Some interesting items this week on
the global justice (or lack thereof) front . . . mostly lack thereof, and the
obvious need for the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism. Of course, getting people to understand that
may be another matter, but there is certainly enough evidence that something
needs to be done:
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| Well . . . you could OWN the robots. . . . |
• Entitlement Cuts? President Trump has announced that he is
willing to consider cuts in Social Security benefits and other entitlements. Presumably this is a great step in reducing
the massive federal debt, but it is not the right way to go about the
business. Simply cutting benefits does
nothing to solve the underlying problem, which is inadequate income when people
can no longer work or can’t find work to begin with. The whole notion of income and retirement
needs to be rethought. Linking income
irrevocably to a wage system job — the underlying assumption of the entire
Social Security system, in fact, of Keynesian economics — does nothing to
change the fact that advancing technology continues to replace human beings from labor at an accelerating rate. The
only solution to growing deficits as well as the income problem for those who
cannot work for whatever reason is to shift from labor to capital as the
predominant source of income. This will
not only ensure as far as possible that people have adequate income, it will
restore that tax base and ease the strain on Social Security and other
entitlements. Capital Homesteading
is one possibility (possibly the best one) for solving these problems.
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| Charles Fourier, socialist sex maniac. |
• The Real Sexual Revolution.
We recently obtained a copy of Charles Fourier’s masterpiece and
founding document of socialism, The Theory of the Four Movements (Théorie des Quatre Mouvements), first
published anonymously in 1808. After
looking through what is generally acknowledged as the theoretical framework for
one of the most influential forms of socialism in the United States, we
concluded that Fourier’s theories were based almost completely on unfulfilled
adolescent sexual fantasies and a virulent hatred of Christianity that Fourier
saw as interfering with the redemptive power of free and uninhibited sex. As the Introduction to the Cambridge
University edition summarizes Fourier’s thought, “Whatever the extravagance and
eccentricity of its detail, The Theory of the Four Movements provides an
invaluable insight into the origins of socialist criticism. Conventional scholarship still tends to
attribute the origins of ‘socialism’ to a heightened concern for equality
arising from the French Revolution and to the economic changes consequent upon
the ‘industrial revolution’. In Fourier’s
case, it is clear that these were not his preoccupations. Conceived at the end of the revolutionary
decade, this text is most immediately a reminder that the French Revolution had
involved not only the transformation of the state, but also the attempt to
replace the Church. Fourier’s economic
criticism, so influential in shaping the subsequent socialist tradition, began
in this context. The Theory of
the Four Movements is a reminder that ‘socialism’ began as an attempt to
discover a successor, not to capitalism, but to the Christian Church.” (Gareth Stedman Jones, “Introduction” to
Charles Fourier, The Theory of the Four Movements. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1996, xxv-xxvi.) Furthermore, it appears
evident that beginning with Pope Gregory XVI the leaders of the Catholic Church
were fully aware of the fact that what became known as socialism and communism
(differences are only semantic) was intended to abolish traditional forms of
Church, State, and Family, first by attacking private property, then marriage
and family.
• The Dow in Perspective. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which
once upon a time actually had industrial stocks somewhere in it, has made it up
past 29,000, which is causing numerologists and others to do a little
superstitious panicking. It seems that a
number of people are linking a 29,000 Dow with the calendar year 1929 and
predicting disaster on that basis. That,
of course, is nonsense. The year 1929
has no link whatsoever with the fact of a 29,000 Dow. The two situations are not comparable. After all, the U.S. economy in 1929 was
solidly based on industry, agriculture, and commerce backed by the productive
capacity of the nation. Today’s 2020 economy
is based more or less vaguely on government debt, backed by the government’s
ability to tax income people don’t have.
In 2020 terms, the Dow in 1929 had reached approximately 5,200. That means the Dow in an economy in which
productive capacity has been seriously eroded is more than 550% higher than
during a speculative frenzy in an economy with full productive capacity. There is obviously no vague reason to panic,
but a very real reason to panic.
• China’s Economic Miracle?
Everyone is increasingly afraid of China for one reason or another, but
there are some danger signs the Chinese themselves are ignoring, four in
particular. These don’t make other
countries safer from “economic imperialism.” Most countries suffer from the same dangers,
although to a lesser degree in most cases.
China, however, has managed to exaggerate them to such a degree that
when the crash comes it could swamp more boats than China alone. These are: 1) Inflating GDP by engaging in enormous
expenditures for capital projects that are unnecessary, often useless, and
usually counterproductive. “Ghost cities”
and running empty trains are just the most obvious examples of this. It is incredibly wasteful and gives
artificial economic growth to make the government look good priority over real
growth for the benefit of the citizens.
2) An economy that is 40% based on export. Admittedly, this can work IF the balance of
trade is maintained without currency manipulation, but the Chinese economy is
geared toward selling as much as possible and buying as little as
possible. This is pure
mercantilism. It results in accumulating
foreign currency reserves and foreign debt that as other economies deteriorate
become worth less and less, and may end up just pieces of paper if the Chinese
succeed in becoming the number one economy in the world. As Jean-Baptiste Say pointed out over 200
years ago, we do not purchase what others produce with money, but with what we
produce. If only China produces, other
countries will find themselves unable to buy.
3) Currency manipulation to gain trading advantage. Again, “money” is only a medium of exchange
and a measure of value. Unless it is
backed by actual wealth in the form of capital and consumer goods, it is
ultimately worthless. Money must have a
standard of value to be useful instead of a weapon. 4) China is failing to build consumption
power into its own citizens. Every
country’s first priority should be concern for its own citizens and arrange
matters so that everyone can be productive and thus have an adequate and secure
income. With a 40% export economy and 40
million unemployed, China is ignoring the chief responsibility of any
government.
• Retirement Warning. We haven’t
thought about this for a while, but a few news stories reminded us that quite a
number of people fail to name a designated beneficiary for their retirement
accounts in case they die before all the benefits are distributed. This applies to IRAs of all kinds, ESOPs, and
401(k) plans; anything that is a “defined contribution plan,” meaning that the participant
is due what is in the account, not a specified or “defined benefit,” which is
another type of qualified plan. By law
the residual goes to a spouse . . . but what if someone is divorced and
remarried, but the divorce agreement gives the former spouse the residual? Unless the participant has formally
designated the former spouse and obtained the written consent of the
current spouse, the current spouse gets it all.
Sometimes a lengthy court battle will settle it differently, but that
can eat up the total amount of what’s at stake and more besides. The rule is, make a formal written
designation of any beneficiary other than the current spouse and make
certain that the current spouse agrees to that in writing.
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| Is that a face? |
• 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 25 different
countries and 35 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this
blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, India, , Canada,
the United Kingdom, and Spain. The most
popular postings this past week in descending order were “We the People,”
“The
Meaning of Life,” “Martin
Luther King Summit,” “News
from the Network, Vol. 13, No. 3,” and “Thomas
Hobbes on Private Property.”
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#
