News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 52

Today we present the second half of our annual Just Third Way news roundup, with, however, a slightly more cheery current item than we had last week:

What Sun Tzu Didn’t Tell You

One thing about working in the field of theoretical and practical economics is that you get to hear all the really dumb things people say about money and credit.  Almost as bad on occasion, and often worse (if you know anything about military science), are the things you hear about war.  That’s why one of the worst movies of all time — at least from a moral point of view — has got to be Wall Street (1987).

China’s Contradictory Messages

In a piece in this past Monday’s Washington Post, “China’s Contradictory Messages on Democracy and Hong Kong” (12/27/21, A-15), Keith B. Richburg of the University of Hong Kong noted how the People’s Republic of China is talking out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to democracy.  We agree, although not perhaps in the same way as Mr. Richburg.

The Very Model of a Modern Chestertonian

Our previous posting on this subject was an expansion of a comment we made on an article, “Catholics and Race in American History,” on the website of the Catholic World Report, a Catholic webzine.  We thought we were agreeing with the author, Kevin Schmiesing, but adding a few interesting tidbits we’ve uncovered in our research as well as a little analysis of our own.

JTW Podcast: How to Misunderstand William Cobbett

 

William Cobbett (1763-1835) Was an English “Radical” politician, journalist and social commentator revered by many “Chestertonians” as “the Apostle of Distributism,” what G.K. Chesterton defined as a policy of widely distributed small property, with a preference for family-owned farms and businesses.

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 51

Ordinarily we don’t post anything substantive on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, but (as it does every couple of years or so) both fall on the day we annually reserve for our news roundup for the year.  Before we begin with the items from the first half of the year, however, we have some sad news for friends of the Just Third Way:

Slavery and Moral Relativism

Recently an article appeared on Catholic World Report, “Catholics and Race in American History,” the point of which seemed to be to excuse a presumed lack of action by the Catholic Church in failing to condemn slavery while it was legal, and present a sterling record of condemning racism ever since.  The problem with the article was that it missed certain things that would have made the institutional Catholic Church look a lot better than it did, while making individual Catholics look a lot worse.

Ryan, Coughlin, and the New Deal

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, we saw that the New Deal really had nothing to do with any natural law-based approach to social thought, or even “supernatural law” approach, either, if we accept Dorothy Day’s strictures about the dangers of giving “Holy Mother, the State” such overwhelming power.

The Right Reverend New Dealer

 

To this day there are people who insist that the “New Deal” of Franklin Delano Roosevelt not only saved the United States from the Great Depression (ahem, Part III, there having been two previous phases, the first from 1873 to 1878, the second from 1893 to 1898), it was also THE perfect social program and should be duplicated today as in (for example) the so-called “Green New Deal.”

JTW Podcast: 2010 Rally at the Fed

In this week’s podcast we bring you the 2010 Keynote Address given by Norman Kurland, president of the Center for Economic and Social Justice, giving the reasons why we need what we were then calling the Capital Homestead Act, but are now calling the Economic Democracy Act:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 50

As we plan on starting our annual two-part news roundup next week, this is the final “real time” News from the Network for this year.  As you can see, not too much is going on that is any different from prior weeks, making it increasingly obvious that we need the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism and the Economic Democracy Act:

The Role of the State

Recently we saw a tweet or twit or whatever-you-call-’em stating that the terms “student debt” and “medical debt” should be eliminated, as no one should have to go into debt in order to get an education or be healthy.  We couldn’t figure out, however, whether the poster meant that people should pay only what they can for schooling and healthcare, or it should all be free, i.e., paid for by somebody else, usually the State meaning everybody else.

The War on Private Property

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the dominance of Msgr. John A. Ryan over the interpretation of social teaching — achieved by shifting from reason to faith (meaning personal opinion heavily influenced by socialism) — meant that any who opposed socialism were ipso facto heretics instead of simply mistaken or even right when Ryan was wrong.  Ryan’s influence even extended to having his students hint that Fulton Sheen was a “traitor to Christ” for saying things that Ryan didn’t want to hear.

Ryan v. Sheen

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, through some very skillful salesmanship and philosophical sleight-of-hand, the whole understanding of “natural law” in the western tradition was overthrown in many circles through the efforts of the Fabian socialists and Msgr. John A. Ryan of the Catholic University of America in the first half of the twentieth century.  Nor did matters stop at mere theorizing.

JTW Podcast: Louis Kelso: Economic Theorist

This week’s podcast is an old video from 1983 of an interview with Louis O. Kelso, the lawyer-economist who invented the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and whose ideas were essential to the development of the Economic Democracy Act:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 49

It is becoming increasingly obvious to everyone except those in politics and academia that the Same Old Thing isn’t working.  To cut to the chase, until and unless governments adopt the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism and the Economic Democracy Act, matters are only going to get worse:

It’s Not Socialism Except When It Is

In the previous posting on this subject, we noted that, while the most popular interpretation of “Catholic social teaching” (really the natural law social teaching that applies to everyone, including atheists and anybody else who is a human being, regardless of faith or philosophy or lack thereof and how’s that for a run-on parenthetical?), and even considered “authoritative” — even though it contradicts the very authorities on which it bases its claims.

A New Age Economic Program

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, one of the biggest shifts in thinking that has caused massive amounts of trouble over the past couple of centuries is the shift from reason, to faith in matters pertaining to the natural order.  This sounds bad to atheists and agnostics, and good to (some) theists, but the simple fact is that it’s bad for everyone.

What Happened to Distributive Justice?

 

In the previous posting on this subject, we related that Msgr. John A. Ryan changed the basis and understanding of the natural law from reason to faith.  The problem there, of course, is that if the natural law is based on reason, it applies to every human being.  If it is based on faith, it only applies to those who adhere to the faith that determines the natural law.

JTW Podcast: The Great Game of Business

Today we have a video introducing “the Great Game of Business” and “Open Book Management.”  Rather than try to explain here what these are, watch the short video, then correlate it with the Economic Democracy Act:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 48

As of this writing, the Dow down more than 250 points on continuing worries about the effects of the new Omicron COVID-19 strain.  Once again it demonstrates the fact that we need to get away from obsessing about what is essentially a fantasy world on Wall Street and focus on the real world of Main Street.  To do that we need the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism and the Economic Democracy Act:

John A. Ryan v. Aquinas

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the different roles of faith and reason.  To oversimplify somewhat, reason takes first place in matters pertaining to the natural world, while faith takes first place in matters pertaining to the supernatural world.  At the same time, neither faith nor reason can contradict one another.

Faith AND Reason

As we saw in our last exciting episode, you can’t really understand or critique a system unless you understand the principles of the system.   Despite that, many people today declare that they can change the fundamental principles of natural law within an Aristotelian system from reason-based, to faith-based.