“Modified Rapture”

Yes, it’s nice when, after years of rejecting the incredibly erudite and literary examples of the epistolary art we’ve submitted, the Washington Post published a letter we wrote.  And cut out the main point — which is that there is a solution to the current economic malaise that doesn’t rely on either massive redistribution or a miracle to implement.

What Burke Really Said

Every so often somebody quotes Edmund Burke, especially when he said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  This is a very fine sentiment.  The problem is that Burke never said it.

“Allowed Expedients”, Part V: The Principles of Economic Justice

In a (very) large number of previous postings on this blog, we’ve covered the basic mechanics of how ordinary people without savings can become capital owners without having to cut consumption (which they can’t do), or take what already belongs to others (thereby destroying the whole concept of private property).

“Allowed Expedients”, Part IV: The Solution

So far we have seen that distribution on the basis of need (or, more properly, redistribution of what belongs to others with a demonstrated “superabundance” to those who lack basic necessities) can be justified as an expedient under the principle of double effect.  That is, while redistribution is not just, using the coercive power of the State to take from the “haves” for the benefit of the “have nots” can be justified due to the danger to the common good represented by the potential social disruption resulting from unrelieved material distress.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 22

Most of the activity this week (except for the office pool betting when the Dow is going to hit 17,000) has been taking advantage of outreach opportunities resulting from last week’s meeting in Emmitsburg, Maryland.  The number of potential contacts was more than enough to show the effectiveness of the “door opening” strategy, and to inspire others to duplicate its success in promoting the Just Third Way:

“Allowed Expedients”, Part III: The Problem of Redistribution

In yesterday’s posting we saw how, even though paying interest (usury) on government debt is bad, it is not objectively evil.  It can be justified in extreme cases, even though it is clearly not justice.

“Allowed Expedients”, Part II: The Problem of State Usury

To be clear on how a State can justify redistribution in an emergency, we need to understand how that same State can justify paying interest (usury) on non-productive government debt.  First, we need to look at whether either redistribution or State usury can in any way be considered “distributive justice.”

“Allowed Expedients”, Part I: What’s Allowed?

A lot of “experts” are getting bent out of shape over pretty much anything Pope Francis says these days.  Take, for instance, his answer to somebody’s question as to whether he might retire as Pope Benedict XVI did.  Pope Francis’s answer was to the effect that, sure, it’s possible.  Immediately the pundits and commentators started discussing papal retirement as if it were an established fact and was scheduled for a few months from now.  You see the same thing every now and then when somebody asks whether it’s possible that Queen Elizabeth II could abdicate.  Sure she could.  Is it likely?  Hardly.

The Philosophical PhaceBook: Knowledge v. Opinion

As we’ve noted a number of times on this blog, some of our best postings are written by other people, or at least in response to questions and issues raised.  The rather unexpected popularity of the recent short series on Anti-Trust Law written mostly by Judge Peter Stenger Grosscup (1852-1921) is a case in point.  That’s why it’s so gratifying to receive a comment like the following:

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 22

The news from the financial front is that the stock market is still soaring, but people still seem to be poor.  At the same time, the “gold bugs” are claiming that a return to “the gold standard” is the silver bullet (sorry) needed to cure our economic ills and balance the budget.

Do We Own Our Social Security Accounts?, III: The Solution

The whole issue of Social Security that we’ve been looking at and the “unbooked” liability that, combined with projected Medicare and the prescription drug liabilities, is upwards of $129 trillion (yes, trillion, or nearly ten times total U.S. annual GDP) per the “National Debt Clock” would be a non-issue if the U.S. would adopt a Capital Homestead Act along the lines recommended in Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Approach for Saving Social Security (2004).

Do We Own Our Social Security Accounts?, II: The Situation

While we appreciate the sentiments expressed by the Lady in Montana given in the previous posting, and agree that, under the influence of Keynesian economics, politicians have been bleeding the productive private sector dry in favor of unproductive government spending and private sector speculation and gambling, the simple fact is that we do not own the money that we have paid into “our” Social Security accounts.  Social Security was designed as a redistribution program in which those paying the tax (and note that it is a tax, not a contribution) support those receiving benefits.

Do We Own Our Social Security Accounts?, I: The Complaint

A little while back we got a forwarded e-mail from a correspondent who occasionally sends us . . . provocative materials.  This piece, with the subject line, “Do You Think She’s Pissed?” contains language that really doesn’t have a place in a learned forum such as this, but it would detract from the overall impression to delete it.  We don’t even know if this thing is real, but that’s not the point: it expresses what many people believe Social Security to be, i.e., a bank account with our money in it, earning interest for our retirement.

