News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 42

All the “Big News” in the media is on things other than those affecting he Just Third Way, at least directly.  If you know something that you’re not telling us that you think should go into the weekly news roundup, of course, just drop us a line per the instructions at the bottom of this posting.  In the meantime:

The Currency Principle

It has come to our attention that we may occasionally use words or concepts on this blog that many people have difficulty understanding, especially when we talk about money.  For example, a question came up recently about the terms “Currency Principle” (or School) and “Banking Principle” (or School).

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.

War and Depression

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, a serious problem developed in the United States following the Civil War: wealth became concentrated.  Many people had no realistic hope of ever owning land or technology that could generate an income to supplement or even replace wage income from labor.

Opening the Door for Capital Homesteading

Today we feature a conversation between Dr. Norman Kurland, president of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ), and the Woodman sisters, Jackie and Monica, of Cleveland, Ohio, who together with their brother Rob (Captain Robert Woodman) have been with the Just Third Way almost from the beginning, having been tutored in the elements of economic and social justice by their father, Bob Woodman:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 41

It is becoming increasingly difficult to select news items for our weekly roundup.  Most of the news these days is about personalities, and we are trying to concentrate on facts as well as suggest solutions that don’t involve liquidating undesirables, such as our first item that would “cancel” some people for the benefit of all . . . presumably:

Money and Say’s Law of Markets

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” and how it fits into Smith’s first principle of economics, that “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.”  We concluded (tentatively) that production for a purpose other than consumption is a serious mistake.

The End of Democracy

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, had he not been assassinated, there is evidence suggesting that Abraham Lincoln would have used the 1862 Homestead Act as the first step on a total social reformation, putting the financial system on a sound basis and opening up opportunities for everyone to own capital other than land.

Money and the Invisible Hand

Understanding money and credit — two aspects of the same thing — is impossible without first understanding private property and something called “Say’s Law of Markets.”  Both are not merely important, they are interdependent when speaking economically.  From a monetary perspective, however, it may be easier to understand private property if we first understand Say’s Law, but we won’t understand Say’s Law until we understand Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”  So we will post today on the invisible hand, then on Say’s Law and private property in future postings on this subject.

Norman Kurland Before the Congressional Black Caucus

We were going to have something on the Battle of Lepanto that took place October 7, 1571 and give us a free plug for the book, Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know, but we couldn't figure out how to work it in.  We will just have to be satisfied with this short video featuring Norman Kurland's testimony before the Congressional Black Caucus on September 24, 1992, which (as you will see in  the first minute or so of the video) was considered something of substance instead of more of the usual empty rhetoric:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 40

The media are still clogged with politics and religion, which means that important items that have some bearing on the Just Third Way get short shrift.  Since we haven’t been getting too many news items from our faithful readers (that are fit to print, anyway), we have managed only a few short but important items this week:

Repo Men?

In 1984 a film came out that has achieved “cult status” and is still considered one of the best films released that year: Repo Man.  The film stars Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez, and the executive producer was Michael Nesmeth, as in, “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkeys” Nesmeth.  It’s about a couple of guys trying to repossess an automobile that seems to be connected with extraterrestrials.

John Henry Newman and Liberalism

What with the “canonization” of John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) coming up in a couple of weeks, we thought we would add our two cents as well as a few hundred words into the discussions that are raging.  (Canonization does not "make" someone a saint; it is a certification process.)  By and large, the discussion seems to be whether Newman was a liberal or a conservative.  From the interfaith viewpoint, however, it seems more to the point whether Newman was in agreement with the Just Third Way.

Some Thoughts on Fractional Reserve Banking

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at how commercial banks really create money.  It turns out that (contrary to popular belief) commercial banks don’t usually make loans out of their reserves, but by creating money backed by the value of the financial instruments they accept.

