Economic Emancipation, I: What’s the Good Word?

We had an interesting discussion on terminology a week or so ago after a meeting held for another purpose entirely.  Someone suggested that, since we are trying to tailor our message to some degree to “young people” (i.e., anyone younger than the speaker) we might want to consider changing the term “Capital Homesteading” to something to which “young people” can more easily relate.  He thought that “Economic Liberation” might be a good term.

“Too Dumb to Go to College”

We realize that everybody and his brother is posting something about Saint Patrick, the Irish, green beer, and corned beef and cabbage today.  We’ll leave that to the amateurs.  Today we’re going to look at something more truly Irish than having a party once a year to celebrate yet another holiday that would utterly baffle the person it’s named for.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 11

What with the beating the stock market took yesterday, there is still nothing to disabuse us of the notion that we’re seeing a replay of 1929: wild swings in the stock market in the first half of the year, slightly steady increases in the beginning of the third quarter, then skyrocketing increases and a crash in October.

A Matter of Jurisdiction, II: The State and Marriage

Olde Tyme Civil Contract

In yesterday’s posting we learned that you can’t always believe what the media say about what anyone says, especially Pope Francis (a.k.a., the coolest pope ever).  As astounding as this revelation no doubt is to some, it’s really business-as-usual.  The issue was “civil unions” and (surprise, surprise), the pope said that he wasn’t going to say anything until he knew the facts.

A Matter of Jurisdiction, I: What Did He Say NOW?

Pope Francis, formerly known as “the coolest pope ever,” has once again overstepped his bounds and said things that neither “liberals” nor “conservatives” understand.  That man should be ashamed of saying things that people actually have to think about instead of pigeonholing immediately into whatever preconceived prejudice they prefer.

Absolutely Not Absolute, II: What is a “Right”?

In yesterday’s posting we raised the issue of people who don’t know what they’re talking about when they start pontificating about rights.  There is massive confusion over whether rights are, or are not “absolute.”  There is even a bit of confusion over what, exactly, a “right” is.

Absolutely Not Absolute, I: The First Principle of Reason

For some time now we’ve been coming across statements and claims that exhibit an incredible amount of confusion concerning what Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (1879-1918) called “fundamental legal conceptions” in his posthumous classic work, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning (1919), a snappy and descriptive title if we ever saw one.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 10

Everyone at CESJ and the Coalition for Capital Homesteading is gearing up for the annual “Rally at the Fed.”  Even so, there are a lot of things happening, with this week being particularly productive.  This may be due in some measure to our current intern, who seems to be something of a mover and shaker at American University.  If you’re in the “market” for an unpaid internship (although you do get free lunches), consider CESJ.  You’ll be able to get in on the ground floor of such initiatives and projects as:

“On Facing Facts”, III: “It’s Not Our Way”

In yesterday’s posting we mentioned an essay by G. K. Chesterton from an obscure collection published in 1934 that started us on the train of thought that led to this brief series.  In the essay, “On Facing Facts,” Chesterton opined that Englishmen of his day tended to live a little too much in the far-distant past, and not enough in the more recent past.

“On Facing Facts”, II: Living in the Past

In the posting of Monday of this week, we mentioned that how we meet our duties to our fellow man is irrelevant as long as the means is ethical and we get the job done.  In yesterday’s posting (Tuesday’s, if you’re keeping track), we noted that there is a slight variation on that which ends up being its exact opposite: the means is irrelevant as long as we get what we want.

“On Facing Facts”, I: What is Truth?

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon began his essay “On Truth” with, “What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” An interesting opening, but it assumes that Pilate was joking, when it is evident that he was not. He was simply stating what, for him, was a fact: that truth was of no relevance to what concerned him the most.

A Two-Pronged Strategy, II: The Two Great Commandments

As we saw in the previous posting in this series, the point of Catholic or any other religion’s social teaching is not to take care of people directly, except in extreme cases.  The same goes for what the State is supposed to be doing.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 09

Here’s how you, too, can make a fortune by speculating in something that doesn’t exist.  First, invent a virtual (fictional) commodity that can be generated by a computer program.  Next, come up with a snappy name for it, oh, say, a “Wit-coin.”

A Two-Pronged Strategy, I: The Temporal v. the Spiritual

A State Church

Many people assume that the roles of Church and State can be summed up very easily: meet people’s material needs.  Of course, if that orientation is correct, then either organized religion or government is redundant.  In the interests of efficiency, organized religion should take over government, or government should take over organized religion, whichever is in the best interests of the common good, or is consistent with the will of the people.  And, since the State has a monopoly on the instruments of coercion, you know who is going to win.

