The Past Savings Paradox

      As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the belief that new cap[ital can only be financed by cutting consumption and accumulating money savings leads to some irresolvable paradoxes, such as land being both a factor of production and not a factor at the same time, and that is you cut consumption to accumulate savings to finance new capital, there is insufficient consumer demand to justify new capital investment.

Ricardo’s Detour

      No, we’re not talking about a Cuban band leader or even someone who plays one on television, even if we do love Lucy.  What we’re talking about today is the more-than-a-little-confusing way that the economist David Ricardo explained how to have your cake and eat it, too.

How to Sell Out to China

       For centuries and with increasing regularity in our day, the cry has gone up that instead of taxing ordinary people, the government should stick it to the rich . . . who, after all, by definition are the ones with money.  Whether we’re talking about the Diggers of the seventeenth century, Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth” program, or the current push in the United States to fund a multiple-trillion dollar budget, it seems that those greedy moneybags ought to pay their fair share.

JTW Podcast: The Rise of the Machines

       No, this is not a posting about The Terminator . . . unless you’re talking about all the jobs that are going to be terminated by advancing technology.  Nor is it useful to try and go the “Small is Beautiful,” New Age economics, Fabian socialism simple life scenario.  Human beings are toolmakers and users, and if you abolish advanced technology, it won’t be long before it makes its way back.

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 39

All of the antics on Capitol Hill and Wall Street keep reminding us of just how easily much of the mess could be cleaned up with the Economic Democracy Act.  So, not to beat a live mule:

From Need to Greed: The Labor Theory of Value

       As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the past savings assumption of today’s mainstream schools of economics and the Great Reset makes it virtually impossible for most people to be productive by owning capital.  As a rule, the past savings assumption limits access to money and credit to those who are already wealthy.

The Obtuseness of Father Brownians

In addition to writing epic poems about Lepanto (the 450^th anniversary of which is coming up next week on October 7, read all about it in this book), G.K. Chesterton wrote a series of short stories about “Father Brown” (no first name), a “priest detective,” who appears to have been the first in a more or less illustrious line of amateur clerical sleuths.

The Great Collateralization Conspiracy

      How was it that the rich were able to use the Financial Revolution top such great benefit while the rest of humanity was left behind in the dust?  By “Financial Revolution” we mean the shift in financing of new capital formation from past savings accumulated by reducing consumption, to future savings accessed by increasing production in the future.  This was made possible by the reinvention of commercial or mercantile banking in the fourteenth century, and the invention of central banking in the seventeenth century.

JTW Podcast: No Humans Need Apply

Today’s podcast is a video that asks the question that Louis Kelso answers with universal capital ownership: If robots are doing all the work, how are ordinary p[people supposed to produce something to be able to consume?  As Kelso said, “If the Machine Wants Our Jobs, Let’s Buy It” . . .

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 38

It’s astonishing just how many problems could easily be solved by enacting the Economic Democracy Act.  This week’s news items are definitely a case in point:

Future Savings Money

      As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, “usury” is not all profit or interest, but profit (or interest) taken when no profit (or interest) is due).  It is justified by the presumed need to accumulate savings before financing new capital formation.

A Certain Personality

      Last week — or maybe it was really early this week (when something comes in on the weekend it’s sometimes hard to tell whether it’s late Saturday or early Sunday, especially when you don’t bother to look) — we got a question from a faithful reader of this blog regarding our position on persons, particularly that part of it that defines “person” as “that which has rights.”  As Faithful Reader said,

Investment v. Speculation

In the previous posting on this subject, we pointed out a few foibles of socialism, noting especially the idea that the only legitimate way to have an income is a wage system job, which over the past century or so has been gradually displaced by the idea that people should just get an income whether or not they have jobs.