JTW Podcast: Lech Wałęsa of Solidarność

In 1983, Lech Wałęsa of  Solidarność was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for leading the non-violent revolution that eventually led to the downfall of the Soviet Union.  Since we expect within the next month or so to release a new book that examines the concepts of personalism and solidarity as integrated into the Just Third Way, it seemed like a good idea to remind people of the events of a generation ago:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 39

With most of the news this week focused on people saying and doing things that are of little or no interest to the Just Third Way of economic personalism, this week’s news items may seem a trifle removed from reality . . . at least for those readers who think that what the media report has any resemblance to reality.  For a small dose of the real thing, then, we present this week’s news items:

How Commercial Banks Create Money

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the idea of money, notably the definition used by Louis O. Kelso.  Today we want to look at how people think the banking system operates as opposed to the way it actually does operate.

Is Liberty Diabolical?

A few days ago we commented on a pair of articles that appeared on the website of Catholic World Report.  The articles were “Thomism and Political Liberalism, Part I,” and “Thomism and Political Liberalism, Part II” by Dr. Joseph G. Trabbic, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ave Maria University.  We thought the articles were okay, but could have been better, so we offered a comment:

Thoughts on Money

There is an old joke when someone says money is not the most important thing in the world.  Love is . . . it just so happens that the one telling the joke loves money. . . .

Solving Homelessness with Louis Kelso

Actually, this should be titled, "Solving Homelessness With Louis Kelso's Ideas In a Practical Way That Takes Into Account the Demands of Human Dignity and the Common Good," but it wouldn't all fit in the subject line.  That being the case, here is a video shot a while back, an episode of Paula Gloria's Farther Down the Rabbit Hole:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 38

If you can tear yourself away from reading the latest news flashes about why Hollywood no longer casts Rocky Schwartz in films, how tuna instead of salmon is causing global warming, or why we need to bring wooly mammoths (or maybe it was Sheb Wooley) back to life, here are this week’s news items from the Just Third Way:

Church Versus State

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, we discovered that Monsignor John A. Ryan of the Catholic University of America (1869-1945), based his interpretation of Catholic social thought on socialist theories developed in the 1830s and 1840s.  This is despite the fact that he claimed Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum as his inspiration.  The result was an interpretation of Catholic social teaching that rejected both faith and reason in favor of the tenets of “the Democratic Religion” of socialism.

An Economic Revolution

On April 14, 1865, an actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) entered Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC during a performance of Our American Cousin featuring Laura Keene (1826-1873) in the role of “Florence Trenchard.”  Booth, a pro-slavery Confederate sympathizer, shot and mortally wounded President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) four days after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870).

Dispelling Some Monetary Myths

One of the key elements of the Just Third Way is monetary reform, to which is added essential tax reforms.  The problem is that very few people understand money.  Today we take a look at three concepts about which many people have ideas that may not be entirely accurate, monetization, fractional reserve banking, and the Quantity Theory of Money.

Just Third Way Video on Say's Law

Here's a short video we found on Say's Law of Markets, which is pretty good.  Of course, we might be saying that only because it sounds as if the fellow in it has been reading this blog or other Just Third Way materials.  Be that as it may, overlook the somewhat terrible jokes and go for the substance:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 37

We are not entirely sure of which of the minor deities governs when Friday the thirteenth pops up, but it’s our own fault that it occasionally coincides with the weekly Friday news roundup.  As events demonstrate, however, there is no connection between bad luck and what day of the week or even number it is, since there seems to be a number of good things happening:

“An Unbelievable Decision”

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the landmark case Scott v. Sandford (the notorious Dred Scott decision) resulted in a change in understanding the whole basis of the United States Constitution.  It was changed from a grant of rights from people to create the State, to a grant of rights from the State to create persons.

A Few Thoughts on Solidarity

While researching an upcoming book on economic personalism we delved a little more deeply into the subject of solidarity than we had previously.  This is natural, for solidarity and personalism are inextricably linked with the social doctrine of Pope Pius XI on which the Just Third Way is, in part, based.

