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Is it only human nature to shop for the lowest
price without considering the origin of the price? Is it only human nature to live off the impoverished workers who
produce the goods? Is it only human nature to shop our way out of our jobs? |
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This from essays by Peter Maurin and the Catholic Workers. It was written years ago and it still applys today: 1. Politicians used to say: "We make prosperity through
our wise policies." 2. Business men used to say: "We make prosperity through our private enterprise." 3. The workers did not have anything to
say about the matter; (Today, workers have no voice in the process
of free trade
and globalization- in fact they are the commodity being traded.
See http://tapsearch.com/communications-by-rank )4. They were either put to work or thrown out of employment 5. And when unemployment came the workers had no
recourse against the professed makers of prosperity,
politicians and business men. |
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This essay by Peter Maurin tells us who is responsible for applying the common good.
...Jacque Maritain layed the foundation of a new social order about 70 years ago.
...This task belongs to
the laity who are on the front lines in the workday.
...The clergy teach the principles and it is the task of the
laity to apply them. ( Peter Maurin maintained this should be done without involving the clergy - however, I wonder if this
is right since the clergy have to keep interpreting what is happening in the field. Pope John's Vatican 2 has
a solid base, as Pope John turned to the laity to take charge. So far it looks like the laity were not up
to the task and even Rerum Novarum which stood as a standard for human dignity in the workday for about a 100 years took a
big hit during the 1980s . The application to the social problems is a new kind of apologetics that require the laity to apply
it but at the same time needs the clergy to follow close behind if not be directly involved as with the workers priest
movement. )
... this is why I explore the latent response of philosophy and religion to the global economic arena
at The Rationale. Links are on our other page. Jacque Maritain seems to be the last philospher to provide
us with a road map and I wonder why no one followed him. We lack real philosophy in our modern times especially with so called
free trade and Globalization running out of control. I keep hoping for clearer distinctions and wonder why Pope Benedict
did not address so called free trade more directly. Free trade is not trade as historically practiced or defined. Human beings
are treated as commodities being traded.
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President Woodrow Wilson --
"Except for religious conflicts and the
petty wars of feudal lords, wars are primarily fought over resources and trade. President Woodrow Wilson recognized that this
was the cause of World War I: 'Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that
the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?''
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Here is an historical look at the workday based on the Catholic Workers
analysis. Note how much we accept as reality today and needs to be challenged . Somehow the priority of human
dignity in the workday had been unprioritized in the process.
Perhaps we need scholars working in
factories and on farms to reset our economic priorities.
1200 AD- Guild System
Capitalism did not exist. There was the guild system which promoted the common good as its priority. People used to
say "What can I do for you?" in a real way. Now they say it in a different way for marketing purposes for the sake
of investments.
1400 AD- The Middle Ages
The
middle man arrives on the scene. He offers to buy the goods and find markets for them.
The guildsman forgets about the
Common Good and thinks primarily about making money of profits outside of the products. The middle man is not concerned about
the products but more concerned about the transaction for the sake of profit. The consumer never meets the producer and the
producer being distant from the consumer, changes his way of thinking about the consumer. Profits take priority over service.
(Today, we have call centers in India for serving and supporting customer service in the USA for products made in other
places across the globe which are cheaper to throw away then to support or repair. The middle man thinks only about the money
involved. )
1600 - The Banker arrives
Before John Calvin,
lending money at an interest rate was not allowed. This process was legalized inspite of what the Prophets of Israel and the
Fathers of the Church believed. Money-lending at an interest rate to buy on time became a general practice. Money
became a product by itself. It was no longer just a means of exchange. So people lent money on time and time became
money. The phrase "Time is money." took over. ( Today, if you do not pay on time or pay below a set amount,
your interest could climb as high as 34 percent with many paying 2 to 3 times more than they borrowed. Usuary is legal and
no one talks about it being a sin. During our times, the bankruptcy rate has broken all records because people lost their
jobs and ran out of time. Many borrow money on time to pay for their health care needs. People are rushed through hospitals
because " Time is money."
1700 - The Manufacturer arrives
Steam as an energy led the way to making things by methods outside the home. So, the guildsman left his shop
and went to the factory. And "Time is money" took over. The manufacturers found they could make more employing
women and children. The men stayed home and tried to find their way in this new world while their wifes and children worked
under the stress of faster and faster production. ( Today, the manufacturer moves his production and factories from place
to place for the sake of cheaper and cheaper labor and both men and women who need a living wage to survive, lose their jobs.
