Solidarism and the Common Good

Today we start to look at how to restore solidarism to comply more closely with the vision of Father Heinrich Pesch, S.J., whom we have decided is not the founder of solidarism, but its redeemer, so to speak.  To do this we have to understand the whole point of solidarism, at least from the natural law, “Christian” (or Catholic) perspective: to enhance the dignity of the human person under God.

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 42

As the situation continues to deteriorate nationally and internationally, and the long slide to moral relativism and nihilism (to say nothing of capitalism and socialism and ismism) continues, the number of surreal incidents and just plain nuttiness accelerates to what, without the act of social justice and the principles of economic justice, would be the point of no return.  Just keep the Just Third Way in mind as you read this issue of New from the Network if you want to retain your sanity:

Faux Solidarism and the Totalitarian State

In yesterday’s posting we gave a brief overview of solidarism, especially as it relates to individual and social virtue.  We closed by noting, however, that what passes for solidarism in many cases these days can hardly be called virtuous.  It violates natural law, particularly the natural rights of freedom of association (liberty/contract) and private property, turning the tool of the State into the master.  This is a phenomenon Archbishop Fulton Sheen noted in his first two books, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy (1925), and Religion Without God (1928).

Introduction to Solidarism

Solidarism is defined in sociology as a theory that the possibility of founding a social organization upon a solidarity of interests is to be found in the natural interdependence of members of a society.  Solidarity, a characteristic of groups per se, is defined as unity — as of a group or class — that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards.

After the Election

While most people are concerned with the upcoming election, we should probably spare a thought or two about what to do afterwards.  After all, whether Clinump or Trumton wins, We, the People, are going to get what is euphemistically termed the “short” end of the stick.  Or maybe the whole stick, a.k.a., “the shaft.”

A Brief Discourse on Social Credit, VIII: The Analysis, Part Two

Last Thursday we looked at some of the flaws in Major Douglas’s social credit proposal, e.g., the wrong definition of money and abolition of private property by taking away the usufruct, to say nothing of allowing politicians to avoid accountability for their actions.  After all, is it really coincidental that as more and more of the government’s budget consists of money created by emitting bills of credit instead of tax revenues, the number of programs that go contrary to the fundamental beliefs of most people have proliferated?

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 41

This has been another seemingly slow news week in which a great deal has been accomplished.  Contrary to the usual case with many organizations, CESJ actually gets things done in meetings, and comes up with some good ideas:

A Brief Discourse on Social Credit, VII: The Analysis, Part One

In yesterday’s posting we noted that even if social credit could deliver on every promise it makes, and every individual received a basic subsistence income from the State in the form of the National Dividend, it would be “unwise” to give the State that much power over the lives of its citizens.  Power corrupts, as Lord Acton quoted, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

A Brief Discourse on Social Credit, V: The Rationale

We’ve been looking at a few problems with social credit, but today we’re going into the matter in a little more depth.

A Brief Discourse on Social Credit, IV: The Proposal

What with all the research we’ve done with finding out about social credit (including obtaining two of Major Douglas’s most important books, Economic Democracy (1920) and Social Credit (1924, 1933), we still don’t have a snappy definition of what social credit is, but we’ve managed to put together a brief précis of the program.

Halloween Hip Wader Special

Normally we try — we really do — not to get too deep into those deep philosophical questions.  Last Thursday’s piece on the natural law, “Let’s Be Reasonable,” was about as deep as we think we can get away with . . . once in a while.

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 40

Some years back — 1976 — comedian John Cleese did a video titled “Meetings, Bloody Meetings.”  We can sympathize, having been stuck in a number of meetings that seemed to be held just to hold a meeting.  Still, meetings can be important, and actual work sometimes gets done, as witness the events of this past week:

Let’s Be Reasonable

Every once in a while we get what behaviorist Burrhus Frederick Skinner (1904-1990, better known as “B.F. Skinner” for obvious reasons) called “positive reinforcement,” which is a big couple of words that boil down to “attaboy,” or “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,” which your mother didn’t have to go to Harvard to learn.  Of course, starting out this posting by referencing Skinner is a trifle ironic, even if we hadn’t been forced to read Walden II in high school along with a cartload of other tomes with which we disagreed even more.  Bottom line?  We’re “natural law guys” and Skinner . . . ain’t.

The Jobs Market

Imagine what it would be like if someone living a century and a half or so ago was suddenly brought in to today’s society.  Science fiction and fantasy (usually science-fantasy, as two-way time travel violates some law or other of motion) have dealt with this theme for years, from Edward Bellamy’s socialist classic Looking Backward to the latest crop of stories in . . . whatever print science fiction magazine(s) survive(s).

A Brief Discourse on Social Credit, III: What the Social Crediters Say

One of the problems we’ve encountered with discussing the various types of socialism is that the natural tendency of such groups to splinter, reform, separate, and regroup makes tracing their genealogy a little confusing.  When you toss in the habit of “re-editing the dictionary” so that people become even more confused by the constant changes in meaning of fundamental terms, and the reliance on assertion and ad hominem logical fallacies, it’s no wonder why so many people end up being attracted to socialism.  Not knowing what it is, they figure it has to be better than anything they can actually understand.

