Debt Forgiveness, Debt Jubilees, and Personal Responsibility

Michael Hudson: Our Neo-Feudal System Is on the Verge of Collapse and A Debt Jubilee Is the Only Way to Avoid Depression

Vox Day: The need for a debt jubilee and The answer to the "responsibility" objection

Paul Craig Roberts: Everything Accomplished During the Great Depression to Make Capitalism Workable Has Been Taken Away Resulting in Economic Crisis that Only Debt Forgiveness Can Mitigate and Debt Forgivness and Nationalization Are the Answers to the Economic Crisis

Michael Hudson and Paul Craig Roberts: A Brady Bond Solution for America’s Economic Crisis and Unpayable Corporate Debt

Many have rejected debt jubilees and debt forgiveness because it is "unfair" to those (usually including themselves) who kept themselves out of debt. Bragging about having shown personal responsibility within a system that doesn't care about you while showing no solidarity with others who failed those traps? It is almost like the Boomer boast of how they are self-made people and that younger generations should be more like them. It's as if your obeying the rules of the system somehow give you merit -- sure it's framed in the language of responsibility, justice, and so on, but who is defining these terms and with what laws? The laws of the oligarchs. If some somehow prevail and stay debt free, while the weak are exploited, should they look down on those who are exploited? Have they walked in their shoes? Do they know their personal circumstances? Some of those with debt may be irresponsible flakes but are all of them like that? What have you done to encourage personal responsibility for them? If you say that you have no connection to these people, and that you have no responsibility for them, then they are the responsibility of others, and the state. What is it to you if the state decides to undertake certain measures to protect them? You couldn't do so, or you weren't willing to do so.

If you don't like what the system is doing, then work to change it, but show some consideration to those vulnerable to exploitation by the oligarchs and guide them, when possible.

Can a Nation-State Be a Patria?

So Close and Yet So Far

The Challenge of Racism Today: Cardinal Donald Wuerl vs. St. Thomas Aquinas

Does his characterization of neo-pagan racism matter? Are there some who fall under that description? Perhaps. Is that whom the SJWs are criticizing? Not really.

St. Thomas's Commentary on the Sentences

T. Beale links to an article presenting Aquinas's views on immigration. The main weakness of that interpretation is that the author seems to think integration or identity is merely a question of sharing beliefs, and not the more substantial question of civic friendship.

Cardinal Burke on Catholic Education

TAC: Cardinal Burke on Catholic Education and Cultural Transformation
Genuine Catholic Education and its Power to Transform Our Culture

Austen, Aristotle, and Aquinas

Post by Dominicana.

An Ecumenical Concert by Cappella Romana

Post by Cappella Romana.

blog

For today's memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas:

Renewable Ignorance by Herman Daly (EB)

Daly gets Aquinas wrong: "Which error are we most likely to commit today? I believe we overemphasize Descartes and pay too little attention to Aquinas. I take Aquinas’s “higher things” to mean purposes, knowledge about right purposes." Aquinas, following Aristotle, is saying that the knowledge of divine things is intrinsically more valuable than knowledge of lower things. Still, his main point is correct - we should be asking whether our practices (to use MacIntyre's terms) are properly ordered to human goods, and we should be reflecting more upon what those goods are. (Hence the importance of seeking guidance from those who are wise, rather than relying upon bad reasoning masquerading as science or philosophy.)

Putting a wife away

Found St. Thomas' discussion of divorce through a comment at Dalrock. It answers some of my questions that I posed here, but I'd like to read more about nullification of spousal obligations.

Domincian Rite Missa Cantata of St. Thomas Aquinas at St. Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula CA (NLM)


Fr. Augustine has a new biography on St. Francis of Assisi

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

From last year:


Fr. Barron has a video, but I'm not going to embed it. I'll just link to it, since his fans may be reading this.

The Two Thomases

Archbishop Di Noia's talk on Aquinas and Thomas Jefferson has been published in First Things. (Via the Dominican Province of St. Joseph.)

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, January 28

reprint: Oceans Bridge or Art Gallery

EWTN

Dominican Province of St. Joseph: Abp. Di Noia preaches on Aquinas at the CUA Patronal Feast Mass
Saint Thomas Aquinas, Father Ombres, O.P. preaches on Vatican Radio

Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P.: Dominican Art and Liturgy Announcements

Fr. Barron comments on St. Thomas Aquinas (via Insight Scoop)

Zenit: On the Summa Theologiae
"In the School of the Saints, Let Us Be Enamored" of the Eucharist

Insight Scoop: Benedict XVI on the Doctor Angelicus, relationship of philosophy to theology

Benedict XVI on St. Thomas Aquinas

Zenit: On St. Thomas Aquinas
He "Showed There Is a Natural Harmony Between Christian Faith and Reason"

Zenit: Archbishop Speaks on Aquinas and Universities
"We Must Reaffirm the Passion for Truth That Animated St. Thomas"



(source)
Francisco Zurbarán
The Apotheosis of Thomas Aquinas
1631

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, January 28

(source)

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
SEP entry; IEP.
McInerny Center for Thomistic Studies
Stephen Loughlin's Page
Center for Thomistic Studies

The Victory of the Commons (original)
Jay Walljasper, On the Commons
Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom proved that people can—and do—work together to manage commonly-held resources without degrading them.