President Bush says the Mexican workers come to the USA to fill jobs that Americans will not take. The Mexican workers leave
their homes because they do not take the jobs the American have sent. The U.S. government start moving factories to Mexico
in 1956 and when NAFTA was passed the number of factories moved to Mexico from the U.S. added up to more than 4,000 factories.
Now some of these factories are on the move again because the Mexican worker will not take these jobs because they can not
survive on the wages. Some of the factories have been moved to places like China but there are also workers there who
will not take these jobs because they can not exist with the wages being paid. Reacting to this China middle men contract
workers in places like Jordan where workers are willing to work for less. There is an endless supply of wage slave and
child labor across the globe and so the process seeks its lowest level on a continous basis. The Bankers and Middle Men call
it free trade. )
1800- The Economist arrives
Adam Smith brings
the world a new word and creates a theory around it. The new word is Competition. Since then, we are told competition is a good thing and it makes trading a dynamic
living enterprise. The life of trade becomes a situation of the survival of the fittest.
Today, Free-Traders and
Globalist point to Adam Smith to defend their methods. Some call it the Free Market but today this Free Market has trampled
over the Free Enterprise system by locking out real competition. The Free-Traders ignore the part where Adam Smith held
labor as something sacred and the core of society. Trade and competiton grew two industrial nations who became imperialist
nations and they fought for markets. These two nations being England and Germany went to war with each other because of this
competition and the war grew into World War 1. The economists measured business and investment transactions in many
new ways. A college economic professor once told me, that there is no such thing as a good or bad economy because economics
is only about measuring data and comparing it all with each other. ( During our times, the economic measuring during the 1990s
told us we had a good economy even though the most massive dislocation of jobs in U.S. history took place with millions losing
their jobs forever. A new working poor class came and the term underemployment came too but later even this term lost
its meaning in terms of economic measuring. Workers making only a $100 a month were reported as employed while
only about 40 percent of workers in America qualify for unemployment insurance. They either do not work long enough on one
job or make enough money in a certain period to qualify. It ends up being another way to measure things for "Time
is Money.")
1914- World War 1 arrives
President Wilson
called it a war to end all wars. He said it was a commercial war but also idealized it as a War for Democracy. The war ended
but it did not bring Democracy. It brought Bolshevism in Russia, Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany. The allies
after World War 1 wanted to make German just one big farm and deny them factory production. Of course ,it set the stage for
World War 2. A new colonialism was invented where nations had to defend their interests across the globe.
1929 - The World Depression arrives.
World War 1 ended. A New Era was
proclaimed. People thought the found a solution to the problem of mass distribution. People thought the time had come
for a two-car garage and a chicken in every pot. We had economics that measure things, middle men who knew how to make money
on transactions, manufacturers who knew how to make things for the sake of money and bankers who knew how to make money on
money. Investors created a new way to make money on paper which they called stocks and the roaring 1920s came. The stock
promoters pumped this paper into the economy as if it had a life of its own. It did not. The stock marke crashed and people
found themselves in a world depression. The stock market crashed in 1929 and the dysfunctional world found no way to
survive other than wars.
1933 - The New Deal
arrives
President Roosevelt arrives and announced the New Deal to end the Depression. In 1930,
the people were told the economic system was fundamentally sound. In 1931, they were told prosperity was just around the corner.
In 1932, the New Deal came and the depression was fought on one hundred fronts. In 1933, people were told that five
million men would be employed by Labor Day. It didn't happen. In 1934, President Roosevelt initiated government programs
to solve the problems. He started the NRA and in 1935 the NRA was scrapped and the economic recovery seemed like it would
never come. Instead the events predicted that new wars were coming. President Roosevelt found way. He said
he was not going to let the lack of dollars stand in his way and started the Lend Lease program. He ramped up factories and
farms to supply the allies goods without worrying about payments. There was no real trade because the world had run
out of money. Lend Lease created a new artificial economy but the ony way it could really work for a long term
was to have another great war. World War 2 came. The U.S. created the most awesome industrial might the world has
ever known. It took hold after the war was over. It was an artificial economy but it created a giant middle class in the USA.
It supported the GI Bill and The Marshall Plan which was set in place to duplicate the success. The Marshall Plan helped restore
Europe and Japan economies. It displayed economic models that were active and working. But then the Free-traders came and
said the Great Depression was all about trade even though there was no money in the world to support trade back then.