“A Yoke Almost of Slavery”

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, Alexis de Tocqueville predicted in Democracy in America that the failure to resolve the issue of slavery and the treatment of Native Americans could undermine the foundations of American liberal democracy.  Nor were the popes unaware of the dangers of a “democracy” that permitted some people to be treated like things.

Norman Kurland on Russell Williams's "The Challenge"

In this 29-minute interview from December 12, 2016, Norman Kurland explains the Just Third Way, a new economic paradigm that arose largely from the ideas of Louis Kelso. Kurland explains to host Russell Williams how this justice-based approach could support democracy and help us address many of the problems facing communities, nations and the world.

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 36

What with Hurricane Dorian tearing up the Islands and the East Coast, and Keynesian economics tearing up the world economy, not to mention the economic antics of China that is increasingly relying on expanding its bubble economy at everyone else’s expense, it’s easy to overlook what else is going on:

A CPA’s Perspective on Pope Francis

As a Certified Public Accountant, this writer has carried out audits on a number of organizations.  This is not a Bad Thing for the organization or institution being audited.  As we CPAs are aware, although people often express fear and even terror of an audit, our job is actually something similar to a medical checkup for an organization.  Yes, like physicians we can be called in when something is wrong, but it’s better to have regular checkups to see how you’re doing and see if there’s something you should be doing better or differently.

Democracy in America

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, for centuries a constant theme of reformers and philosophers was the importance of owning capital to be able to participate fully in society as a “political animal,” i.e., an individual with rights and a social nature.  The problem was that methods of finance virtually dictated that ownership of capital would be concentrated, unless a source of “free” capital became available — which in Europe was all-but impossible.

The Modernist Monsignor

We closed the previous posting on this subject with the comment that “America’s Prince of Cranks” — Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (1831-1901) — had influenced the interpretation and understanding of Catholic social teaching, and thus the natural law “written in the hearts of all men.”  At first glance this seems rather odd, since Donnelly left the Catholic Church and took up spiritualism, was a socialist, influenced theosophy, and may have inspired certain features of Nazi racial ideology.

JTW Podcast: Message to the Hong Kong Dissidents

Purely by coincidence, CESJ recorded and scheduled a podcast addressed to the dissidents in Hong Kong the day before the latest phase of the crackdown by the authorities began.  Many people have been “detained” (a euphemism for arrested), and some may “disappear” as so many others have before.  There is, however, a solution that the powers-that-be might not be considering:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 35

Immediately after news reports that the stock market was going to end the month of August by rising and recouping losses, it plunged.  As this is being written, however, it may turn around again.  In real news affecting real life:

The Circle of Ownership

As we saw in theprevious posting on this subject, the idea that labor, whether by itself or “enhanced” by capital, is responsible for all production cause a few problems with consistency or even common sense.  A large measure of this is due to the fact that common sense and natural law both support the right of an owner to the fruits of ownership: income and control.  Capitalists and socialists both agree on that.  The only argument relates to what can legitimately be owned and what is productive — and that is a problem.

The Theory and Practice of Ownership

In 1931, the second year of the Great Depression and which saw the issuance of Quadragesimo Anno, a teenager by the name of Louis Orth Kelso (1913-1991) noticed something that belied the characterization of the United States as the Land of Opportunity.  Able-bodied men were hopping freight trains to somewhere, anywhere, they thought they might find work and not finding it.  By 1933, the official unemployment rate was 24.75%.

Redefining Natural Law

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, we saw how socialists and modernists got right to work shifting the interpretation of social charity and social justice away from a natural law understanding, and to a less person-centered focus.  Among the foremost leaders of the reinterpretation movement, none was more effective than Monsignor John A. Ryan (1869-1945) of the Catholic University of America.

Another Louis Kelso Video

From the treasury of videos of the Harold Channer Show, we bring you another video of ESOP-inventor Louis O. Kelso.  Don't be turned off by the 45 seconds or so that it takes to get into the show.

