Spain, the
United Kingdom, Canada, and India. The
most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Financial
Disaster,” “News
from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 41,” “Thomas
Hobbes on Private Property,” “War and
Depression,” and “Opening
the Door for Capital Homesteading.”
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.” Due to imprudent
language on the part of some commentators, we removed temptation and disabled
comments.
#30#