Guest Posting: A Critical Response

Every so often (like every couple of hours or so) we get a response or a comment from someone who seems to have seen a word or two he or she disagrees with in something we said or wrote, and shoots off a comment before checking to see if his or her brain is loaded.  Usually the comment has nothing to do with what we actually said, but everything to do with what the commentator thinks we said, based on unquestioned assumptions of the commentator.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 21

Stock market soar like eagle . . . by suckering in turkeys.  Frankly, the wild swings in the stock market really ought to make people a lot more nervous than it does.  The same sort of thing was happening about this time in 1929.

“Inspired Amateurs Should Avoid Politics”

On May 12, 2014, the Wall Street Journal carried an op-ed piece that was truly opposed to what the newspaper claims to stand for.  (Contrary to popular opinion, “op-ed” doesn’t mean “opinion-editorial,” but “opposite the editorial page.”  An op-ed piece presumably reflects the personal opinion of the writer, not necessarily the official stance of the newspaper.  Look it up.)

Grosscup on Anti-Trust Laws, VII: Workers Should Be Owners

Today we close our short series consisting of the full text of Judge Peter S. Grosscup’s “long lost” talk on anti-trust legislation from October of 1907 — right after financier J. Pierpont Morgan caused the “Panic of 1907” by taking advantage of the financial mismanagement and shenanigans by the management of an important bank.  As Grosscup concluded,

Grosscup on Anti-Trust Laws, VI: National Commission on Corporation Reform

Cohan as Wallingford

We continue with publishing Judge Grosscup’s “long lost” talk on anti-trust laws from October, 1907.  Today we look at some of the abuses that the Progressive movement (the real one, not the pseudo-socialism that progressivism has become today) tried to address, e.g., “false capitalization.”  Take that, J. Rufus “Get-Rich-Quick” Wallingford!  (The first collection of stories about Wallingford, an “American Business Buccaneer,” appeared in 1907; Grosscup may even have had this fictional character in mind.)  As Grosscup continued,

Grosscup on Anti-Trust Laws, V: Securing an Interest in Combinations

This portion of Judge Grosscup’s talk brings in an assumption with which we disagree: that the process of capital formation in an advanced economy necessarily means that enterprises must be big, bigger, and biggest just to survive.  On the contrary, given the use of future savings to finance new capital formation and the operation of a truly free market, enterprises should be the optimal size for efficiency, not big or small to fit preconceived ideas.  This does not, however, invalidate the point Grosscup was making.  As he continued,

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 20

Most of this week was spent “cleaning up” from prior meetings, or arranging or preparing for future meetings.  Nevertheless, we did commit a few newsworthy acts:

Grosscup on Anti-Trust Laws, IV: Diffusion of Wealth in the United States

With all the discussion, acrimonious and otherwise, stirred up by Pope Francis’s tweet about inequality being the root of all social evil, it’s interesting to see that Judge Grosscup was saying pretty much the same thing more than a century ago.  As His Honor continued,

Grosscup on Anti-Trust Laws, III: Our Legislation Wrong in Principle

Here is the second part of Judge Grosscup’s talk on Anti-Trust Laws given in Chicago in October 1907, and lost until rediscovered recently by CESJ researchers.  Judge Grosscup continued,

Grosscup on Anti-Trust Laws, II: Opening Remarks

The following talk is taken from Proceedings on the National Conference on Trusts and Combinations Under the Auspices of the National Civic Federation, October 22-25, 1907, New York: The McConnell Printing Company, 1908, pp. 11, 221-231. . . . which title probably explains why this insightful talk was “long lost.”  It wouldn’t be at the top of too many reading lists being included in a book with a title like that.

Grosscup on Anti-Trust Laws, I: Introduction

It seems singularly appropriate to begin this series at this time, as the annual ESOP Association Conference was held in Washington, DC.  The awards ceremony was last Wednesday night, as a matter of fact, and EEI’s biggest for-profit client, Mid South Building Supply, won some prestigious awards.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 19

Most of the CESJ core group was busy this week with “outside” activities.  Nevertheless, a number of projects saw significant advances, although not in ways that make for good news items.  Events that do make good stories are:

Some Thoughts on Atheism, V: Will and Intellect

Replacing reason with faith, as the solidarist political scientist and jurist Heinrich Rommen pointed out in his book on the natural law, is the inevitable consequence of putting your private interpretation of the Will (opinion/faith) over Intellect (knowledge/reason), and leads (as Adler concurred) to pure moral relativism, even nihilism, and is the basis of totalitarian government.  Everything ends up being opinion.  Knowledge itself becomes fit only for ridicule.  Might makes right.

