Perhaps the most unusual thing this
week from the Just Third Way perspective is how no one seems to be questioning
the incredible rise in share values on the stock market that is not linked to
any discernible increase in the quantity or quality of marketable goods and
services, i.e., “economic growth.”
Instead, the rise in share values is itself taken as “economic growth,”
even though shares are not actually marketable goods or services. Be that as it may, here are the Just Third
Way highlights for this week:
 |
| Paul VI: "If you want peace, work for justice." |
• The Just Third Way and EWTN Live. Although the appearance on EWTN Live was focused mostly on the book Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know (2018), the last segment of the program did
get into the Just Third Way and the message that “If you desire peace, work for
justice.” This was a theme in the book
as well, but not as explicit as it might have been had it not been a book on
military history! Unusually, half the
studio audience said that the last few minutes of the show were the best and
most important, a judgment expressed by a number of others afterwards as well. This is significant, as in conversations
before and after the show CESJ’s “take” on social justice was explained briefly
and found a very receptive audience.
That is, social justice does not replace individual justice and charity,
but makes it possible for individual justice and charity to function once
again.
• Bookmark. While at the studio, a segment of Bookmark,
the EWTN book review program was recorded for later broadcast, possibly in
September. After the taping, the
producer asked about other books by Michael D. Greaney, or that related to the
Just Third Way and the work of CESJ. A
copy of the Just Third Way edition of Fulton Sheen’s
Freedom Under God (1940) was left with the producer.
• Dignity, Freedom, and Power. The manuscript of Dignity,
Freedom, and Power is in the final stages of editing. A number of people at the EWTN studios have
expressed interest in receiving copies as soon as it is published. Although the Just Third Way of Economic
Personalism is not (and could not be) any kind of “official Catholic teaching,”
it is based on natural law and is therefore consistent with all the major
faiths and philosophies that share a basis in the thought of Aristotle. It therefore has the potential to fill a
“hole” that modern Academia has left unfilled with its drift away from liberal
arts and into job training.
• What Happened to Social Justice.
With the positive reception given to the brief comments that were made
about the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism it is evident that CESJ’s work
has the potential to fill a deep-seated need on the part of many people for
“social teaching” or a social philosophy that makes sense. How matters got into the shape they’re in is
the subject of a book that has been long in the works but is nearing
completion, What Happened to Social Justice, that goes into much more
detail on the material presented in Dignity, Freedom, and Power, and
gives the historical background essential to understanding the present day.
• What’s Wrong With the Whole Enchilada? Taco Bell, the fast food
restaurant chain, is increasing its fixed wage and benefits package in an
effort to enhance financial performance and satisfy the rising demand for an
increase in the minimum wage, an effort that has focused on typically
lower-paid workers in the fast food industry.
That’s nice, but there might be a few flaws in the program. For example, raising fixed costs means lower
profit margins unless you also raise prices to the consumer . . . which means
that your products are less competitive with anyone who doesn’t raise prices. It also puts the cart before the horse. After all, if you reward someone in advance
for something that might not even happen, it becomes even less likely to
happen! Both flaws could easily be
avoided by rewarding workers out of profits.
It would not be necessary to raise costs, for as the late Walter Reuther
pointed out, profits are calculated after costs are taken out. Plus, when workers know that if they don’t do
well they don’t get the profits, they tend to work harder to ensure that
profits are there. Instead of asking for
pollo feed, then, the workers should demand ownership and the rights of
ownership, such as profits.
• 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 34 different
countries and 40 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this
blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, Canada, the United
Kingdom, the Philippines, and Argentina.
The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “EWTN
Live and Ten Battles Everyone Should Know,” “News
from the Network, Vol. 13, No. 1,” “Rethinking
Saving for Retirement,” “Norman
Kurland on the Harold Channer Show,” and “The
Idea of Leisure Work.”
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#