The trade act they claimed caused the Great Depression did not arrive until after the stock market crash and all trading up
to that time involved all types of free trade and tariff policies. In 1934, President Roosevelt was given the power to control
trade anyway he wanted to. He chose to start the Lend Lease program with federal funds instead. It set the stage for World
War 2 that created industry overnight. It is difficult to understand why the Free-traders wanted to make factories and
production portable because the value of workers and labor are the only true tangible values we had left. Paper money
products needed a vast manipulations for it to grow any values. Now we see that economies based on making money on money
instead of making or growing things in balanced geopolitical local and regional settings don't work. Only local value
added economies that add value in several stages from the raw product to the end user or retail level work. Each time
a factory is moved a burn out community is left behind. Now we it has expanded to a whole world community being burned out.
One size does not fit all. There is much more to it all than saying "Time is Money." Alan Greenspan
in his book the Age of Turbulence dedicated part of it to describing the New Harmony working community experience as a failure
and as a sign that only a so called Free Market economy works. The people who now are out of jobs know better. Many
are now noting that decentralization is much better than centralization as noted by the "Ted Party" demonstrations
and we ask why not . Why should government or anything else be centralized to the point of implosion. Why do liberals ignore
real diversity in the way people themselves choose to live and control their lives. There are so many ways to
do it with things like workers or farm communities being in the mix. The question of our times is this - Who said we had to compete with one another for the same jobs in a global economic arena? And why
did the U.S. Federal Government itself sponsor the moving of factories and production outside the U.S. starting in 1956. It
was supposed to be a temporary program but it never ended. Why not?
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President Roosevelt changed economics
in more ways than one.
He established ceiling prices during World War 2. Retailers were not allowed to sell
things
above the established ceiling prices. This demolished many small businesses who would not black market their
products. Others tried to adjust and a new way of marketing took over with retailers selling many items under their costs.
Prior to this, all items usually carried a reasonable markup. Along with ration stamps, which also limited sales,
what I call - the lost leader economy surfaced . Those retailers and companies with the most money knocked out
the
businesses with the least money supply. Later this evolved into companies buying up markets by selling under costs for years
until they eliminated their competition. As a young teenager working in our family food store, I experienced the women coming
home from early morning Mass and shopping in our store buying only the lost leaders advertised on the windows. They in effect
walked out with money out of our pockets. I asked by father how this lost leader economy was supposed to work.
He said the new way is to attract volume so that enough people would come into the store to buy items that had a markup. This did
not happen. The lost leader economy came and knocked out most of all small businesses. Later in the corporate
world, I experience something of the same thing when competitors sold under costs for years just to put the corporations I
was with out of business. This approach later on evolved into companies just moving products out the door for
the sake of cash flow with which they then used for daily investments for the sake of profits instead of making money
on the products they sold. Some companies even had a large department dedicated to this type of money manipulations.
Some even risk money on money products that forecasted loss instead of gain. These approaches grew larger when free
trade took over. Even governments acted as middle men in the deals through subsidies etc. Just imagine what goes on
now with all the stimulus and bail out money. In the process the value of labor and workers was deflated and now a vast
void is left with no one knowing what to do about it. The value of labor and workers was a real tangible value and money standard.
The lost values now impact the value of paper money too as our economy based on making money on money instead of making things
is burning out.
At the same time government jobs wages are about 40 percent higher than the private
sector jobs on an average. The problems multiply when union membership for public workers is about 50 percent and the
union membership for private sector manufacturing jobs is down to about 15 percent. It is obvious the government union
workers control events that are not in sync with real solutions because of this vast difference. The term protectionism now
has a new connotation related to this difference. Government will now protect their status at the expense of the private sector
more than ever. The new economy now is a Socialist Capitalist variety where government is married to big money. The Free Market
is no longer free and it too has its own variety of protectionism now after destroying the Free Enterprise System.
The Bewildered New World hears from the Pope. It may be too little and too late.
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Tapsearcher finds:
Laurie Goodstein and Rachel Dunadio from the New
York Times reported the issuing of Pope Benedict economic encyclical was delayed due to the economic crisis. We explored
the latent response of religion and philsophy to the global economic arena at http://www.therationale.com Religion has trailed economic events for a long time instead of making a stand. Newsweek/Washington
Post published a review by Father Thomas J Reese SJ at Georgetown University and some who responded to the article wondered
why Father Reese did not say more about what he thought about it and just repeated sections from it .
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