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 34

We probably should report that the stock market is extremely volatile, going up and down apparently at random, but this is supposed to be a weekly news roundup, and stock market volatility hardly qualifies as news these days.  There are, however, actual important things going on:

Death and Distribution, Part II

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, there are some things, such as redistribution, that are permitted in an emergency, but not as a usual thing.  Unfortunately, many people like to take the exception, and turn it into the rule.

The Weird World of Ignatius Loyola Donnelly

He is almost unknown today except among a small group of in-the-know devotees, but at one time the populist politician, spiritualist, novelist, and amateur scientist Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (1831-1901), “the Sage of Nininger,” was someone to be reckoned with.  Among other things, he has been described as “America’s Prince of Cranks” and “the Apostle of Discontent.”  (Walter Monfried, “America’s ‘Prince of Cranks’,” The Milwaukee Journal, May 15, 1953, 8.)

Death and Distribution, Part I

Many people today, regardless of their religious or philosophical persuasion, cannot tell the difference between a principle, especially an absolute principle, and the application of the principle.  For example, in the Catholic Church the former is doctrine and cannot be changed even to meet greatly changed conditions, while the latter is discipline and must be changed to meet changing conditions.

Louis Kelso on the Harold Channer Show

Starting in the early 19802, Harold Channer did a series of television shows with Louis O. Kelso.  Channer, who has one of the longest running public access television shows in the United States, has featured a number of innovative and pivotal figures whose significance the usual media outlets tend to ignore:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 33

Things are starting to heat up . . . if by that you mean the thermometers.  Other than that, things are all over the map, as people try to maintain their discredited paradigms in the face of reality:

Dorothy Day, Catholicism, and Communism, Part II

On Tuesday, in the previous posting on this subject, we noted that the Jesuit publication America had run “The Catholic Case for Communism,” an article by Dean Dettloff, their correspondent in Toronto, Ontario, which not very subtly turned Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, into a shill for communism.

Forty Years After

As we noted in the previous posting on this subject, both capitalists and socialists managed to reinterpret Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum to fit their particular paradigms.  The possibility that what Leo XIII was talking about was something entirely different does not appear to have occurred to many people.

Dorothy Day, Catholicism, and Communism, Part I

America magazine, a publication of the Jesuits, a Catholic religious Order, recently — July 23, 2019 — published an article by Dean Dettloff, America’s Toronto, Ontario, correspondent and a junior member of the Institute for Christian Studies.  The article, “The Catholic Case for Communism,” is a graphic illustration of the problems associated with people projecting their own opinions on to individuals or groups they admire, whether the admired individuals or groups ever expressed sympathy with them, or even if they were opposed to them.

Louis Kelso, ESOP Association Address, 05/10/1984

Maybe the quality of the recording isn't all it should be, but here is an interesting recording may on May 10, 1984, a month after the founding of CESJ, at the annual ESOP Association Conference.  Kelso gave the keynote address:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 32

We  do not have as many news items as we had last week, but they are at least as significant.  Rather than telling you about what we’re going to tell you about, we’ll just go straight to the news:

Of Dissent and Distributism

In yesterday’s posting we saw that the “cause” for the canonization of G.K. Chesterton was given the thumbs down by Peter Doyle, Bishop of Northampton, and that this excited a somewhat negative reaction on the part of some Chestertonians, as followers of Chesterton are called.

Of Distributism and Dissent

For those of you who care (and we would be surprised if there were very many), the Chestertonian Community (i.e., fans of the English writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1874-1936) sustained a shock on the order of 7.3 on the Richter Scale this past Friday.  It seems that His Excellency (or His Lordship; we aren’t up on the latest ecclesiastical lingo in the U.K.) Bishop Peter Doyle of Northampton in England, which was Chesterton’s home diocese, put the kibosh on Chesterton’s “cause” for canonization.