England’s Difficulty and Ireland’s Opportunity

As the saying attributed to the Emancipator Daniel O’Connell goes, “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.”  In this case, however, England’s difficulty is also England’s opportunity . . . as well as everyone else’s.

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 39

Although the upcoming elections are grabbing all the attention (even — or especially — in other countries), there are some other things that might have more importance in the long run, e.g., whether people can regain power over their own lives, or forever be at the mercy of whoever is running the government.

Popes are the Craziest People

Recently we began doing a little research into the life of Giacomo Pecci, who in 1878 was elected to the papacy and took the name Leo XIII.  After all, if you want to know where someone is coming from, it’s generally a good idea to find out where he’s coming from.

A Brief Discourse on Social Credit, II: What the Experts Say

Yesterday we declared we were more than a little baffled when attempting to define “social credit” briefly and accurately.  Today we are going to see if anybody else has done any better — confining ourselves to experts who seem to have a bit more credibility than we do.  Not that we necessarily agree with these experts, but others might.  We’re only trying to dig down and uncover the truth in a way ordinary people can understand.

A Brief Discourse on Social Credit, I: What IS “Social Credit”?

Recently we received an email from one of our numerous fans and followers asking us to comment on a couple of articles covering “social credit” he had seen on a distributist website.  He had seen us mention social credit a number of times, but we did not really go into what it is, or explain in any depth why we classify it among the seemingly countless varieties of socialism with which the modern world is afflicted.

The Problem of Rent

In Medieval (Scholastic) philosophy, “rent” is what is due the owner of a thing for the use of something that is not “consumed by its use.” Thus, if the owner of, say, a tool such as a hammer or saw, loans someone that hammer or saw as a commercial transaction, the owner is due a reasonable fee for that use.

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 38

As the election comes ever-nearer in the United States and people agonize over whether to vote for the great or the greater evil (the Elder Party candidate Cthulhu, by the way, is ’way ahead in the polls), we continue plugging away to persuade one or more of the saner variety of politicians to adopt Capital Homesteading as a major plank in his or her platform:

Misunderstanding Debt

Almost exactly a month ago, on September 8, there were some comments in the Washington Post from Francis X. Cavanaugh, author of The Truth About the National Debt: Five Myths and One Reality (1996), in which he argues that a $5 trillion national debt is not really cause for concern, but perhaps there should be some reining in of spending . . . like before the debt rises to $10 or even $15 trillion!!  (It's just short of $20 trillion when we looked yesterday.)

Pity the Distributist . . .

A standard opening for postings on this blog is that we like to get questions.  Next best, however, are questions that other people get and that they don’t seem quite up to answering — at least, not in any coherent fashion or in a way that actually addresses the question being asked.  Take, for example, a recent posting on FaceBook in which someone made a “rant” (the poster’s word) containing the following statement:

Influences on CESJ?

As we may have mentioned one or a dozen times, we like getting questions . . . that we can answer.  So far we’ve been lucky, and haven’t gotten too many of the kind we can’t answer, e.g., “Are you guys just crazy, or what?”  (Actually, we can answer that question, too.  We just prefer not to.)  Anyway,

The CESJ Code of Ethics

As promised, and although it, too, is posted on the CESJ website, here is the CESJ Code of Ethics that we mentioned last Thursday.  Note that when CESJ members have a meeting, there is a participatory reading of both the Core Values and the Code of Ethics . . . except for Number 17, below, when everyone joins in saying, “persistence, persistence, and persistence.”

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 37

Although today is the end of CESJ’s fiscal year, things haven’t slowed down any.  In fact, they’ve picked up quite a bit of speed.  Most of this doesn’t make good news items, of course; it’s pretty baffling to read, “Someone whose name we can’t reveal talked to someone here for over six hours last night, but we can’t tell you what they talked about until something happens.”  The events that we can tell you about are often not quite as exciting as that, but we try:

The CESJ Core Values

Although it’s posted on the CESJ website, we made a reference yesterday to the Core Values of the Center for Economic and Social Justice.  Therefore, without further ado, we post them today, either as a refresher or an introduction.  There is, of course, much more about CESJ on the website, which you are encouraged to visit:

Inspiration

As we’ve said on more than one occasion, we like it when people ask us serious questions.  In that category we do not include the “Are-you-still-beating-your-wife?” type.  This is technically known as “the complex question fallacy” because it assumes as a given the answer to a question that has not been asked.  It’s committed when a question is asked (a) that rests on a questionable assumption, and (b) to which all answers appear to endorse that assumption.

Let Freedom Ring: Social Injustice

Yesterday we noted that, in refusing to stand for the National Anthem of the United States, Colin Rand Kaepernick may have acted in a socially unjust manner.  That is, if he harmed the common good, he broke the first law of social justice.

Let Freedom Ring: Principle and Application

One thing we’ve noticed (i.e., had driven home to us like a railroad spike through the skull) is that quite a large number of people are confused about the difference between a general principle, and a particular application of that same principle.  Yet all the sciences, moral philosophy, and even theology are based in some measure on this distinction.