Some Thoughts on Atheism, IV: Faith v. Reason

Many atheists mistake materialism for science.  It is true that you cannot prove the existence of God by deduction.  You cannot put God in a test tube or under a microscope and subject Him to various experiments.  You cannot prove the existence of an immaterial being by material means.

Ukraine: The Free Trade Solution

Someone made an interesting suggestion about the crisis in Ukraine.  The current push for sanctions that doesn’t seem to be having any effect may not be the best way to go.  The country is in a state of disunity.  Making things worse doesn’t make things any better.

Some Thoughts on Atheism, III: Wiederspruch (Contradiction)

The habit of some religious believers of espousing a type of “muscular Christianity” (or Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or anything else) and attempting to bully people into believing their way has probably spawned more atheism than anything else.  Nobody likes a bully, and religious people can come across as (and sometimes are) bullies attempting to force others to do their will — or God’s Will, as they imagine it to be.  An atheist (or anyone else) is fully justified in thinking that any god that needs that kind of help can’t be much of a supreme being.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 18

Some very interesting things have been happening this week . . . some of the best of which we can’t tell you anything about because they’re still in the formative stages.  We do have enough, however, to show that we’re starting to make some significant progress:

“Inequality is the Root of All Social Evil”

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog posting to bring you an important news bulletin.  On Monday, April 28, 2014, Pope Francis did it again.  He completely baffled both “liberals” and “conservatives.”  He “tweeted” a short message (as if there can be extended discussion in a tweet): “Inequality is the root of all social evil.”

Some Thoughts on Atheism, II: Knowledge v. Opinion

Yesterday we saw that atheists (if they are being honest) hold their beliefs by faith just as much as believers in a deity.  The catch here for both atheists and theists, and the cause of much of the acrimony today over many things, not just religion, is that opinion may or may not be true, whereas knowledge is certainly true.

Some Thoughts on Atheism, I: Are Atheists the Enemy?

The canonizations of Pope John Paul II and John XXIII this past Sunday have caused a significant amount of discussion, some positive, some negative.  Much of it revealed a great misunderstanding of what, exactly, a “saint” is.  That’s not our concern.

Statism v. Catholic Social Teaching, III: “Monsignor New Deal”

Whether Pope Leo XIII really issued Rerum Novarum in part to refute the theories of the agrarian socialist Henry George is a debatable point . . . at least until we can get to the Vatican archives and do a little more research.  It is not, however, debatable that Henry George and a number of his modern followers believe that the pope singled out George for criticism.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 17

This week’s news items cover some items that you’ll never see in other newsletters, from newly canonized saints to the “Greek world” of sororities and fraternities.  Of great importance are the possible for-profit connections that are being made.

Statism v. Catholic Social Teaching, II: Rerum Novarum

Despite the fact that the Catholic Church has unequivocally condemned socialism, the idea that the State is the real owner of everything and can tax and redistribute for social purposes at will has pervaded Catholic social teaching since at least the mid-1880s.  This was when the agrarian socialist Henry George and Archbishop Michael A. Corrigan of New York went at it hammer and tongs.

Statism v. Catholic Social Teaching, I: The Role of Taxation

One of our vast crowd of readers commented in response to yesterday’s posting that mentioned Daniel Webster’s dictum from the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1820 (“Power naturally and necessarily follows property”), “Maybe that's why the State taxes us for owning property, and in extreme cases exercises eminent domain — just so we always remember who’s ‘boss’.”

Galloping Into Moral Relativism

There has been some talk recently (i.e., over the past century or so) about the need to call a halt to all the judicial activism that’s been going on, what some people have called “legislation by judiciary.”  The fact is that Congress (whether it meant to or not) has lost a great deal of the power the people grant to it in the Constitution, that the Executive (the president) and, especially, the Supreme Court have picked up.