JTW Podcast: Importance of Power

      We don’t necessarily agree with everything (or at all on some points) that the speaker and his guest say, but he raises some interesting points that you might want to be thinking about.  And if you don't like this one (who does not necessarily reflect the views of this station), suggest one and send us a link; contact info on the CESJ website, http:www.cesj.org:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 37

Some interesting situations this week (and every week) that could easily be resolved by enacting the Economic Democracy Act.  This should be increasingly obvious to everyone as the situations develop:

Those Whacky Socialists

      In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the subject of usury, or (in Aristotelian philosophy) taking a profit where no profit is due.  Considering all profit or interest as “usury” is called “a hasty generalization” in logic, as doing so would violate private property.

Reply to a Relativist, Part II

      As we saw in yesterday’s posting, some people think that taxing an estate or gift is unjust by its very nature.  Others — as we found out from some vocal readers of this blog — insist that an income tax is inherently unjust, and yet others declare that all taxation is unjust.  Of course, it’s not exactly clear from the, er, thoughtful remarks we received where government is supposed to get its funding or whether we’re supposed to have government at all.  After all, if government funds itself we get a tyranny, if there is no government we get chaos.

Reply to a Relativist, Part I

The other day we got into a discussion with someone insisting that taxing gifts and inheritance is illegal, immoral, and fattening . . . or maybe just unjust.  It doesn’t really matter; this individual just kept insisting that you cannot be for justice and at the same time tax inheritance.  In addition, a few comments were made claiming that “person” doesn’t mean “that which has rights,” a somewhat problematical claim for an attorney.

JTW Podcast: Productiveness

“Human capital” is an interesting term.  The “Investopedia” website defines it as “a loose term that refers to the educational attainment, knowledge, experience, and skills of an employee.  The theory of human capital is relatively new in finance and economics. It states that companies have an incentive to seek productive human capital and to add to the human capital of their existing employees. Put another way, human capital is the concept that recognizes labor capital is not homogeneous.”

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 36

At the present time most people seem to be focused (at least in the economic realm) on income, rather than power.  Maybe in difficult times that’s what people tend to do, but in the end it does boil down to whether you own, or are owned.  That is why we support the Economic Democracy Act as the best alternative of which are aware to things like this:

But Is It Usury?

 

In the previous posting on this subject, we noted that the difference between interest per se and usury is that interest is a legitimate sharing of profits on some equitable basis, while usury consists of taking a profit where no profit is due.  Complicating understanding of this difference is the confusion between past savings and future savings, and the different types of money derived from each of them.

Is Interest Evil?

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the type of money determines its proper use.  Money that is created by reducing consumption in the past should be used for consumption in the present or the future, not to increase production.

Say’s Law and Money

In the previous posting on this subject we took a look at a fundamental error in Keynesian economics, in all of the schools of economics based on the Currency Principle, in fact.  That is the claim that production must exist before production can exist — the logical fallacy of reversing cause and effect, specifically, that you must refrain from consuming something before you can produce it.

Happy Capital Ownership Day!

 Yes, we know that most people are celebrating Labor Day today, but we think it's more important at this stage to start pushing for capital ownership.  After a;;, people produce with both capital and labor, so both should be acknowledged and encouraged

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 35

While the weather (at least in Northern Virginia) has taken a turn for the better, the same cannot be said about the world situation.  In our opinion, that is not going to improve other than temporarily until and unless the Economic Democracy Act is passed:

The First Principle of Economics

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, there are short term expedients that if implemented as permanent solutions impose a condition of dependency — slavery — on the great mass of people.  This is not to say that such things as stimulus payments, redistribution, job creation, full employment, and so on, are not essential at times, but they are not the solutions that so many people seem to think.

Mandating Virtue

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the principal way in which people today can be fully productive members of society (and the economy) is to own capital as well as labor.  Of course, that only matters if you view all people as fully human instead of lesser beings or things to be taken care of.

Full Participation

Say’s Law of Markets is usually summarized as “Production equals income, therefore, supply generates its own demand, and demand, its own supply.  Unless, however, you understand or even are just generally familiar with the full explanation of Say’s Law, it’s likely that you will either misunderstand it or reject it outright.

JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on the (U.S.) Constitution

This week we feature “Great Books” philosopher Mortimer J. Adler speaking on the United States Constitution of 1787.  Adler taught “Philosophy of Law” at the University of Chicago law school, and William Winslow Crosskey (Politics and the Constitution in the History of the United States, 1953) taught “Constitutional Law” there.

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 34

We hate to keep sounding the same note all the time, but many of the problems the world is currently facing would not even be a blip on the radar if the Economic Democracy Act had been passed when it was first proposed, whether then-Governor Reagan’s call for an “Industrial Homestead Act,’ or even Louis Kelso’s 1967 Accelerated Capital Expansion Act.  No, it’s not a panacea; we’d still have problems, but they would be of a more manageable size.  Until then, however:

Redefining Humanity

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, redefining a natural right means that you are, in effect, redefining what it means to be human.  That’s because natural law is based on human nature, so redefining its principles effectively redefines what it means to be human.

The Problem of Private Property

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, quite a few people in the world don’t really know the legal definition of “person” . . . although they probably think they do.  That can cause one or two (billion) problems.

The Problem of the Human Person

If you want to develop a solution to what’s going on in the world today, you have to start with the human person.  If something — such as a “Great Reset” — does not tend to the good of a human being as a human being, then it cannot be said to be good.

JTW Podcast: Dr. Robert H.A. Ashford on Capital Ownership

This particular podcast comes with a little caveat.  We agree with what Dr. Robert Ashford says, but not necessarily how he says it, e.g., he uses the term “capitalism” when we prefer “economic personalism.”  Other than that, you won’t find too many differences, so this audio recording should be of great interest, at least the first part:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 33

What with everything else that’s going on, it seems that the politicians can’t wait to see how fast they can drive the entire world into chaos and bankruptcy . . . not necessarily in that order:

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.

JTW Podcast: The Four Pillars of a Just Market Economy

What are the four things that, in our opinion, an economy needs in order to be considered just?  You can probably guess the first one right away: widespread private property in capital.  And the other three? 1) A limited economic role for the State, 2) free and open markets, and 3) restoration of the rights 0of private property:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 32

We could probably sum up all of today’s news items (except our lament that LeVar Burton was not selected as host of Jeopardy) just by saying that the money system is screwed up.  Since that would hardly fill trhe page, here are some specific reasons we have for saying that:

The Magic of Future Savings

If you want to baffle and outrage both socialists and capitalists — kin under the skin more than either group realizes — tell them that it is possible to have expanded capital ownership without either redefining ownership or redistributing what belongs to others.  Socialists will bellow that you cannot have widespread ownership without changing the meaning of ownership, while capitalists will shriek that the only way others can own anything is to take it from them.

Abolishing Private Property

In the previous posting on this subject, we closed by noting that at some point the noted lawyer-economist Louis O. Kelso asked himself the questions (probably not in these exact words), “If advancing technology makes such superabundance possible, why is it essential for people to have employers to pay them wages for labor that is not necessary for production?”

The Expanded Ownership Revolution

One of the many paradoxes involved in the Great Reset and similar proposals has to do with human nature and the natural law.  As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, despite centuries of failure adherents insist that the abolition of private property and redistribution will work if we just manage to change human nature, try harder, and commit sufficient resources to the effort.

JTW Podcast: Adler on the Six Great Ideas: Truth

Today’s podcast we get to hear Mortimer Adler on what truth is.  The short answer, which you can hear about a minute and a half into the video, is “Truth consists in the agreement of what we think and what is in the world, what is real.”  Obviously, this comes into serious conflict with all the people who think that we can make our own truth and force it on others if we just have enough power over them:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 31

If there is one word to describe the current world situation, it is “surreal.”  One of the problems has been that for more than two-hundred years the idea has been gaining ground that “humanity” (an abstraction) is far more important than humans.  That sort of thinking is the basis of capitalism, socialism, “ultrasupernaturalism” (what Msgr. Ronald Knox defined as an excess of charity that causes disunity), and “New Age” thinking.  Many people today think they can create truth rather than work to discover it.  It’s so much easier to impose your created truth on others rather than do the hard work of conforming to reality.  Maybe that’s why people still haven’t caught on to the Just Third Way . . . it’s too much work.