Subsidiarity and Democracy in America

One of the more interesting things we discover about Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and his greatest work, Democracy in America (1835, 1840), is that the author — like Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876) a generation latter in The American Republic (1866) — considered himself a Catholic writing as a Catholic.  What surprises many people is to find out that both de Tocqueville and Brownson considered the American system (slavery excepted) to be the closest to “Catholic” political theory.

"A Piece of the Action"

For a while we've been featuring short videos of Mortimer Adler talking about philosophical topics that have a bearing on the Just Third Way.  Today for a change of pace we thought we'd present a short video about someone else who has made a significant contribution to the Just Third Way, in fact, can be considered one of the founders of it: Louis O. Kelso!

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 31

An interesting batch of news items this week, most of them coming out in this morning’s Wall Street Journal — and most of them having to do with efforts to solve problems using the same paradigm that caused the problems in the first place!  Why not just take the easy way out and go with the Just Third Way?  After all, it might actually solve a few problems instead of creating more:

The Ultimate Social Power

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the essence of subsidiarity, that is, where power in society subsists in a properly structured social order.  Within the context of “Thomist personalism” and the Aristotelian-Thomist concept of natural law we found that all power properly resides in the human person, not in any form of society.  As Pope Pius XI noted in his social analysis, “Only man, the human person, and not society in any form is endowed with reason and a morally free will” (Divini Redemptoris, § 29), and thus even a human person in an official capacity has only such rights as are delegated from people.

Restructuring the Social Order

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, Pope Benedict XV was not able to make any significant progress against the advance of the new things of socialism, modernism, and the New Age first because of World War I, and then his premature death in the flu pandemic following the war.  It was left to his successor, Pope Pius XI, to carry on the struggle.

Subsidiarity and Personalism

In the form of liberal democracy — the “American” kind that puts sovereignty in the human person as the highest temporal expression of human dignity, not into government (local or otherwise) or into an élite — the concept of subsidiarity has been around since Adam.  It is an application of the natural right of liberty (free association or contract) which necessarily implies that control over someone’s life is vested in the person whose life it is.

Gene Gordon on Deck!

In this week's Just Third Way podcast, Dave Hamill interviews Gene Gordon of Descendants of American Slaves for Economic and Social Justice.  Gene talks about how true reparations will repair the economic system to empower all through real justice — and he's not talking about handing out other people's money, either:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 30

Usually when the temperature goes way up, activity goes way down, but the advancement of the Just Third Way seems to be heating up along with the temperature (although we hope there is no correlation, or we’d know what to do about global warming!).  So while we’re waiting for things to cool down and get even hotter (in a good way), here’s what’s been happening in the Just Third Way network:

An Understanding of Subsidiarity

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at one idea of subsidiarity, that some level of government does whatever an individual or a group is unable to do for itself.  That understanding of subsidiarity, however, completely ignores the act of social justice, which is concerned with removing barriers to full participation in the institutions of the common good.  Social justice is not a substitute for individual justice or charity.  Rather, social justice enables individual justice and charity to function.

Putting On That Socialist Spin

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, although Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, “On Capital and Labor,” was meant to provide an alternative to socialism and modernism, adherents of the new things of modernism, socialism, and the New Age were quick to seize on it and divert it to their own purposes.  Among the first to do so were the agrarian socialist Henry George and his friend, the excommunicated priest Father Edward McGlynn.

Introduction to Subsidiarity

In preparation for a discussion on the natural law principles underlying religious social teaching (as opposed to religious faith-based teaching), we’ve been re-reading Mortimer Adler’s 1990 book, Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth (New York: Scribner and Sons).  As Adler argued, there are certain philosophical and natural law principles that are common to almost all religions, and are true, regardless of the truth of a religion’s purely faith-based teachings.

Something Completely Different?