Capitalist Socialism, II: The Citizens Land Bank

In yesterday’s posting we saw that the United States could easily go the way of ancient Rome.  No, really.  If we really understand that Rome didn’t really “fall,” but slowly decayed and transformed into the Medieval world as conventional government spent itself into oblivion trying to meet every need, and then the modern world (where governments are spending themselves into bankruptcy trying to meet every need), it becomes comprehensible.

Capitalist Socialism, I: “Private Capital for Public Works”

One of the most serious signs of decay of the more or less cohesive classical Roman Empire and its transformation into the more inchoate “Christendom” of the Middle Ages composed of increasingly nationalistic groups was the takeover of State functions by private individuals.  Mostly this was the defense of the Empire, and the responsibility for raising and equipping troops (hence the rise of feudalism), but it included maintenance of infrastructure as well.  This turned the rich into the real rulers, an aristocracy, as distinct from the nominal rulers, the emperor (when there was one), and the local senate.

Woodrow Wilson and Walter Bagehot

Woodrow Wilson

Many people are unaware that Woodrow Wilson was a disciple of Walter Bagehot, who derived his theories in part from Thomas Hobbes, the totalitarian political philosopher. Not surprisingly, then, Wilson was an elitist who had a deep suspicion and mistrust of ordinary people, as well as those he seemed to view as demagogues, such as William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt. Bryan was someone to be used to counter Roosevelt, a sort of a backfire, or (perhaps more consistent with Wilson’s attitude) a thief to catch a thief.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 08

Although the booming stock market has convinced many people that economic recovery is well in hand and progressing more or less on schedule, there are signs of serious problems remaining.  Chief among these is the fact that, while the stock market has recovered and more, reaching its highest level ever, there don’t seem to be too many actual people benefiting from this so-called “recovery.”

Henry George v. Cardinal Gibbons

Georgist “legend” today has it that James Cardinal Gibbons (1834-1921), “quasi-primate” of the United States, did not put Progress and Poverty (1879) by agrarian socialist Henry George (1839-1897) on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“List of Prohibited Books”) because the Catholic Church found nothing wrong with George’s theory that individual people cannot own land.

State Blackmail

Ultimately, the goal of the Just Third Way (in the short term) is to surface a world leader and present him or her with a possible framework for solving the problems world leaders are faced with, and for that leader to communicate to the world that the principles of economic justice as presented by Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler, and refined by CESJ.

A Simple Solution to a Complex Problem

Yesterday’s Washington Post (02/17/14) carried two columns related to the growing economic inequities.  From Robert Samuelson there was “Economists in the Dark.”  From Lawrence Summers there was “How to Curb Inequality.”  Both were on page A19.

Private Property: Absolute? or Absolutely Not!

A lot of people have a lot of problems with the word “absolute.”  They absolutely refuse to listen to anything that implies there might be such things as absolutes, moral or otherwise.  “There are no absolutes!” they trumpet . . . to which the obvious response is, “Are you absolutely sure of that?”

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 07

The new CESJ website is launched! Kudos to CESJ Director of Communications Dawn K. Brohawn for all her work in bringing this major effort to fruition.  If you go to the CESJ website and it looks the same as ever, just hit the “refresh” button, and you’re in for a treat.  All of your existing links should work.

Fuller Wages, II: Contrary to Nature

In yesterday’s posting we noted that, in addition to the fact that paying people on the basis of need keeps them in a condition of dependency, that is, having the status of children or slaves, there is another, really big problem involved.  We have to face up to the fact that paying people more (or less) than they are worth is contrary to principles of justice, that is, to nature.

Fuller Wages, I: “A Condition of Dependency”

First off, for those of you who think that this is a posting about the Fuller Brush Company, still going strong after more than a century (although we don’t see anything about worker ownership . . . ), we’ll give the standard response we get when we ask people what’s wrong with the Just Third Way: “You’re just wrong, that’s all.”  In any event, just because you haven’t seen a Fuller Brush Man (or Ma’am) doesn’t mean 1) the company isn’t around, or 2) it doesn’t have a good product.

Some Nineteenth Century Notes

Bagehot’s 1873 book, Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market, is an application of Bagehot’s theories of sovereignty described in The English Constitution. Bagehot embraced a political — and thus economic — system that assumed a political (and thereby financial) elite as a given and a positive good, as a necessity, in fact, if society is to advance socially, economically, and politically.