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 36

A number of important irons are in the fire as CESJ approaches the end of its fiscal year (September 30).  A lot of time is taken up with that, of course, but things are also moving forward:

Where’s the Recovery?

On the Opinion page in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the title, “The Reasons Behind the Obama Non-Recovery” (p. A13) caught our eye.  The argument by a Harvard professor of economics was that because recovery from all past depressions/recessions has always been relatively rapid, President Obama is responsible for a slow recovery because he increased non-productive government spending that made the rich richer, instead of figuring out ways to make business more profitable to make the rich richer.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism . . . and Socialism

From the point of view of organized religion, the situation in the first half of the nineteenth century was a virtual shambles.  There was a perceived conflict between reason and faith.  The Will (opinion) had replaced the Intellect (knowledge) as the basis for discerning the natural law — the general code of human behavior.

And Another Distributist Question!(!): Distributism

To continue our little discussion from yesterday. . . .

And Another Distributist Question!(!): Catholic Social Thought

They do seem to keep coming, don’t they?  The questions from distributists, that is.  We’d prefer if they were accompanied by checks with large numbers of zeros to the right of the other digits, but we’ll take what we can get.  Anyway, we just got this question:

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 35

As the world’s central bankers try to figure out what a central bank is supposed to do, and the commercial and mercantile banks follow suit, the stock market continues its wild gyrations.  We believe that this will continue (if it doesn’t crash and burn) until a Capital Homestead Act is passed and the stock market can return to its proper role as a Second-Hand Shoppe for used debt and equity.  To help a CHA along, here’s what we’ve been doing for the past week:

Another Taxing Question, IV: The Terror of Taxation

Quite a large number of people would tend to agree that the United States should get rid of the Federal Reserve System and the income tax.  We agree with that goal . . . if to “get rid of” is broadly interpreted as getting rid of the incompatible functions that have been added to these essential if exasperating social tools.

Introduction to Keynesian Wreckonomics: Say’s Law

Last week we mentioned Adam Smith and the possibility that the political-economist-you-love-to-hate might have gotten a bum rap for the past couple hundred years or so.

Distributism, Socialism, and Syndicalism, What’s the Difference?

We’ve mentioned a number of times before on this blog that we like it when people ask questions that are easy to answer.  It makes us look smart, and it doesn’t take too much work to put a posting together.  That’s why we were so delighted last week to get the following question: “I just came across the word ‘syndicalism’.  It sounds very much like distributism.  How do they differ?”

More Malthusian Madness: Scarcity

Last week we mentioned the Thomas Malthus in a posting or two in connection with the reverend sir’s lamentable effect on economics — he is, after all, credited with getting it labeled “the dismal science.”  Our comments last week, however, had to do with Malthus’s rejection of Say’s Law of Markets, which brought forth Jean-Baptiste Say’s best explanation of the “law” that bears his name . . . and that many people reject flat out without knowing anything about it.

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 34

As of this writing, the Dow is down over two-hundred points, probably due to the various noises about the possibility of the Federal Reserve raising rates, making it more expensive to create money to pour into the stock market.  The possibility of eliminating “interest” altogether for any money that creates new owners of capital instead of to make the rich richer doesn’t seem to have occurred to any of the powers-that-be.

Distributism and Population Growth, III: Mean Ol’ Adam Smith

Distributists almost always have one political economist they detest more than all the rest . . . which is saying a lot.  That is that Mean Ol’ Adam Smith, whose “invisible hand” argument has sometimes been characterized as attempting to substitute for the Hand of God.

Why Did the U.S. Go Off the Gold Standard in 1933?

The other day we took a poke . . . or maybe that was a peek . . . at what people mean when they say “gold standard.”  Today we look at why the U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1933.  It might surprise you.

What is “Capitalism”?

As we mentioned a short time ago, we seem to be getting more and more questions from distributists.  Not from the official organizations, of course.  They have their Party Line and they’re sticking to it.  There are, however, a growing number of people interested in the subject who seem to be increasingly dissatisfied with the Party Line, which bears a strong resemblance to a somewhat skewed or off-center version of social justice.  As CESJ co-founder Father William Ferree put it,

Distributism and Population Growth, II: Who Has Rights?

Last Thursday we looked at the question of whether a program of expanded capital ownership requires adherence to a particular belief system, or any belief at all.  We concluded that, as long as someone adheres to the basic principles or precepts of the natural law, his or her personal beliefs — or lack thereof — are (or should be) a matter of complete indifference to others.

News from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 33

Things seem to be picking up a little as the summer draws to a close.  That being the case, we won’t waste time, but get straight to this week’s news items:

Distributism and Population Growth, I: A “Catholic System”?

We’re not sure why, but we keep getting questions about distributism, the rather loose proposal by G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc that was developed in the early twentieth century as an alternative to Fabian socialism with its heavy reliance on State control of the economy, of the law, of individual lives, and of anything else it could get its mitts on.  Distributism, by the way, is more or less defined as a system in which most people own capital, with a preference for small, family-owned (meaning members of the family have defined ownership stakes, not that the family unit owns) farms and artisan, worker-owned businesses.  That’s “preference,” by the additional way, not “mandate.”