 We've been alternating CESJ's Just Third Way podcast with videos featuring Mortimer J. Adler, who co-authored with Louis Kelso two key books that relate to economic personalism, The Capitalist Manifesto (1958) and The New Capitalists (1961), the latter with the significant subtitle, "A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings."  That does not mean, of course, that new capital can be financed without savings, but that human beings should not be enslaved to money and credit, which are, ultimately, only tools that people should be using, not money and credit using people.

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 29

Have you seen the “People and Things” video?  If not, why not?  And if you have, why not view it again?  And spread it around to your network?  It’s less than two minutes, and perfect for the short attention span generation.  And as for what else the Just Third Way network is doing:

Taxation and Modern Monetary Theory

As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, the implication being that not even something inherently wrong is always wrong in its conclusions.  That is something capitalists and socialists — and MMT theorists — would do well to remember.

Old Things But in a New Way

In 1891, with the release of Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII’s encyclical “On Capital and Labor,” the careers of the agrarian socialist Henry George and his associate, Father Edward McGlynn were given the opportunity of a lifetime.  If handled right, it could give George’s career a much-needed shot in the arm by handing him something he could twist into a personal attack.

Faith v. Reason?

Given the rather startling popularity of yesterday’s posting of Mortimer Adler’s appearance on Firing Line and his grilling by William F. Buckley, we decided today to answer the question that Buckley asked Adler, but which Adler was not able to answer completely.  This was not because Adler could not answer, but because Buckley tried to get Adler to say what he, Buckley, wanted Adler to say, rather than what Adler needed to say.

Mortimer Adler on Religious Truth

Yes, we know that this is supposed to be the Just Third Way podcast and not the WJTW Adler Video Extravaganza, but these little gems from someone who has a claim to being the most prominent American Aristotelian-Thomist of the twentieth century have proven so popular that we can't resist the urge to keep posting them:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 28

Although there are more spectacular problems in the world, one of the more fundamental ones is the question of how people without capital ownership can become capital owners without harming anyone else.  As regular readers of this blog are aware, this can not only be done without harm, but in a way that benefits everyone by reforming the monetary, tax, and ownership structures in society.  So today we present a few thoughts on the subject:

When Did Notre Dame Become Notre Dumb?

As a few of you may know (and even fewer care), I attended the University of Notre Dame du Lac in northern Indiana in the late 1970s.  I was in the Notre Dame Glee Club for four years under Dr. David Clark (“Coach”) Isele, majored in Accounting, and managed to graduate, going on to get my MBA at the University of Evansville, Indiana.  Eventually I became Director of Research for the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) in Arlington, Virginia.

Countering Socialism

In the previous posting on this subject, we learned that, while Pope Leo XIII started off his pontificate by continuing the condemnation of the “new things” of socialism, modernism, and “New Age” thought, people just weren’t “getting it.”  Despite the work of Msgr. Aloysius Taparelli, S.J. in developing a philosophically sound principle of social justice, the socialists had seized on the term and made it their own by giving it a definition that conformed to socialism instead of to natural law.

John Henry Newman and His Brothers

Word has just come down the pike that the canonization of John Henry Newman has been set for October 13, 2019.  We say that with caution, because you can bet money on it that most of the people commenting on it, Catholic or non, will say that “Newman will be made a saint,” or words to that effect.

More from Mortimer!

We’ve been having such success with the short videos of Mortimer Adler we’ve been putting up that we decided to do a couple more this week.  The two together are not more than fifteen minutes, but they have substance.  The first one is Adler talking about the Great Ideas for about ten minutes.  The second one is a brief four minutes or so on how you don’t really get an education in school, but from a lifetime of learning:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 27

As you can see from the volume of news items this week, the Just Third Way is in no danger of a summer slowdown.  Of course, we don’t want you to slow down, either, so be sure to pass this edition of News from the Network along to your network:

Divine Right of Kings v. Democracy

In celebration of Independence Day here in the United States, we decided to take a look at where the Founding Fathers got some of their ideas.  While the specific notions of democracy that inspired American liberal democracy go back to ancient Greece and Rome, their more immediate source of inspiration was the reaction against the “divine right” theory of Sir Robert Filmer (cir. 1588-1653), chief theologian of James VI/I (1566-1625) of Scotland/England.