It’s Called a “MyRA”, III: A Better idea

In this brief series we’ve seen that the “MyRA” is a step . . . but in the wrong direction.  Aside from the fact that the whole idea is to get people to save more at the same time the government is making it more expensive to live (and then raising costs by increasing wages without a corresponding increase in labor productiveness), everything relies on an outdated and, frankly, failed understanding of money, credit, banking, finance . . . and power.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 06

Just as Americans are being socked with some rather hefty increases in their health insurance, thereby further reducing what in many cases is an already inadequate consumption income, the latest “crusade” is the panic over the fact that Americans are not saving enough for retirement; that retirement needs are short by “trillions” of dollars.

It’s Called a “MyRA”, II: A Few Problems

In the previous posting in this mercifully brief series we tried to describe the “MyRa” proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union Address.  Putting the best possible light on the subject, the MyRA does not appear to have the potential to do what Mr. Obama evidently assumes it will do: encourage Americans to save for retirement.

It’s Called a “MyRA”, I: What is It?

Last week during his State of the Union address, President Obama rolled out a retirement program for people who are employed by companies that don’t have retirement plans.  It is, at the very least, sounding better than the Affordable Care Act.  The president didn’t say that if you like your current retirement plan, you can keep it.

Why Economists are Unemployed

Why get a “good education”?  Why, to get a “good job,” of course.  A college diploma is a sure ticket to a lifetime of employment with the money just rolling in  . . . hopefully enough to repay all those student loans you had to take out to pay for the education that was guaranteed to get you that good job.

What is a “Bill of Exchange”?

This past Friday we got a question about bills of exchange, the financial instruments we’ve been talking about for some time.  Specifically, someone said, “‘discounting bills of exchange’ is something that I have been trying to wrap my head around for a while. In layman's terms, what does it mean?”

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 05

If you’re worried about the increasingly wild stock market fluctuations, President Obama’s State of the Union Address, the Bitcoin brouhaha, or the cold weather, don’t worry, we’re on it.  All except for the cold weather.  Today, however, we’re concentrating on this week’s news items, of which there are a couple of some significance:

How to Save Your Sixteenth Century Mansion

A week or so ago we came across a plea for contributions so that some group in the United Kingdom could purchase a near-pristine example of sixteenth century “recusant” architecture.  A “recusant” was a Catholic who refused to conform to the legally established Church of England, thereby becoming subject to fines or imprisonment.

“Raw Judicial Power” V: A Pro-Life Economic Agenda

In yesterday’s posting we pointed out what we think are a few technical flaws in the legal opinion rendered in Roe v. Wade.  If we’re correct, the Court’s opinion may have been unconstitutional, that is to say, illegal.  Frankly, whether you’re Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, the reasoning behind the decision has got to make you a little queasy.

“Raw Judicial Power” IV: Roe v. Wade, 1973

In yesterday’s posting we saw how in 1857 and in 1873 the U.S. Supreme Court managed to change the meaning of the Constitution by the simple expedient of asserting an effective change in the source of rights from human beings to the State.  Exactly a century later the Supreme Court used that change (which nullified the Fourteenth Amendment it was allegedly upholding) as the basis for the decision in Roe v. Wade.

“Raw Judicial Power” III: Slaughterhouse, 1873

The United States Congress enacted two “Reconstruction Amendments” after the Civil War.  The first of these, the 13^th, abolished chattel slavery, that is, human beings owned as private property by other human beings.  (If you read the amendment carefully, you’ll see that it didn’t abolish slavery altogether. People convicted of crimes can still lose their rights; a slave is legally defined as a human being without rights.)

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 04

The freezing temperatures here around Washington, DC, and the currency spectacle in Argentina (and pretty much everywhere else in the world) do have something in common.  Not much, but something.  I’ll explain.

“Raw Judicial Power” II: Scott v. Sandford, 1857

As we saw in yesterday’s posting, the “issue behind the issue,” that is, the true significance of Roe v. Wade, was not the particular decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1973.  It is, rather, the fact that the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade reflected a prior bad resolution to a serious problem: the question as to what, exactly, is a human person, and who decides who or what is a person?

“Raw Judicial Power” I: “The Beginning of the Quarrel”

Given that today is the annual “March for Life” in Washington, DC, and that the Just Third Way as applied in Capital Homesteading can (at least in one sense) be described as a “Pro-Life economic agenda,” it seems appropriate to post a few comments about what, from a natural law point of view, must be regarded as a fundamental human right, that of life.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

The cornerstone of the English common law on which the United States legal system is founded is the presumption that every single person is innocent until he or she can be proven guilty.  You may “know” in your heart that someone is guilty of everything of which you accuse him or her, or of the vague rumors you thought you heard somewhere or other, but if you cannot prove that someone has done something, then (as Mortimer Adler pointed out in Ten Philosophical Mistakes) all you have is opinion.

