Friday, April 26, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 17
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
The Financial Revolution
Few people — at least those of us who are not wealthy — would argue that there is something seriously wrong with the money system in the world today. Most people, however, either dismiss matters as “the way things are (and whatcha gonna do ’bout it?)” or assume it’s due to some conspiracy or other.
Monday, April 22, 2024
JTW Podcast: The Front Line with Joe & Joe
Friday, April 19, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 16
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
The Age of Revolution
To oversimplify somewhat, three revolutions have led to the alienation of most people from the institutions of the common good by stripping them of power. The first two did this almost inadvertently by limiting access to social and technological tools, while the third did it by the nature of the change itself. These were,
Monday, April 15, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Happiness
Mortimer Adler on happiness, and why it might not be exactly what you think. How do we live, and how do we live well?
Friday, April 12, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 15
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
The Political Animal
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
As we noted in the previous posting on this subject, being true to oneself means conforming to one’s human nature. By doing so, people become more fully human by acquiring and developing virtue (“human-ness”). If done at all, this is the work of a lifetime and the hardest path to follow.
Monday, April 8, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on the U.S. Constitution
We have a real treat in store for you today: Mortimer Adler on the U.S. Constitution, which many people do not realize is in very close conformity with Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy:
Friday, April 5, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 14
As usual, there are many problems in the world we report on this week that would either be greatly alleviated or eliminated entirely with the adoption of the Economic Democracy Act:, but the big job is convincing the powers-that-be it is a good idea and to get moving on it:
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Dorothy Jean Fry Previc, R.I.P.
Dawn K Brohawn, Guest Blogger
Recently CESJ was saddened to learn of the death on March 17, 2024 of our
member and long-time supporter Dorothy Jean Fry Previc. A resident of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Dorothy
graduated from T.C. Williams High School, Alexandria, VA, attended Mary
Washington University, Fredericksburg, VA and earned her Bachelor of Arts
degree in Political Science from Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA.
Monday, April 1, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Goodness
Today we have Mortimer Adler’s lecture on “Goodness” . . . which might not be as straightforward as it sounds . . . no, it's not an April Fool's joke:
Friday, March 29, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 13
As usual, there are many problems in the world we report on this week that would either be greatly alleviated or eliminated entirely with the adoption of the Economic Democracy Act:, but the big job is convincing the powers-that-be it is a good idea and to get moving on it:
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
The Reasonable Alternative
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Monday, March 25, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on How to Speak, How to Listen
Today we have Mortimer Adler’s lecture on “How to Speak, How to Listen,” taken from his book of the same title:
Friday, March 22, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 12
The only thing significantly different from previous news notes is the fact that they seem to be getting weirder . . . and staying the same all the time. Cutting to the chase, the only thing that’s going to make the situation better is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Faith and Reason
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Man, as Aristotle noted in the Politics, is the rational animal. Anything that shifts the human person away from reason as the foundation of a faith or a philosophy contradicts essential human nature, that is, what it means to be human.
Monday, March 18, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on the Great Ideas
Here is one of
Mortimer Adler’s appearances on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line about the need for genuine education:
Friday, March 15, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 11
It is depressing to see how strong a hold discredited economic theories have on today’s global and national economies. All of the news items this week wouldn’t even be on the radar if the so-called experts had sound principles and a workable paradigm, as found in the Economic Democracy Act:
Monday, March 11, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler Gets Attacked
Friday, March 8, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 10
Yes, it’s depressingly the same news items (or very nearly) week after week, but it’s what is going to continue happening until we adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Solidarity and Personalism
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Confronted today by growing conflict and inequality between people and nations around the globe, no one can ignore any longer the universal question that will shape the future for generations to come: What is the place of the human person — each of us — in society?
Monday, March 4, 2024
JTW Podcast: The Perennial Philosophy
Given that this week marks the 750th anniversary of the death of Thomas Aquinas, we thought we’d give you a little talk about Aquinas talking about how faith and reason go together:
Friday, March 1, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 09
At the top of the news this week, at least from the perspective of the Just Third Way, is Norman G. Kurland being honored as an Ambassador of Peace by the Universal Peace Federation:
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
The Just Third Way
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
The fortieth anniversary of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice is coming up. We’ll tell a little bit more about that as the anniversary itself, April 7, approaches, but today we’re looking at a major program developed by CESJ: the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism.
Monday, February 26, 2024
JTW Podcast: March on Washington, August 28, 1963
The National Archives film on the March . . . they left out private property in capital, though:
Friday, February 23, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 08
This week’s news items are again a brief chronicle of dumb government tricks seemingly validated by failed Keynesian economics. Again, as usual, we believe most if not all of these issues could be solved by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Five Levers of Change: Technology
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
For centuries workers have understood that when technology advances it usually means they will lose their jobs to machines that can do the work better and cheaper. Sometimes advancing technology creates more new jobs than it displaces, although this is not always a benefit. The cotton gin created an enormous demand for labor that was filled by expanding the number of human beings owned as slaves. The Industrial Revolution largely eliminated most production by small and family-owned enterprises and turned millions of people into “employees” dependent on private employers and the State.