An Unexpected Renaissance

In the previous posting on this subject, we saw to what extent “the New Christianity” had infiltrated the mainstream Christian denominations, especially the Catholic Church.  Pope Pius IX called the First Vatican Council in part to deal with the problem, and two key doctrines were defined as part of the effort.  These were papal infallibility to rein in the exaggerated claims being made for papal authority by fideists, Neo-Catholics, and reactionaries, and the primacy of the Intellect to put faith on a solid foundation consistent with reason.

The Four Faces of Socialism: The Abolition of Private Ownership

As we saw in the first posting on this subject, there are four primary aspects of socialism.  These are philanthropy, communitarianism, reform or abolition of religion, and — our topic for today — the abolition of private ownership.  Again, it is important to note that a particular form of socialism may not include all or even any of these aspects, and yet still be true socialism.

Mortimer Adler, Intellect Mind Over Matter, I & II

Much to our surprise, the videos we've been putting up about Mortimer Adler, philosophy, and some rather difficult or esoteric concepts have been proving very popular.  The recent one on the essence of socialism discussing the distinction between form and substance ranked in the top five all time hits for this blog!  This astounded certain commentators who think you have to dumb everything down and then not talk about it at all in order to be popular.  It turns out talking about truth and all that actually draws a crowd . . . and only a few of them are hecklers!

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 26

Along with visits to this blog increasing dramatically over the past two weeks, there are some real news items that should be of interest to readers (other than the good news that, if you’re reading this, you are not alone).  It seems that people around the world are becoming increasingly aware that something may be wrong, and the usual solutions have been proven to be inadequate:

The Four Faces of Socialism: The Democratic Religion

As we saw in the first posting on this subject, and (purely by coincidence) in Wednesday’s posting, there are four primary aspects of socialism: philanthropy, communitarianism, reform or abolition of religion, and abolition of private ownership.  Again, it is important to note that a particular form of socialism may not include all or even any of these aspects, and yet still be true socialism.

The New Christianity

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, following the Financial, Industrial, and French Revolutions, society was in chaos and people began searching for alternatives to traditional political, domestic, and religious institutions.  What they came up with was “the democratic religion” — socialism.

The Four Faces of Socialism: Communitarianism

As we saw in the first posting on this subject, there are four primary aspects of socialism: philanthropy, communitarianism, reform or abolition of religion, and abolition of private ownership.  We noted that a particular form of socialism may not include all or even any of these aspects, and yet still be true socialism.

The Ownership Vehicle Podcast!

In this week’s Just Third Way podcast, Dr. Norman Kurland, President of CESJ, takes a look at the three main ownership vehicles of the Just Third Way.  These are Capital Homesteading Accounts, Citizens Land Development Cooperatives, and the one in current law that embodies the basic concept on which the others are based, the Leveraged “JBM S-Corp ESOP”:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 25

Another week with a plethora of items indicating that something is wrong with the world, somewhere and somehow, but nobody seems able to pinpoint what or how to solve it, at least not without the Just Third Way, which doesn’t seem to fit into most people’s paradigms.  From “the JTW Perspective,” however, what to do about these situations becomes obvious:

The Four Faces of Socialism: Philanthropy

In the previous posting on this subject, we noted that there are four primary aspects of socialism: philanthropy, communitarianism, reform or abolition of religion, and abolition of private ownership.  We also noted that a particular form of socialism may not include all or even any of these aspects, and yet still be true socialism.  As Pope Pius XI noted,

Christianity and Democracy

On Christmas Day in the year 1797 the aristocratic Luigi Barnabà Chiaramonte (1742-1823), Cardinal Bishop of Imola in Romagna in northern Italy, startled his congregation by declaring that there is no essential conflict between democracy and Christianity.  Coming as it did hard on the heels of the Reign of Terror in Revolutionary France (1793-1794), it must have seemed to many that their Ordinary had lost his mind. (E.E.Y. Hales, Pio Nono: A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century.  New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1954, 35.)