Income Inequality and Capital Homesteading

Two weeks ago in the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker asked for suggestions on terms to replace “income inequality” in her column (“Language Inequality,” 01/07/14, A17).  We suggested “Capital Homesteading.”  Capital Homesteading, after all, embodies “the four pillars of an economically just society,” and the income gap is generally framed as an issue of justice:

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 03

Things seem to be gaining momentum in the Just Third Way.  Those who are open to new ideas are starting to investigate with more seriousness, while those who are not seem to be “circling the wagons,” so to speak, and repeating disproved claims in an effort to discredit anything they don’t understand.

The Incredible Dollar, II: The Number One Rule for a Reserve Currency

As we noted yesterday, we got an e-mail a short time back expressing concern over the declining “credibility” of the dollar, and the refusal of a currency exchange in a remote area of Brazil to accept U.S. dollars any more.  The response by Norman Kurland, president of CESJ, was pretty good, but we thought it left out a few things, so here goes:

The Incredible Dollar, I: The Situation

A couple of weeks ago we got an e-mail from a correspondent in Brazil, an American clergyman who has retired there.  The clergyman (we’ll call him “HH”) made the following comments (anything in brackets is something we inserted for clarity):

Faith and Reason Again, II: The Thomist Just Third Way

Yesterday we looked at the respective roles of faith and reason, and how they are complementary.  We also emphasized the fact that, while faith and reason go together, neither one can substitute or fill in for the other.  Today we will apply the basic principles we looked at yesterday, with emphasis on the natural law basis of the Just Third Way.

This is because the current movement to eliminate “exchange” based on justice and base economic life on “gift” based on charity — the so-called “logic of gift” that rejects the gift of logic — is, ultimately, both wrong-headed and anti-human. It implicitly denies the humanity of those who do not have charity, making them less than human.  It also strokes the ego of the ones attempting to impose gift in place of exchange, for it turns them into a spiritual and material elite with gnostic knowledge not available to hoi polloi.

Faith and Reason Again, I: “What is Man?”

Right after the New Year another discussion popped up about the respective roles of faith and reason.  Both have their place.  It’s just not the same place.  As we might have mentioned once or twice on this blog with respect to how the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, has been egregiously misused, you don’t use a tool designed for one thing to do another.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 02

Confusion over the Affordable Care Act seems to be increasing.  Getting a straight story or response from anybody seems to be impossible.  This may be because of the imposition of political goals on what should be medical, ethical, and religious issues, a danger against which Dr. Leo Alexander warned in 1949 in his landmark article in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Medical Science Under Dictatorship.”

A Brief Course in Banking Theory, IIIb: Central Banks

At its most basic, a central bank does only two things.  One, it rediscounts bills of exchange originally discounted by its member commercial banks.  Two, it purchases mortgages and bills of exchange issued by non-member banks, businesses, and individuals on the “open market.”

A Brief Course in Banking Theory, IIIa: Central Banks

Yesterday we promised to take a look at central banks.  Today we’re keeping that promise.  This is singularly appropriate, because issue banking and central banking (a type of issue banking) run on promises.  If people don’t keep promises, banking, even money and credit, simply don’t and won’t work.

A Brief Course in Banking Theory, IIb: Banks of Issue

In the previous posting in this mercifully brief series, we described how, simply by making promises to deliver marketable goods and services in the future, people can start with absolutely nothing and end up with something they want.  The system we described, however, relies on everybody in the system knowing and trusting everybody else.  What happens when the system gets too big for everyone to know and trust everyone else?

A Brief Course in Banking Theory, IIa: Banks of Issue

In the previous posting in this short series we covered what money is, and how a bank of deposit operates.  As we promised, here’s a brief explanation of how a “bank of issue” operates.  Believe it or not, although “bank of deposit” is what most people think of as a bank, “banks of issue” (also called “banks of circulation”) are thousands of years older.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 01

It’s the most chilling headline you could read if you know anything about defined benefit plans and the way the stock market really operates.  This morning’s Washington Post blithely declared “Corporate Pension Plans at Strongest Funding in Years” (Economy & Business, Friday, January 3, 2014, A11).  So how is this “chilling”?  Isn’t this a good thing?

A Brief Course in Banking Theory, I: Banks of Deposit

As 2014 is the centennial of the first year of operation of the Federal Reserve System, we thought it appropriate to start off the New Year with a brief dissertation on commercial and central banking, and how they are supposed to be used — as opposed to how such banks are being used or, more properly, misused these days.