Other people and things may get into the Summer Doldrums, but not us. There is always something going on, whether at CESJ, the Just Third Way, Justice University, and other individuals and groups:
Dr. Norman A. Bailey
• Meeting with Dr. Norman Bailey. This past Wednesday the CESJ Core Group and Justice University team met with Dr. Norman Bailey, visiting the U.S. from Haifa University in Israel. Dr. Bailey, who was in the Reagan White House and involved in the Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice, brought us up to date on recent developments and gave us his analysis of a number of key happenings in the world. We were able to put him in touch with a CESJ Fellow in Morocco who attended the first formal Justice University class series and who is interested in doing development and educational projects in North Africa.
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| (Bank) note of things to come? |
• Federal Reserve Digital Currency. Lauded as a way of being able to print and spend money at a much faster rate than now, the Federal Reserve has been looking into employing a digital currency instead of issuing checks, debit cards, or printing banknotes. From the Just Third Way perspective, of course, the question is not how to create and spend money even faster — it’s already being done at a rate unequaled except during the hyperinflation in Germany and Austria-Hungary following World War I — but how to turn people who are not productive now into producers so that they produce and trade for what they consume instead of relying on redistribution to meet their needs. If there are no jobs, people should own capital — and the Economic Democracy Act is a way to turn every child, woman, and man into an owner of capital.
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| "Ownership? I thought you'd never ask!" |
• Why Not Ownership? It seems that with the prevalence of internet commuting, the larger tech firms are finding it much easier to headhunt for talent among the smaller companies. It used to be that the smaller companies could offer non-urban settings and a friendlier cultural ambiance (or something like that) in lieu of higher pay. Now the smaller firms are even losing key management to the big boys, who can sometimes offer multiples of the salary people were making at the smaller companies, and all without having to relocate to places where they don’t want to live. In self-defense, the smaller companies are raising salaries . . . but not doing the one thing that they can do much easier than the larger firms: cut the workers in on ownership. Owning and taking a share of profits instead of higher salary keeps costs down, builds loyalty, and gives workers a direct stake in making and keeping the company profitable.
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| Bob Moses |
• Bob Moses. We were saddened early this week to learn of the death of civil rights activist and educator Bob Moses. CESJ and the Just Third Way have a connection with him. In the 1960s, Bob asked Norman Kurland to come to Greenwood, Mississippi to assist in the effort to open voting to Blacks. Norm, who was then with the federal government, went down to Greenwood with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and attended a meeting at which the Mayor of Greenwood and Chief of Police were present to discuss the situation . . . after the governor said any Black person who tried to vote should be arrested. After some discussion with Norm, the Chief of Police agreed to allow everyone to vote as long as it remained peaceful, which it did.
• Hortense and Her Whos. In case you’ve been wondering how you might advance the Just Third Way by introducing it to legislators at any and all levels of government, we’ve made it easy for you, with the “Hortense Hears Three Whos” initiative. Visit the explanatory website, and consider downloading the postcard to send to people in government. Don’t worry if you think they won’t be open to it, as the postcard is intended to get them to open their eyes.
• Economic Personalism Landing Page. A landing page for CESJ’s latest publication, Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person, has been created and can be accessed by clicking on this link. Everyone is encouraged to visit the page and send the link out to their networks.
• Economic Personalism. When you purchase a copy of Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person, be sure you post a review after you’ve read it. It is available on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble at the cover price of $10 per copy. You can also download the free copy in .pdf available from the CESJ website. If you’d like to order in bulk (i.e., ten or more copies) at the wholesale price, send an email to publications@cesj.org for details. CESJ members get a $2 rebate per copy on submission of proof of purchase. Wholesale case lots of 52 copies are available at $350, plus shipping (whole case lots ONLY). Prices are in U.S. dollars.
• Sensus Fidelium Videos, Update. CESJ’s series of videos for Sensus Fidelium are doing very well, with nearly 150,000 views in total. The latest Sensus Fidelium video is “The Principles of Economic Justice.” The video is part of the series on the book, Economic Personalism. The latest completed series on “the Great Reset” can be found on the “Playlist” for the series. The previous series of sixteen videos on socialism is available by clicking on the link: “Socialism, Modernism, and the New Age,” along with some book reviews and other selected topics. For “interfaith” presentations to a Catholic audience they’ve proved to be popular, edging up to 150,000 views to date. They aren’t really “Just Third Way videos,” but they do incorporate a Just Third Way perspective. You can access the playlist for the entire series The point of the videos is to explain how socialism and socialist assumptions got such a stranglehold on the understanding of the role of the State and thus the interpretation of Catholic social teaching, and even the way non-Catholics and even non-Christians understand the roles of Church, State, and Family, and the human person’s place in society.
• 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 22 different countries and 37 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ireland. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “The Purpose of Production,” “The Meaning of Life,” “News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 29,” “Binary Economic Personalism” and “JTW Podcast: How to Speak and How to Listen.”
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.
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