The Four Faces of Socialism: The Essence of Socialism

No, this is not a discussion on the various types of socialism, such as Marxist, Georgist, Relgious, or Democratic (especially since there are many more than that), but on four key aspects of socialist thought itself.  We will have to look briefly at a couple of the different forms of socialism, but that is not the main point here.

Mortimer Adler on Speaking and Listening

Last week’s video of Mortimer Adler speaking on happiness made so many people happy that we thought we’d bring you another one by Adler to listen to . . . about how to listen!

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 24

It’s astonishing the frequency with which events and situations come to light that could be resolved very simply (although not always easily) by applying the Just Third Way.  Take for instance:

Can Social Justice Be Defined?

As we have stated more than once on this blog, we like to get questions or criticisms . . . questions or criticisms that we can answer, that is.  Okay, polite questions or criticisms that we can answer. . . . like this one, from someone we had sent some links to recent blog postings:

Chesterton and Shaw: The Idea of Distributism

In the previous posting on this subject, we closed by noting that a realistic vision of a just society should present a viable alternative to capitalism, characterized by concentration of capital ownership in the hands of a relatively small private sector élite, and socialism, characterized by concentration of capital ownership in the hands of a public bureaucracy.  Distributism, a policy of widely distributed private property with a preference for small, family owned farms and artisan businesses, appeared to be one possibility.

Why is Socialism Wrong?

Many people these days assume that if they can find a precedent or some statement that they can twist into meaning what they want or need it to mean, that they have discovered a new right or truth, conveyed to them by whatever they worship as God and to be understood in the light of faith alone.  Such people forget (if they ever knew) that truth is objective reality.  Their own perceptions and beliefs are, on the other hand, subjective.  As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, nowhere has this tendency been more evident than in the ongoing effort to reformulate or repurpose Christianity as a form of socialism.

Mortimer Adler on Happiness

Today we take a look at Mortimer J. Adler's take on the question of happiness.  Adler, who co-authored The Capitalist Manifesto (1958) and The New Capitalists (1961) with Louis O. Kelso, is considere4d by many to be the premier American Aristotelian of the twentieth century.  In this half-hour video clip, we take a look at Adler's take on what Aristotle meant by "happiness," which seems to be a concept that is greatly misunderstood these days:

News from the Network, Vol. 12, No. 23

There have been a number of interesting developments this past week relating both to the development of the concept of social justice and to its application to address some current situations:

Rebranding Socialism as True Christianity

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, Robert Owen believed that all of humanity’s problems would disappear if religion, marriage, and private property were abolished.  In 1813 in A New View of Society he declared that reorienting religion from worshiping God to bettering the condition of humanity would be sufficient to establish and maintain the perfect world.

Chesterton and Shaw: The Modernist World

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, George Bernard Shaw was as insistent that socialism is the universal panacea for all problems (as long as you don’t eat meat or drink alcohol) and that distributism is just another name for Fabian socialism* as G.K. Chesterton was adamant that Shaw was full of . . . nonsense.

Religion Without God

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, Robert Owen, the Father of Modern Socialism (and Communism) wanted to establish and maintain a perfect society in this life, a constant theme of socialism for the past two centuries and more.  Since he believed that people are formed entirely by their environment, all that is necessary to create the perfect society (so he claimed) is to abolish religion, marriage, and private property.  Everything will then be perfect.

Interview with Joe Recinos, Part II (and I)

This week we bring you the second part of an interview with Joseph W. Recinos, the Latin America Director of the Center for Economic and Social Justice.  Just so you don’t have to search out the first half, we’ve included that, also.