Say’s Law: Balancing the Economy

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the concept of “productiveness,” that is, the idea that both labor and capital contribute to production as interdependent factors of production.  Further, the concept of productiveness includes the assumption that the ratio between the two can be measured.  Not that it is measured, just that it can be measured.

A Few Questions

As we may have mentioned once or twice, we like to get questions, if only because it saves us the labor of trying to think up ones ourselves.  The other day we got three questions that, slightly edited, we’ll post on today’s blog:  We were asked,

JTW Podcast: Blast from the Past, Walter Reuther

 

For years we’ve been referencing UAW President Walter Reuther’s testimony before Congress on the Kelso ideas in the late 1960s.  We recently came across an interview Reuther gave to Mike Wallace on January 25, 1958, by coincidence the same time Kelso and Adler’s The Capitalist Manifesto came out.  In the interview, which was posted on YouTube in two parts, Reuther doesn’t bring in ownership, but the analysis he gave — as an analysis — is very close to that of Kelso:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 12

For some reason, the postings on Justice University topics over the past week or so have proved to be astonishingly popular, especially one that brought in a rather esoteric subject, viz., what defines human beings as human beings.  Another unusual event this week was discovering a “long lost” (or at least unknown to us) video of an interview Mike Wallace had with Walter Reuther . . . in between puffs on his Parliament cigarette, anyway:

Productiveness v. Productivity

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the necessity for everyone who participates in economic life — as everyone must do in some manner or material wants and needs will go unfilled — to be able to employ both labor and capital to become a productive and contributing member of society.

The Two Factors of Production

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at a few things that make up “the binary difference”: the three principles of economic justice (participation, distribution, and social justice), and the four pillars of an economically just society (limited economic role for the State, free and open markets, restoration of private property, and expanded capital ownership).

The Binary Difference

Discussing the factors of production in economics is one thing.  Discussing them in the field of political economy is quite another.  Common sense, of course, tells us that there is no difference between economics as such, and political economy as such, and in fact some dictionaries use the same definition for both “economics” and “political economy.”

JTW Podcast: Economic Personalism, Human Dignity

In today’s podcast, the fifth in the series based on the book, Economic Personalism. , we take a look at what we mean by the term “human dignity.” It’s entirely possible that the answer might surprise you:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 11

Most of what is happening in the world still reflects continuing confusion over what to do about the economic, civil and political chaos ostensibly caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Unfortunately, what obscures the real problems and thus developing a solution is the failure to realize that the roots of the problem go back a few centuries earlier than the pandemic and have been building up for some time.  The so-called “new normal” is no more adequate than the “old normal” when it comes to respecting the dignity of every child, woman, and man.  What is needed is a complete restructuring of the social order in conformity with the principles of the Just Third Way, not a “Great Reset”:

Corporatism versus Distributism

In “Do We Agree?”, their final debate in 1927, Gilbert Keith Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw — immoderately moderated by Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (“I am here to sneer”) — once again presented the things on which they couldn’t agree.

6. Five Roadblocks to Social Justice: Thinking In Systems

In the previous posting on this subject we concluded our discussion of the “problem” of advancing technology and the presumed inability of those without capital ownership can never be owners.  The solution, of course, is to make everyone potentially “creditworthy,” and use money and credit properly to turn every child, woman and man into a capital owner by qualifying them to purchase self-liquidating capital, i.e., that pays for itself out of future profits.

5. Five Roadblocks to Social Justice: Financing the Future

In the previous posting on this subject we looked at the “problem” of advancing technology and the various responses that have been developed, which boil down to rejecting technology, or redistributing what belongs to others, whether the technology itself, or what it produces.  We closed by suggesting that envy and greed are not exactly optimal for anybody, and that perhaps we should be looking at justice — which is the response we will look at today.

JTW Podcast: Economic Personalism, Something Missing

 

This week’s video podcast continues the series based on the book, Economic Personalism.  This week we cover the second chapter in the book, “Something Missing.”  And what’s missing?  A correct understanding of distributive justice, social justice, money and credit . . . and that’s just the beginning:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 10

This week’s news items reflect the almost complete disconnect between production and consumption, and thus between producers and consumers, throughout the world.  In accordance with Say’s Law of Markets, consumption should equal production, since Adam Smith’s first principle of economics is that “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.”  When people produce far more than they can consume, and others can’t produce at all, then the obvious solution is to turn everyone into a producer, and that means expanded capital ownership:

4. Five Roadblocks to Social Justice: Technology

We now come to the fourth of the roadblocks to social justice: the effect of advancing technology.

Not to belabor the point, but as we stated in the previous posting on this subject, there are five situations that need to be addressed if we are to carry out a restructuring the social order.  Again, there may be more, but these are the ones we think are key to carry out a just, effective, and sustainable restructuring of the social order:

3. Five Roadblocks to Social Justice: Monetary Theory

 

As we again stated in the previous posting on this subject, five situations need to be addressed in order to carry out a program of restructuring the social order.  As we noted, there may be more, but these are the ones we think are key to carry out a just, effective, and sustainable restructuring of the social order:

2. Five Roadblocks to Social Justice: Savings

As we noted in the previous posting on this subject, there are five situations that need to be addressed in order to carry out a program of restructuring the social order.  While there may be more — even many more — we think these are the key institutions that need to be targeted first in order to carry out a just, effective, and sustainable restructuring:

JTW Podcast: Economic Personalism, The Question of the Person

Last week’s video podcast introduced this series based on the book, Economic Personalism.  This week we cover the first chapter in the book, “The Question of the Person.”  This is an important point, especially since so many people today do not grasp the fact that only human beings are natural persons, meaning we have rights by nature, not by grant, and not even the United States Supreme Court can really say otherwise:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 09

Today’s news notes may require a caveat.  CESJ is not, as an organization, either “pro-life” or “pro-choice.”  Members and supporters make up their own minds and are free to do so.  Many people in CESJ, however, are of the opinion that any government that adopts the Economic Democracy Act would also remove any economic justification or excuse for abortion.  Many people in CESJ also believe (with some vocal dissenters) that using government money to support abortion violates the “social contract” between citizens and their government.  With that in mind, some of the news items explain how — using abortion funding as one example — private organizations and government can “hide” money they don’t want to account for::

1. Five Roadblocks to Social Justice: Social Justice!

      As a slight change of pace (although not very much of one), we thought we’d address some basic concepts and principles that stand in the way of carrying out acts of social justice instead of simply talking about situations that need to be addressed through acts of social justice.  Of course, paradoxically, these “Five Roadblocks to Social Justice” are things that need to be addressed by acts of social justice, with the first being social justice itself!

Are All Things Lawful to the Elect?

In his book, Enthusiasm (1950), Monsignor Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (1888-1957) noted what he called the “ultrasupernaturalist” or enthusiastic tendency to subordinate everything, especially the precepts of the natural law, to one’s desires and personal interpretation of something accepted as God’s Will . . . or one’s personal will, if he or she happens to be a self-contained deity.

Two Modern Problems

Be warned: today’s posting gets into philosophy, which we define as “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.”  Having a philosophy means that you have some framework for understanding what you know (why you know something), what’s real and what’s not real, and whether or not you exist.  Not caring about these things is as much a philosophy as discussing them at great length.

JTW Podcast: Economic Personalism, Introduction

In something of a change of pace, this week’s video begins a series based on the new book, Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person, which can be purchased or downloaded free by following the link.  This week we have an introduction to the subject: