In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the problem Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has with starting a war of conquest when neither he nor Russia (despite their fantasies) were prepared for it, and for trying to deceive others into thinking it was anything other than an attempt to increase his own personal wealth and power, for which others were paying with their lives, liberty, and property. Today we look at the problem Putin has on his hands due to continuing a war of conquest (or any other kind), when it was painfully obvious from Day One the attempt has failed — at least to anyone applying reason to the situation.
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Monday, July 22, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Liberty
Continuing our series on Mortimer Adler on the Six Great Ideas, today we have “Liberty.” Some people are of the opinion that liberty means they can do anything they like, which means anything they can force others into letting them do. Is that so? Or is that “license,” while liberty means the freedom to become more fully human as an individual while living together with others in society? Let’s listen:
Friday, July 19, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 29
Alas, all we have this week is more of the same, which will almost certainly be the case until and unless the Economic Democracy Act is adopted:
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Putin’s Pertinacious Problems, I: Starting a War of Conquest
Vladimir Putin has a few problems. Well, he has a few hundred million problems, but we’re only going to look at three, all of which derive from his biggest problem: himself. When you need to control or destroy other people to live your own life, the real problem is you.
Monday, July 15, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Beauty
Continuing our series on Mortimer Adler on the Six Great Ideas, today we have a video he made on “Beauty” . . . which might not be what you expect:
Friday, July 12, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 28
With the upcoming U.S. election and the Russian attack on the largest children’s hospital in Ukraine, things are looking a trifle bad for sanity in the world. Still, while it won’t solve all problems or even most of them, adopting the Economic Democracy Act could be a giant step in the direction of restoring sanity and a world in which children might actually be permitted to live:
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Total Financial Mobilization
In defense of Ukraine, money and credit are as crucial as guns and ammunition. A robust economy with widespread purchasing power is vital for both national prosperity and security. A solid financial system and sustainable growth are necessary in peacetime and wartime alike.
Monday, July 8, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on the Necessity of Government
Continuing our series on videos we’ve discovered about Mortimer Adler, today we look at Adler’s thoughts on the necessity of government. Given the antics of today’s leaders and politicians, this is a reminder how good, even great ideas can be twisted by bad philosophy, bad motives, and bad people:
Friday, July 5, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 27
Once again, the news items from this week sound like a fantasy writer who might have snacked on the wrong pan of brownies and got kicked off the writing team of Killer Klowns from Outer Space for being too far out. Ironically, many of the world’s problems could be solved or at least ameliorated by adopting the Economic Democracy Act:, returning economic (and thus political) power to people, and getting rid of a few of the dictators and wannabes:
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Central Bank Funding, II: Traditional Solutions to the Twin Threats
Today’s posting is the second half of “Central Bank Funding of Economic Growth and Economic Justice Through Expanded Capital Ownership” By Norman A. Bailey, Ph.D., presented at the Capital Ownership Group Conference on Globalization, Four Points Sheraton Hotel, Washington, D.C., October 9-11, 2002.
The first half of this article,“The Twin Threats,” can be found here.
Monday, July 1, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Beauty
Continuing our series on videos we’ve discovered about Mortimer Adler, who brought knowledge of philosophy to a popular audience, today we have a talk he gave on beauty:
Friday, June 28, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 26
One of the “interesting” things about the current world situation is the insistence of the experts that what has never worked must work if we just try harder, and to avoid like a cliché what has been proven to work and continues to work every day . . . but which endangers the monopoly of power currently held by the elite. Not their wealth, just their currently monopoly on power. What’s the solution? Adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Central Bank Funding, I: The Twin Threats
Today’s posting is the first half of “Central Bank Funding of Economic Growth and Economic Justice Through Expanded Capital Ownership” By Norman A. Bailey, Ph.D., presented at the Capital Ownership Group Conference on Globalization, Four Points Sheraton Hotel, Washington, D.C., October 9-11, 2002.