A Systematic Diffusion of Power

Ironically, it is not out of the realm of possibility that had Theodore Roosevelt won the 1912 U.S. Presidential election, World War I might never have occurred.  It might also have occurred to Judge Peter S. Grosscup and the Rough Rider that when the Federal Reserve was finally established in 1914, here was the desperately needed source of financing that could open access to ownership by all Americans of America’s vast corporate wealth without the necessity of past savings and without redistribution or taxation.

Something Missing

Sometimes we’re tempted to paraphrase Vince Lombardi (even if he didn’t actually say it) and say that money isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.  We’d be completely wrong, of course, but money — properly understood — is such a key element of any economy that it’s easy to make that kind of mistake.

Is There a “Third Way”?

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, we believe it is a fundamental principle of economic personalism that every human being is a person, and as such should be both a producer or creator and a consumer — a binary relationship, integral to personalism itself.  The right to consume is rarely questioned (at least out loud), but what doesn’t seem to cross people’s minds is the need for everyone to be productive.  Each person should have access to the means of employing both labor and capital to do so.

JTW Podcast: Review of Adler’s “The Great Ideas”

Here is a video review of Mortimer Adler’s “the Great Ideas” books by “Andrew the Red.”  There’s some good stuff here about the state of education today and how difficult it is to get an actual education:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 30

Other people and things may get into the Summer Doldrums, but not us.  There is always something going on, whether at CESJ, the Just Third Way, Justice University, and other individuals and groups:

Binary Economic Personalism

It may have a somewhat lengthy name — the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism — but it is much more straightforward and logical than people living in a world soaked in Keynesian Kraziness might suppose.  In the previous posting on this subject, we noted how many (although not all) aspects of life are “binary” and tend either to be in balance or try to move toward a balance to function properly.  This, naturally enough, led us to economic personalism, which is based on an application of binary economics.

The Meaning of Life

At the end of the previous posting on this subject, we asked the question, “what is the meaning of life within the Just Third Way?”  This came up because during their (in)famous 1927 debate, “Do We Agree?” (the answer to which, as Hilaire Belloc pointed out, is “no”), G.B. Shaw claimed that the only thing that mattered is income (i.e., consumption power and material wellbeing), regardless how you get it.

“Do We Agree?”

To answer that question briefly — and accurately — no, “we” don’t . . . if by “we” is meant G.K. Chesterton and G.B. Shaw.  The reference is to their final, er, “debate (for want of a better word) in November of 1927.

JTW Podcast: How to Speak and How to Listen

Today’s podcast is from a set of tapes, one of which is this lecture that Mortimer Adler gave many years ago on basic learning skills:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 29

Some very interesting things have been going on this week . . . not all of them bad!

The Source of Power

 

Whether carrying out individual or social acts of virtue, the ordinary means of economically empowering persons both as individuals and as members of groups is private property in capital.  Recognizing equal access to private property in productive capital as a universal human right is a crucial difference between economic personalism and both capitalism and socialism. (Laborem Exercens, §§ 14-15.)

What is “The Gift of Self”?

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the concept of personalism from an Aristotelian-Thomist perspective is based on the sovereignty of the human person under God.  It includes five key characteristics:

The Reality of the Human Person

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, any “social teaching” that does not respect the dignity of every human person, that interpretation is by definition incorrect or faulty.  Admittedly, we’ve been picking on Catholic social teaching, but that’s only because the Catholic Church has the most comprehensive — and misunderstood, even by (or especially) by Catholics — body of social thought in the world today, at least from a personalist point of view.