A Plague on Both Your Houses, III: The American Revolutionary Party

This posting is not an endorsement of the American Revolutionary Party.  The American Revolutionary Party has a platform incorporating elements of the Just Third Way, but any other political party on earth is free to adopt any or all elements of the Just Third Way as well — and we wish they would.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 16

An objective observer of recent political and economic events might conclude that the world is reliving the first half of the 20^th century with a vengeance.  The domestic political and economic situation, the stock market fluctuations, events in Europe . . . all seemed designed to make students of history very nervous.  As Herbert Knox Smith summed up the situation more than a century ago,

A Plague on Both Your Houses, II: Democrats

Yesterday we told you what is wrong with the Republican emphasis on cost-cutting to balance the budget and restore fiscal sanity.  Today we are going to tell you what is wrong with the Democratic emphasis on increasing spending, both to meet people’s needs directly, and to stimulate the economy to create jobs that will, presumably, allow people to meet their own needs through their own efforts.

A Plague on Both Your Houses, I: Republicans

A few weeks ago both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post went into great depth on Representative Paul Ryan’s 98-page budget proposal that Ryan believes would balance the budget in a decade.  The Wall Street Journal seemed to like it.  The Washington Post wasn’t quite as enthusiastic.

Focus on the Fed, VI: Capital Homesteading, A Realistic Solution

As we saw in yesterday’s posting, many factors have combined to put propertyless workers (and everyone else without capital) into a very bad position.  The wealth and income gap continues to grow, while attempts to deal with it from within conventional frameworks only make the situation worse.

Focus on the Fed, V: Concentration of Wealth and the Income Gap

Last week the 10^th annual Rally at the Fed drew attention to some serious problems in the monetary and fiscal policy being followed by the world’s central banks, especially the Federal Reserve.  Used today almost exclusively to finance government, they were intended to be the lender of last resort for the private sector, not the money machine of first resort for government.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 15

Again, the Big News is today’s Rally at the Fed.  Other than that, most of the efforts this week have been directed at preparing for the rally and the CESJ celebration tomorrow.  Still, a few things have been happening:

Focus on the Fed, IV: Elastic Reserve Currency

In yesterday’s posting we stressed the importance of having a reserve currency — or any other weight or measure — that has a standard and stable value, and is asset-backed.  In today’s posting, we take a look at why, while a stable standard is absolutely critical, “elasticity,” that is, a money supply that expands and contracts with the needs of the economy, is also important, especially in a rapidly growing economy, or one in which most of the participants are not personally known to one another.

Focus on the Fed, III: Banking and Reserve Currency

As we saw yesterday, a stable and standard currency is of the utmost importance to maintain a stable economic and political situation.  The problem we look at today is how to maintain a stable and standard currency, especially when there are many different types of money in an economy.

Focus on the Fed, II: Say’s Law, or, No Consumption Without Production

As we saw in yesterday’s posting, the monetary reforms of the Just Third Way assume as a given that the purpose of production is consumption.  This is the basis of “Say’s Law of Markets,” which both Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes reject.

Focus on the Fed, I: How the Federal Reserve Creates Money

This piece is intended to orient the reader and frame the discussion presented in “A New Look at Prices and Money” by Norman G. Kurland.  “Prices and Money” was first published in The Journal of Socio-Economics (Vol. 30, pp 495-515), and is available online from the CESJ website.

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 14

Most of what happened this week has been in preparation of the 10^th annual Rally at the Fed, and CESJ’s 30^th anniversary celebration.  We expect to have a great deal more to report next Friday, although the news notes will be posted even later than this week to be able to report on the rally.

“Dangerously Low Inflation”

It was a rather startling thing to read in the lead article of the Wall Street Journal — but it was there.  On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, in the article on page A1 titled, “ECB Set To Mull Heavier Stimulus,” the venerable Wall Street Journal had the sentence, “European Central Bank officials . . . are willing to consider dramatic steps to guard against dangerously low inflation.”

A Proper Response

The other day someone sent around an e-mail suggesting that violence could solve many of today’s massive social and economic problems.  From a certain perspective, that is correct.  The idea that “violence never solved anything” is, frankly, just plain wrong.  Violence solves a lot of problems.  It just usually leaves you with much bigger problems than you started with.

Is Justice Reasonable? Absolutely!

It hardly comes as a surprise to any Aristotelian-Thomist, but a recent scientific study suggests that a concern for justice is linked not to emotion, but to reason.  This supports the contention that justice, a moral virtue, and, by extension, all moral virtues, is an act of the Intellect, not of the Will; an absolute, not subject to change to reflect the needs of the moment or fitted to expedients, however useful or desired.