THE Global Justice Movement Website

THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

On Usury and Other Dishonest Profit, Part VI

The problem is what to do about an unworkable economic system based on Keynesian economics. Unfortunately, the choices that are forced on most people aren't really much more than a thinly-disguised Hobson's Choice: either take what's offered, or nothing. To more and more people, however, "nothing" is starting to look better and better in comparison to Marxism, capitalism, or a continued reliance on the Great Defunct Economist, Lord Keynes.

Marxism, a system based on greed, seems to offer hope to many people. They pursue the ephemeral workers' paradise without realizing that Keynesian economics is about as close as any form of socialism can come to being workable — and it is clearly not working. In true Marxist fashion, they blame the greed of the capitalists and the stupidity of the bureaucrats for failure, and put all their trust in whatever hope for change can be promised by the latest political messiah, who will finally "soak the rich," bring down the false idols in the temples of capitalism, and give the workers their due, i.e., everything.

There are, nevertheless, many people who can see the inherent injustice of paying more for labor than it's worth, and the unfairness of forcing owners to assume all risk with no compensating reward. They tend to find solace in the prescriptions of Ayn Rand. Most particularly they find the capitalist paradise described in the fantasy world of Atlas Shrugged a virtual vision of heaven. Instead of working to come together in solidarity with others, they declare selfishness to be a virtue, greed to be beneficial, and (paradoxically) individualism to be the only common good.

There is, however, a way out — once we jettison unworkable Keynesian economics, and lay the groundwork for a more just system. As we mentioned in the previous posting, the principles of the new system are found in the work of four men: Jean-Baptiste Say, Harold G. Moulton, Mortimer J. Adler, and Louis O. Kelso, as well as in the Aristotelian natural law teachings best expressed in the three major monotheistic faiths, expounded by St. Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides, and Ibn Khaldûn, and brought to fruition in the social doctrine of Pope Pius XI, ably analyzed and distilled by Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., "America's greatest social philosopher."