Monday, June 24, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Justice
Possibly the best known (and best? you can have your own opinion) Aristotelian philosopher in the twentieth century, Mortimer Adler brought knowledge of philosophy to a popular audience. Today we have a talk he gave on the premier natural virtue of justice:
Friday, June 21, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 25
Yet another week of the same old same old. Putin is destroying Russia in his bid to save Ukraine from itself and the hordes of gay Jewish Nazis, while politicians and academic economists cannot seem to understand how an economy that benefits the few at the expense of the many isn’t benefiting the many! Oh, the humanity. No one seems considering the possibility of making it easy on themselves by adopting the Economic Democracy Act:
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Declaring War on Debt
According to the Bureau of Fiscal Service, America’s public — and completely non-productive — debt and liabilities now stands at $42.9 trillion and rising. At the same time, America’s net worth in private sector agricultural, industrial, and commercial wealth is estimated at $123.8 trillion, while the federal government owns $5.2 trillion in assets.
Monday, June 17, 2024
JTW Podcast: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
Today we have a talk on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, which most authorities consider the first half of The Philosopher’s The Politics:
Friday, June 14, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 24
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Something Missing
In response to the spread of socialism and the other “New Things,” Pope Pius IX, socialism and the other new things continued to spread. Finally, in 1868 he convened the first ecumenical council since Trent in the sixteenth century.
Monday, June 10, 2024
JTW Podcast: Washington Outsider Report
Friday, June 7, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 23
One thing that struck us this week about the news is how often experts and dictators who aren’t succeeding at solving their own problems are busily solving everyone else’s or threatening to do more of the same. How about if we adopt the Economic Democracy Act and the economists and dictators can do as they want to themselves and their warships and leave the rest of us alone?
Monday, June 3, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Goodness
Friday, May 31, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 22
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Putin’s Tiger by the Tail
According to Renaud Foucart, a senior economics lecturer at Lancaster University in a recent article in Business Insider, Putin has put Russia into a “lose-lose” position. In a “tiger by the tail” scenario, the country cannot afford to continue the war against Ukraine, but neither can it afford to stop. According to Foucart’s analysis, the Russian economy has become so dependent on the war that “defense” spending is the only thing keeping up the illusion of viability.
Monday, May 27, 2024
JTW Podcast: Fulton Sheen on Firing Line
Friday, May 24, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 21
Not much has been happening in the Global Justice Movement this week . . .that we can report about! A great deal has been happening, but mostly setting the stage for what we’re working on, primarily getting the Economic Democracy Act adopted:
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Just Third Way Tax Reforms
As the saying goes, nothing is inevitable but death and taxes, and hopefully not in that order. That being the case, how should taxation (for we don’t claim any power over death) be made as fair and just as possible? We have some suggestions, consistent with the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism.
Monday, May 20, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Aristotle
Friday, May 17, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 20
We can save you a lot of time on this week’s news items. People who think they are in charge of the economy are making the same stupid decisions week after week, and we are getting nowhere fast as no one considers adopting the Economic Democracy Act:
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Keynesian Economics and Income Distribution
Monday, May 13, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Aristotle’s Theory of Happiness
Friday, May 10, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 19
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
The Keynesian Fairy State
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.
One of the first things a student must learn about Keynesian economics is there are certain questions one must not ask, such as, How could Keynes reject Say’s Law of Markets when he couldn’t even define it correctly? What did it mean when Keynes declared inflation — which means a rise in the price level — isn’t really inflation until after “full employment” is reached, and that a rise in the price level before reaching full employment is due to “other factors” and isn’t really inflation . . . meaning a rise in the price level isn’t really a rise in the price level until Keynes said it is a rise in the price level?
Monday, May 6, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Reading Aristotle Backwards
Friday, May 3, 2024
News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 18
Week after week, one thing becomes crystal clear (as if it hadn’t already): Keynesian economics isn’t working and has never worked . . . but the politicians and so-called experts insist with all their heart and our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor that it’s going to work, or they’re going to see that we die while they try. Or they could do the sensible thing and adopt: the Economic Democracy Act:
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
The Theory of Certitude
Socialism as promoted by Robert Owen, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, François-Marie-Charles Fourier, and others, sought to abolish traditional concepts of private property, marriage and family, and religion. In their place would be new institutions that might go by the same name and even have the same outward form as the old institutions (Saint-Simon, for instance, called his system, “the New Christianity”), but the substance would be completely different.
Monday, April 29, 2024
JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Aristotle
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.