Over many decades, Ostrom has documented how various communities manage common resources — grazing lands, forests, irrigation waters, fisheries — equitably and sustainably over the long term. The Nobel Committee's recognition of her work effectively debunks popular theories about the Tragedy of the Commons, which hold that private property is the only effective method to prevent finite resources from being ruined or depleted.

Awarding the world's most prestigious economics prize to a scholar who champions cooperative behavior greatly boosts the legitimacy of the commons as a framework for solving our social and environmental problems. Ostrom's work also challenges the current economic orthodoxy that there are few, if any, alternatives to privatization and markets in generating wealth and human well being.

The Tragedy of the Commons refers to a scenario in which commonly held land is inevitably degraded because everyone in a community is allowed to graze livestock there. This parable was popularized by wildlife biologist Garrett Hardin in the late 1960s, and was embraced as a principle by the emerging environmental movement. But Ostrom's research refutes this abstract concept with the real life experience from places like Nepal, Kenya and Guatemala.

"When local users of a forest have a long-term perspective, they are more likely to monitor each other's use of the land, developing rules for behavior," she cites as an example. "It is an area that standard market theory does not touch." Garrett Hardin himself later revised his own view, noting that what he described was actually the Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons.

Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, also a Nobel winner, commented, "Conservatives used the Tragedy of the Commons to argue for property rights, and that efficiency was achieved as people were thrown off the commons...What Ostrom has demonstrated is the existence of social control mechanisms that regulate the use of the commons without having to resort to property rights." [Social control mechanisms = custom or law (even if it is not written), and the a system of punishments and rewards it provides.]

The Nobel Committee's choice of Ostrom is significant considering that many winners of the prize since it was initiated in 1968 have been zealous advocates of unrestricted markets, such as Milton Friedman, whose selection helped fuel the rise of market theory as the be-all end-all of economics since the 1980s. Policies based upon this narrow worldview sparked the rise of corporate power and the diminishment of government's role in protecting the commons.

While right-wing thinkers scoffed at the possibility of resources being shared in a way that maintains the common good, arguing that private property is the only practical strategy to prevent this tragedy, Ostrom's scholarship shows otherwise.
"What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved," she explains.

A "long-term perspective" is not simply "knowing" that there is a future, and that one's actions will have some sort of consequences. It is more like foresight, or prudence and its accompanying virtues. In that case, the claim is that virtuous people act or take care of things virtuously. It seems tautological, doesn't it? But her research and publications likely have the veneer of being "scientific," which a philosophy book lacks. (Even if this is not true of her work, how many sociological studies try to be scientific according to 19th century standards, incorporating data-gathering, number-crunching, graphing, and statistical analysis?)

Nonetheless, her book is probably worth reading. I'm particularly interested in the methods for determining the limits of sustainable use. The book should also be a good counter-argument to liberals and libertarians. Even if law cannot bring about virtue directly, it can foster behavior that is in accordance with virtue, and protect the goods. Sustainability may not be a concern for a community with a small population size that is not rooted in one place, but as the population grows, political prudence must take into account the consequences of our behavior on the environment and the local ecosystem, from which we draw our resources. It is not so easy to realize this when one lives in isolation from the disastrous effects that our industries have upon the environment. (Would Rand Paul be so supportive of mountaintop removal if he had to live in the affected parts of West Virginia?)

As for conservatives who defend private property -- would Aristotle and Aquinas be among them? Aristotle argues for private property in the Politics, and iirc, Aquinas appears to agree with him in his commentary. A possible resolution is to argue that private property is necessary in a decaying society, when cooperation and mutual reliance are no longer strong. Or the development of private property happens when the differentiation of labor arises, or a society becomes more "complex"? It will be interesting to see if private private is completely absent in the societies Ostrom studies. I suspect it is not, that only certain resources are held in common.
Why should not natural resources, which are common goods, be held in common and regulated by a community, and portions apportioned in conformity with some principle other than "private property"?


Related links:


Elinor Ostrom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ostrom, Elinor - Indiana University Cognitive Science
ELINOR OSTROM CURRICULUM VITAE
Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences
'Governing the Commons' by Elinor Ostrom :: A Book Review by Scott London
Google Books
Cooperation Commons
On the Commons
The Non-Tragedy of the Commons - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

More on the "Tragedy of the Commons"
The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin
Tragedy of the commons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tragedy of the Commons: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
Tragedy of the Commons Described
The Tragedy of the Commons World of Psychology
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS GAME


Elinor Ostrom celebrates winning the Nobel Prize in economics at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana October 12, 2009. A U.S. academic who proved that communities can trump state control and corporations became the first woman to win the Nobel prize in economics on Monday, sharing it with an expert on conflict resolution. (Reuters/Daylife)


Elinor Ostrom celebrates winning the Nobel Prize in economics at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana October 12, 2009. Ostrom, a U.S. academic who proved that communities can trump state control and corporations became the first woman to win the Nobel prize in economics on Monday, sharing it with an expert on conflict resolution. (Reuters/Daylife)