JTW Podcast: Universalizing Capital Ownership

This past Thursday, a Justice University team participated in a webinar presented by the International Association for Peace and Economic Development (IAED) on “The Just Third Way: Universalizing Capital Ownership.  Presenting the case for the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism were Dr. Norman Kurland, president of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice, Dawn K. Brohawn, Director of Communications for CESJ, and Michael D. Greaney, CESJ’s Director of Research:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 28

While we prefer to report on positive things, there haven’t been too many lately.  Still, there are a few, although mixed in with quite a bit of negative items:

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.

The Virtue of Social Justice

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, by the beginning of the nineteenth century it had become obvious that the old individualist way of doing things was insufficient, and by the end of the nineteenth century it was just as obvious that the collectivist way was even worse.  The only thing left was what most people simply couldn’t get a handle on: the personalist way of doing things.

JTW Podcast: Three Principles of Economic Justice

Just in case you were wondering what real economic justice looks like — it has three principles that it must embody if it is to be considered “just.”  Hint: “economic justice” does not mean “redistribution.”

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 27

As the global situation continues to heat up in everything but a good way, world leaders seem more intent than ever on keeping old and failed programs going instead of implementing something that actually works and has been proven to work: the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism:

What “Social Justice” REALLY Means

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, individual and social virtue are two different things, and each has a specific job to do that complements, but does not replace, the other.  Individual virtue is directed to the good of individuals, of human persons.  Social virtue is directed to the common good, that is, the institutional environment within which human persons realize their individual good.

The Right Tool for the Job

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the possibly confusingly-named “Reign of Christ the King ain’t exactly what it sounds like.  It begs for a bit of explanation — which is what today’s posting is about.

Reign of Christ the King?

In the previous posting on this subject, we saw that while God made the world, he didn’t create human society.  Human beings did that, so it’s no use blaming Him for what’s going wrong.  If there’s something wrong, it’s up to us to fix it.  The only question is how . . . especially when we discover that individually we are pretty helpless to effect changes in the social order.  What happens then?

JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Socrates

Many people today claim to see no use in philosophy . . . which is itself a philosophy!  This week we take a look at what Mortimer Adler, the “Great Books” philosopher, thought about Socrates.  You might find it interesting . . . and we won’t make you take a snort of hemlock if you don’t agree, either!

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 26

Attention, all Savoyards and admirers of the Bard of Avon.  Be careful how you quote or even if you quote.  The degree of cultural illiteracy in the world is rising faster than the mercury in Death Valley at noon in summer.  You also might want to be wary of reading books like Huckleberry Finn, Brideshead Revisited, Tarzan of the Apes, Gone With the Wind, or anything that mentions You-Know-Who or You-Know-What, so whatever you say, say nothing:

Coercive Virtue?

Can you force people to be virtuous?

The quick and easy answer to that question is no, you cannot.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”  (Address at Western Michigan University, December 18, 1963.)

Ronald Knox v. the Godly

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, people whom Msgr. Ronald A. Knox labeled “enthusiasts” have a definite tendency not only to think themselves better than everyone else and separate from such ungodly ones, but often have a strong tendency to act on it in a more forceful manner when the ungodly refuse to accept guidance or act, think, or believe the “right” way.

The Godly v. the Ungodly

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, how we understand the meaning and purpose of life has a significant effect on our thinking.  If we think that this life is primarily or solely to establish a perfect world — what the early socialists called “the Kingdom of God on Earth” — then anything that gets in the way of building a perfect society can and must be eliminated.  The end justifies the means.

JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler Tells It Like It Is

. . . Or as it should be.  As Francis Bacon put it, “What is truth? said the jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.”  According to J.M. Bochenski, O.P. in The Methods of Contemporary Thought, truth is that which conforms to reality.  As for Mortimer Adler:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 25

We start off today’s news items with the CESJ Bookstore, which you might want to patronize.  If you can’t see anything, evidently you have to turn off some kind of ad blocker and you get everything.  The other big concern is China, which makes up the bulk of this week’s Just Third Way news . . . even though what China is doing can hardly be called just.  Consider it a warning:

Improvising History

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council in economic terms was intended to solidify and carry out the program that had been developed to counter socialism: foster a state of society characterized by widespread capital ownership.  Socialism had by the time of the Council so permeated understanding of the Church’s natural law social teachings, however, that the “modernists,” as they were inappropriately called, were able to turn an administrative event into a revolution.

Still Not Really About Religion

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the backwash from the Second Vatican Council didn’t really have much to do with what most people think of as “religion,” but with seizing the opportunity to advance a relatively new concept of religion that had been messing things up for the previous century and a half.

Not Really About Religion

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, private property is so important to a just society that it was included in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 17), for which Pope Pius XII had been pushing and was joined by none other than Eleanor Roosevelt.

JTW Podcast: The Economics of Reality and Justice

After a short hiatus, the series based on the book Economic Personalism is back.  And don’t forget that the book is available for free in e-format.  This particular episode seems to have generated some very positive comments, e.g.,

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 24

With all the craziness going on in the world, you’d think there was nothing to be hopeful about.  You’d be right, if it wasn’t for the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism.  Fortunately, however, matters have not yet come to the point where nothing can be done:

The Rights of Man

We’re tempted to begin this posting with our usual, “As we said in the previous posting on this subject”  . . . so we will yield to temptation and begin by saying that in the previous posting on this subject, we asked the question whether material wellbeing is the sole end of existence, such as the Fabians and other socialists claimed, or if there was something more.

The Fabian Flood

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt got the New Deal implemented using some rather shady tactics.  Don’t just take our word for it, however.  Anyone who wants to get a somewhat different perspective than is given in the Keynesian history books and current political rhetoric can read, e.g., Amity Shlaes’s The Forgotten Man (2009).  She’s obsessed with the stock market as somehow  being an economic indicator, but don’t let that stop you from the getting the real value the book has to offer.

The Un-Natural New Deal

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, Catholics — or at least some of them — finally seem to have made the grade and become part of the mainstream by the 1930s . . . depending on what is meant by “mainstream” and a few other things, like “making the grade.”  With Msgr. John Ryan and Fr. Charles Coughlin leading the way, however, everything looked just peachy-keeno.

JTW Podcast: What is Education?

The current discussion over the next Jeopardy host (and why NOT LeVar Burton?), underscores the problem with what many people think education is today: training people to be technicians and for jobs that no longer exist.  We would disagree with Adler’s use of the word “men,” but not with his meaning: Academia is not educating people, buyt training and indoctrinating them:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 23

There are some very interesting news items this week, many of which reveal widespread misunderstanding regarding the nature of money.  Many people talk about it, but very few seem to have any real idea what it is.  To lighten things up a little, however, we lead off with a free plug for the CESJ Bookstore, which you really should visit:

The New Double Deal

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, serious efforts had been made to try and deal with the rapid spread of socialism and moral relativism in both Church and State, but very little had been effective.  It seems that when dealing with the worldly, St. Paul was right about being as sly as serpents — albeit still honest and truthful — for adherents of the new things have never let truth or even common civility stand in their way.

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.

The Attack on Fulton Sheen

In the previous posting on this subject, we related how Fulton Sheen was called to the Catholic University of America to deal with the problem of socialism and moral relativism that had taken over the university.  The problem was that Bishop Shahan, who brought Sheen in to fix the problem, retired in 1927, and the situation quickly degenerated.

JTW Podcast: Are You Happy?

 

Mortimer Adler once made the point that trying to decide whether you’re happy or have had a happy life is not a question that can be answered until you’ve reached the end of it.  Nevertheless, there are people who will sacrifice everything (usually other people) in order to get what they want, thinking it will bring them happiness . . . or what they think is happiness.