Monday, February 19, 2024
JTW Podcast: Walter Reuther on Civil Rights, August 28, 1963
Friday, February 16, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 07
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Five Levers of Change: Tax Policy
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
In 1891, Pope Leo XIII declared that “Many excellent results will follow” from expanding ownership to as many people as possible (Rerum Novarum, § 47). As he said,
Monday, February 12, 2024
JTW Podcast: Walter Reuther on Profit Sharing, Part 2 of 2
As we noted in last week’s posting on this subject, January 1958 saw the publication of The Capitalist Manifesto by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler . . . and this Mike Wallace interview of labor leader Walter Reuther about profit sharing, of which we present Part 2 of 2 today:
Friday, February 9, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 06
This week we have a plethora of news items that sound remarkably like the previous week and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that . . . but you get the idea. Not to get repetitive, but most if not all of these issues could be solved by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Labor, Economic, and Civil Rights
What with the state of the economy and the so-called “woke” culture to which so many people today look for salvation when the solution is already within reach with a little effort, few realize that it was only a few decades ago that matters took a dramatically wrong turn. The Keynesian New Deal, which many believed was supposed to be temporary, became permanent public policy following World War II, even though its disutility was painfully obvious by 1936 and the surreal “Depression within the Depression” that directly resulted from Keynes’s prescriptions.
Monday, February 5, 2024
JTW Podcast: Walter Reuther on Profit Sharing, Part 1 of 2
January 1958 saw the publication of The Capitalist Manifesto by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler . . . and this Mike Wallace interview of labor leader Walter Reuther about profit sharing:
Friday, February 2, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 05
Ready for this week’s short list of economic insanity and gloom and doom? Neither are we, but here it is, anyway. Of course, we could adopt the Economic Democracy Act . . . so if people want to see something new in this report, get Congress to act . . .
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Five Levers of Change: Money and Credit
As we have seen in the previous postings on this subject, the meaning and purpose of life — becoming virtuous to become more fully human — requires that people have power. As a rule, to have power, people must have private property. In order to have private property and be secure in its possession, people must have access to the means of acquiring and possessing private property, and that requires access to the just and responsible use of money and credit.
Monday, January 29, 2024
JTW Podcast: The Great Conversation, XXXIX
This appears to be the final installment of “The Great Conversation” . . . like Jack Benny, they stopped at 39. The end or not of this series, today’s video is about how Herodotus explained the first ancient people and the origin of the Nile.
Friday, January 26, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 04
Yet again there is a depressing sameness about the news items this week. That means that our solution is the same, if not at all depressing: adopt the Economic Democracy Act . . . so if people want to see something new in this report, get Congress to act . . .
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Five Levers of Change: Politics
Aristotle |
Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Despite what “politics” means to most people, it is not something to avoid. In the Aristotelian, philosophical sense, politics refers to the behavior of human beings as “political animals” having both individual and social aspects. In this broad sense, politics refers to the art of securing and maintaining fundamental human rights of all persons without harm to other individuals, groups, or the common good as a whole. Social justice is the particular virtue directed to the common good by means of which this social order is structured, reformed, and maintained.
Monday, January 22, 2024
JTW Podcast: The Great Conversation, XXXVIII
Friday, January 19, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 03
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Five Levers of Change: Education
In social and economic justice, there is no “one size fits all.” Applying the principles of economic personalism to any particular society is and will always remain more of an art than a science. The question of which institutions need to be reformed and what will be the most effective means to do this is one that cannot be resolved easily. At the same time the question must be settled before any effective action can be taken.
Monday, January 15, 2024
JTW Podcast: The Great Conversation, XXXVII
Friday, January 12, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 02
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
The Framework of Economic Justice: Restoration of Private Property
As we saw in the previous postings on this subject, widespread private property in capital is essential to a just society. That of course raises the question as to what private property is.
Monday, January 8, 2024
JTW Podcast: How to Read a book
For today’s podcast, we’re starting off the year right, with an examination of Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book:
Friday, January 5, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 01
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
The Framework of Economic Justice: Free and Open Markets
Not too long ago a book came out purporting to instruct people on how to development and implement a truly free market. Since this posting is not a book review (and we don’t want to give the author of the tome more credit — or blame — than he, she, and, or, it has already garnered) we will refrain from saying any more than the author’s idea of a truly free market sounded a lot like some of the more restrictive forms of socialism.