The Just Third Way of Economic Personalism

In the previous posting on this subject, we opined as to what would be an effective program to foster production by as many people as possible, thereby bringing economic activity back into balance as far as humanly possible?  What is needed is a restoration of Say’s Law of Markets, turning every consumer into a producer, and every producer into a consumer so that “supply generates its own demand, and demand generates its own supply.”

How Everyone Can Win in November, Part III

As we saw in the previous two postings on this subject, there is a way that Joseph Biden can win the U.S. presidential race in a landslide in November, and there is a way that Donald Trump can win in a landslide.  All it takes is a new vision of leadership and a coherent plan where this country is going, respectively.  Now today we’re going to finish off this subject and look at what will happen if both candidates catch on and carry out campaigns in which everyone wins, even if he or she is not elected.

How Everyone Can Win in November, Part II

 

Imagine, if you will, a scene in the White House within a few hours of Joe Biden announcing that he is dropping his support for government funding of abortion, as suggested in the previous posting on this subject.  There is (as you might imagine) a great deal of consternation and wringing of hands.

Building a Strategic Plan, Part I of II

As we noted in the previous posting on this subject, CESJ does not support or endorse any candidate for public office.  Any opinions expressed on these matters are personal and represent the views of people as individuals, not as members or representatives of CESJ.  The mention of any specific candidate(s) is purely expedient.

A Way to Finance “Green” Infrastructure

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, one way to “lure” people back to work when they are (at least temporarily) better off not working, is to make them an offer they can’t refuse, or at least would be extremely foolish to turn down.  The offer we suggested, of course, is that it would be beneficial to offer workers a piece of the action, that is, part ownership of the companies that employ them.

Would the Unions Go For It?

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked briefly at the problem of how things like the UBI, welfare, and unemployment compensation can act as a disincentive to work.  The bottom line is, if you pay people not to work, they tend not to work.  The only way a basic income of some kind is not a disincentive to take gainful employment is if you get it in addition to, not instead of, gainful employment, and that is something that it would be complete and total disaster for a government to do.

To Work, or Not to Work?

. . . but is that the question?  Quite a few people have noted over the past several months that the enhanced unemployment benefits have persuaded a number of people not to return to work.  It seems that some people are actually getting more income by not working than they did when they were employed.  As noted in yesterday’s (August 3, 2020, p. A-16) Wall Street Journal,

What Do You Mean By “Distributism”?

Somewhat to our surprise, we seem to have become something of a “distributist guru.”  Of course, that could just be an impression, but if it’s true, it might be because we seem to be able to give consistent specifics instead of vague and contradictory generalities.  Not that G.K. Chesterton or Hilaire Belloc gave out anything contradictory, or at least, not that they intended to be contradictory, but that’s not our point.  Our point is where Chesterton and Belloc wanted to go, not necessarily how they thought it expedient to get there.

“The Jobs We Need”

A while back, toward the end of June (the twenty-fourth, to be exact), the New York Times ran an editorial on “The Jobs We Need,” although it was evident from the fact that the piece was written by staff that they didn’t include themselves as part of us.  Anyway, we got to work and sent a letter to the editor that was never published, a slightly edited version of which we post here today:

An Eternal Question

One of the things we’ve noticed about people who call themselves capitalists or socialists is that far too often those who advocate or defend a system seem to have trouble defining it consistently, and sometimes at all.  It calls to mind what Alexis de Tocqueville said about socialism during the 1848 Revolution in France:

Feudalism v. Distributism

Someone asked us recently whether we thought distributism and feudalism are pretty much the same thing.  Off the top of our head (or is that “heads”?) our first response is “no.”  After all, feudalism meant that most (if not all) land was “public” land, and people “held” the land in return for specified service(s) to the State, usually military service.  Land was not private property.

Job Security for (Personalist) Revolutionaries

A while back in response to an item touting Capital Homesteading as a possible way to bring people together and turn the economy around in our weekly Just Third Way news roundup, someone posted a comment to the effect that the original 1862 Homestead Act was (wait for it) . . . racist!  As a way of refuting our promotion of Capital Homesteading as a way of possibly establishing a little racial harmony and putting the economy back on a sound footing, the Righteous One went on to explain that the 1862 Act was “Whites Only,” and Black homesteaders were completely unheard of.

Eternal Vigilance Committees?

Although it’s still being hashed out, the whole “Defund the Police” movement demands some kind of response.  At first glance, it sounds like a typical hysterical overreaction to an injustice or some kind of immoral behavior, i.e., “throwing the baby out with the bath.”  In response to the abuses of private ownership in capitalism, socialism calls for the abolition of private property.  Because some people abused alcohol, the 18^th Amendment and the Volstead Act banned alcohol after nearly a century of effort.

The Dignity of Ownership

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, we began this discussion a month ago after seeing an article in a webzine about the dignity of work, phrased in such a way as to suggest that it was work itself, rather than the human person doing the work, that takes priority.

Getting Down to Solutions

A while ago on June 3 there was an interesting piece on the causes of the “civil unrest” following the death of George Floyd.  An article titled “The Solution” by Dale Ahlquist of “The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton” appeared in Catholic World Report.

A Baffled Response

While the most frequent justification given for the explosion of violence accompanying the protests over the murder of George Floyd is a concern for racial justice, it is difficult for some of us to understand what looting and destroying black- (and white- and yellow- and green- and purple- and . . . ) owned businesses, burning churches, desecrating memorials, etc., etc., etc., has to do with racial justice, or anything else except rage.

A Measure of Reform

In the previous posting on this subject, we posted another section of our recent CESJ position paper, “Universalizing Capital Ownership.”  Today we get to the final section of the paper, dealing with the short-term emergency measures we believe to be necessary, and a brief outline of the long-term reforms to the system that need to be carried out.  Of course, if you want to read the entire paper without having to go back and read the individual postings, just click on the link above to the full paper.  It’s pretty short.

Possible Steps to Restart the Economy

Okay, when we last addressed this subject in a posting, we were in the middle of helping prepare a “subject paper” (or whatever you want to call it) on the Covid-19 virus and its economic impact.  The preparation of the paper proved to be a bit more involved than originally anticipated (although well worth the effort), so instead of closing this particular series of blog postings with a summary of the paper, we’ll end by serializing the paper itself.  Of course, if you want to read the whole paper at one go (it’s actually pretty short), you can do so by clicking on this link.

Good Credit v. Bad Credit

As we may have mentioned one or two . . . dozen times before, we like it when somebody tosses us a question or a comment to which we can respond with a recyclable answer that can be turned into a blog posting.  Like this one regarding the prevalence of consumer credit debt among presumably affluent Americans who have suddenly found themselves bereft of that weekly paycheck they were living on from day to day, grossly supplemented with more than a modicum of consumer credit (edited for anonymity to protect the guilty):

Part 2½: What About the Universal Basic Income?

It’s true that no good deed ever goes unpunished . . . sort of.  In the previous two postings on this subject, which we imaginatively called Part I and Part II, respectively, we were asked the burning question whether the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism/Capital Homesteading, etc., could be considered communist.