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 22

It seems to baffle people why we have a great and glorious economic recovery and yet most people don’t seem to be any better off than they were before.  Of course, there is the little matter of how “recovery” is being defined, and who actually is benefitting . . . and whether said recovery is all on paper (or just in the papers), but these are trivial details that matter only to the 99% who don’t have access to the means of becoming and remaining capital owners:

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.

G.K. Chesterton v. “Some American Crank”

In the previous posting on this subject, we reviewed the influence of Henry George on the Fabian Society, and the influence of the Fabian Society.  Nor was the Fabian Society the only group influenced by George, and that influenced others, including groups and individuals in the Catholic Church.  More immediate in its effect on understanding of social justice — or, rather, misunderstanding — was the power wielded by Monsignor John A. Ryan of the Catholic University of America.

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

They say that the easiest way to hide something is in open sight; with a hat tip to Samuel Rosenberg’s 1974 Sherlockian showcase (okay, you find a better one), “naked is the best disguise.”  In other words, be so obvious about what you’re doing that nobody will believe you really mean it . . like the Fabian Society adopting the “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” as their emblem, telling people they were going to make everybody socialist, but just call it something else. . . .

JTW Podcast: Dr. Fedoryka on John Paul II

And now for something completely different . . . but not really.  This week we bring you a lecture by Dr. Damien P. Fedoryka, who at one time gave us a few good words on our compendium, Curing World Poverty (1994), whose concept of “gift” seems to come closer to what we discussed in our most recent book, Economic Personalism, than some of what is floating around as “the economy of gift” and a few other things:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 21

The big thing right now in the economy seems to be trying to figure out ways to get people to go back to work when they are either getting more from not working, or just don’t feel like getting back into the rat race.  Of course, proponents of raising the minimum wage insist that if prospective employers would pay more, they’d have all the workers they need.  The downside, of course, is that at some point it becomes cheaper to outsource or replace human beings with robots.  Robots don’t make demands, but then they don’t buy products, either.  No one is asking why not turn everybody into owners of the machines that are doing the work, which would solve a lot of problems:

The Socialist Counterattack

In the previous posting on this subject we saw that Pope Lei XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum knocked both capitalists and socialists for a loop.  It was not long, however, before both groups had figured out ways to keep on doing what they were already doing and claim papal endorsement.  Of the two, however, the socialists took the initiative, as they were the ones most obviously targeted.

The Secret History of Rerum Novarum

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the agrarian socialist Henry George managed to make his brand of “the Democratic Religion” headline news throughout the English-speaking world in 1886 and 1887 by running for mayor of New York City . . . although people wonder to this day just what it was he expected to be able to do once he was in charge of the Big Apple.  New York may be the center of the universe (especially if you’re a New Yorker), but even the center of the universe isn’t the entire universe or even the whole state of New York.

The Struggle for Sanity

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject — not that we’re particularly pushing Catholicism — but the Catholic Church has from the beginning been the only consistent opponent of socialism and moral relativism in the modern world.  As G.K. Chesterton noted in the introduction he wrote to the published version of Fulton Sheen’s doctoral thesis, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy (1925), the Catholic Church is pretty much the “last man standing” when it comes to defending common sense in the world today.

JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler, Aristotle, and Happiness

This week we again return to Mortimer Adler, who gives us a (relatively) short discourse on what Aristotle meant by “happiness.”  It might even give you something to think about:

News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 20

As the pandemic seems to be more or less winding down, sort of, maybe, people are struggling to figure out ways to restore the status quo or build a new world on the presumed ruins of the old.  This is nothing new; it’s happened after pretty much every major upheaval in history.  One of the more significant movements came out of the backwash from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.  Eventually called “socialism,” it only succeeded in messing things up more . . . which makes us wonder why people think it’s going to be anymore successful now.