Dignity, Sovereignty, Faith, and Reason

In today’s posting, we’re taking a look at some basic principles of the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism.  As we understand it, the Just Third Way begins and ends with the dignity and sovereignty of the human person. Any plan, program, activity, or thought contrary to or which undermines the dignity or sovereignty of the human person must be rejected or reformed to the point where it either enhances human dignity or at least does no material harm.

Fulton Sheen, Social Justice, Solidarism, and Economic Personalism

There has been a spate of memes in the social media recently ostensibly quoting the late Fulton Sheen to the effect that Judas is the patron saint of social justice.  This does not ring true for a couple of reasons. Most obviously, Sheen, “the American Chesterton,” was a master of language and witty repartee, skilled at making an otherwise subtle nuance plain, albeit in a clever manner.  The statement is just too crude and blunt; it is not Sheen’s style.

Union Solidarista Guatemalteca y Costa Rica

It’s not so much a buzzword nowadays, but “solidarity” is still an important concept, and one that often doesn’t mean what people think it does.  To define what we mean by solidarity, we begin with the thought of Pope Saint John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyła, 1920-2005, elected 1978).

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?

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.

Rebirth of a Nation

It will soon (we hope) become a pastime of armchair generals and amateur historians to discuss endlessly whether there has ever been a more vicious, psychotic, or incompetent military operation — special or otherwise — in the history of the world than Putin’s War.  If the current president of Russia wanted to ensure that his name would always be remembered as a byword for pure evil, he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Economic Personalism is Applied Solidarism

One of the problems with modern life is the extreme compartmentalization that has accompanied the development of what G.K. Chesterton called “the Double Mind of Man.”  What Chesterton meant is the not-so-modern practice of accepting contradiction.

Solidarism, Personalism, and Social Justice

If you want to trigger a violent discussion in pretty much any forum, you don’t need to drag in politics, religion, or even the Great Pumpkin.  No all you need is to mention social justice.  Regardless how you define it, somebody else will tell you that you’re wrong and everything you say is a lie, not to mention stupid, vindictive, ignorant, stupid, vicious, stupid, malicious, stupid and just plain stupid.  And that’s when they’re being polite about it.

The Rise and Development of Solidarism

A short time ago we looked over the website of an organization ostensibly dedicated to promoting solidarity and solidarism as the solution to the ills of the world.  Intrigued, we looked the website over carefully.  After a bit, we noticed something distinctly odd.  The organization talked a lot about solidarity . . . but didn’t define it anywhere!  We won't embarrass them by posting a link or revealing their Secret Identity.

Personalism and Solidarism

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, we saw how the “personalism” of Pope John Paul II fit into the broader framework of social virtue, particularly social justice . . . which is not socialism, however much some confused people insist that it is.

A Missing Piece of the Puzzle

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the idea that many people have of social justice today is not entirely accurate.  It does not mean replacing individual justice and charity with redistribution, even if you call it social justice.  Social justice means, rather, reform of institutions of the common good to enable the individual virtues once again to function as intended.

Sabotaging Solidarism

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, Fulton J. Sheen in the United States, and G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc in the United Kingdom locked horns early on with the forces of socialism and moral relativism, and were in many respects neutralized.  If you asked most people what it was that the American Chesterton and the English Sheen were most concerned with, you would very likely get quite a number of answers, few of which would mention socialism or moral relativism.

Defending Natural Law

 

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at how Msgr. John A. Ryan, the Fabians, and other heirs to the mantle of Henry George worked to extend George’s thought from land to all forms of capital, and from George’s focus on the United States and Ireland to the world.  In addition, Émile Durkheim captured sociology and invented solidarism to oppose Although the victory of socialism seemed inevitable, however, it did not go unchallenged.

Karl Marx, the Great Reductionist

A short time ago we got a request to comment on Karl Marx as “the second economic reductionist.”  In the context of the discussion this referred to the socialist movement which, to make a very long story short and oversimplify greatly, began in the early nineteenth century with Henri de Saint-Simon’s declaration in his posthumous book, Le Nouveau Christianisme (1825) that what would in a few years be known as “socialism” was “the New Christianity.”

The Quest for Utopia

We’re having trouble keeping up with what various commentators are proposing as their respective solutions to the pandemic, racism, the economy, the politicians, the academics, the guy next door, and can you believe the price of [fill in the blank] these days?  Case in point: a few weeks ago (or was it months? it’s getting hard to tell . . .), an article appeared in Catholic World Report, a webzine, “America’s Utopian City Wreckers.”

Distributism and Economic Personalism, Part II

In our last episode (i.e., the previous posting on this subject) we mentioned that when we got around to addressing this subject again that we’d try and get to the point.  So, let’s ask again, “Are distributism and the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism compatible?”  Our starting point for today’s discussion is G.K. Chesterton’s description of distributism as a policy of widely distributed private ownership of capital, with a preference for small, family-owned farms and artisan businesses.

Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”

One of the more acceptable ways to make a name for yourself in the more liberal areas of Academia is to go after the moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790).  All you have to do is say the “right” things about Smith, thereby demonstrating you have the “right” attitude about capitalism and its purported high priest, and you will be accepted, or at least acceptable — assuming you don’t transgress any other unwritten law of the Groves of Academe.

Personality, Property, and Participation

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject (subject being the Core Values of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice, CESJ), persons need rights in order to exercise their sovereignty and to pursue truth, beauty, love, and justice, not necessarily in that order.

Why Have Core Values?

As a follow-up to the previous posting on this subject, we decided to look at the issue of why organizations such as CESJ — or any organization, for that matter — even have core values in the first place.  Obviously, the best place to start looking for an answer is CESJ itself.  Why does CESJ have core values?  Because —

Financial Disaster

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, politicians could not keep their hands of the central bank’s money machine.  Other factors also contributed to laying the groundwork for financial disaster.