Robert Oak of Economic Populist often gets on my back for what he calls "Economic Fiction".
I think I finally realized what he means by that. He means anything outside of the axioms of economics taught by Keynes, Roosevelt, and Smith- the axioms and theories that classic economics is built on.
I don't hold to those as the founding documents for my economics. Instead as a good Catholic should- as ANY good Catholic should- my economics is built on Rerum Novarum from Pope Leo XIII, Quadragesimo Anno from Pope Pius XI, Mater et Magistra from Pope John XXIII, and of course John Paul The Great's Centesimus Annus.
In these, work is held as a holy good in and of itself; the product of work destined for charity to oneself, one's family, and one's community. Private property is acknowledged, but limited to doing good rather than the freedom to do evil. The power of the corporation in capitalism and the power of the state in communism or socialism is restrained to a duty to provide for the material good of the individual, every individual, not just profits and power for the few.
Efficiency, beyond that which is necessary to make sure that every human being on the planet has food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and medical care, is simply NOT a concern in the economics preached by the Popes. That each man has the dignity to work to provide food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and medical care for his family, is the overriding concern.
Note also that class warfare, is considered a huge negative- the rich and the poor are to toil together in the common sacred duty to provide for the community.
This isn't communism- and it isn't capitalism. It's a third way, known as distributism. And I would hold that it is equal in reality to the other two ways- Catholic communities all over the world have been practicing this third way for many centuries before Pope Leo XIII was born, and the system is so sustainable that I have no doubt that long after the last revolutionary communist is in his grave and the last capitalist bankster has stolen his last penny of usury from some poor widow, there will be distributist communities still in existence.
In the middle ages and dark ages, such communities existed without any outside official government or economic system to depend on. They are extremely robust. I would encourage any survivalist following my blog to read these documents, and consider what a world we could have, made up of small communities following these axioms, values, and principles.
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5 comments:
Don't feel bad, I believe I've been banned. Frankly, the whole situation is a bit silly. Voicing opposition to something and facing such a drachonian response only hurts a site that purports to be a "populist." I think Bruce has been banned as well.
What hurt the most is that he also deleted Bruce's wonderful post on why the VAT would be neutral at best for exporters- and bad for the local guys. Yes, I think Bruce has been banned as well.
Well, weekends always give me the chance to stay off the computer and cool down. And this gave me the chance yet again to link to all three (EP, and my two posts here) from slashdot and explain once again why I've kind of outgrown my handle over the years.
P.S.- easy to tell if you've been banned- just refresh the page. If it appears you've logged out and entering your password returns that your UID doesn't exist, it means he's banned you.
For what its worth, Ted, I thought you had some original ideas. It troubles me when someone bandies about something like "Economic fiction," it seems like censorship. The site doesn't seem so "populist" to me if one has to worry about being banned for having a disagreement. I was alway under the impression that this was a community site.
You are right, Bruce's piece was wonderful. He also had good ideas connected with that VAT. Oh well, I guess I'll just read his stuff on sites that had more visitors like Daily Kos or Blogger. Ted, God bless you and keep up the good work. I'll continue to read your stuff, and if it ok with you, drop a comment once in a while. You take care now.
Long before I questioned my religion enough to be rational about it, I was a hacker, in the classic sense of the term. Hackers have a love of information- to the point of only deleting it under the most extreme of circumstances. You will *NEVER* be censored on my blog. And Original ideas- good or bad- will be discussed for what they are- IDEAS.
I nearly got myself banned again- I think you might be right that Robert Oak is a woman. For one thing, whenever one tries to put pro-choice or pro-life views in economic terms (and 99% of abortions, last I saw, have economic reasons) RO gets all huffy. The second thing is that there seems to be a 28 day period to the huffiness.
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