Capitalism is Usury-ism.

Read the following from Fr. Heinrich Pesch, S.J.'s Ethics and the National Economy.

Fr. Pesch was the first Catholic to write a comprehensive history of economics, and his student was the anti-usury expert Fr. Bernard W. Dempsey, S.J., author of Interest & Usury, which the famous economist Schumpeter prefaced, mentioning that Duhem's historical researches in physics are akin to Fr. Dempsey's in economics.

"Communism has failed, and now that Capitalism has shown us in the intervening years that it is even more ruthless than the communists imagined, we need an alternative to both Marx and the Manchester School. Heinrich Pesch is that alternative, and Rupert Ederer [the translator] is his prophet.”

—E. Michael Jones, Ph.D.
Editor, Culture Wars; author, The Slaughter of the Cities

Fr. Pesch, S.J., wrote: "Capitalism is the dominion over the national economy by the acquisitive interests of those who own capital."

p. 85-6:

    Usury is not exclusively a monetary phenomenon having to do with money-lending. A disparity between what is offered and what is given in return, resulting in excessive gain, can arise anywhere in the exchange process, and especially in business transactions.
    Usury in a business transaction is the contractual appropriation of obvious surplus value in the process of buying and selling. The damage is done by the contract itself where performance and remuneration are juxtaposed. …

and, in the chapter "Capitalism & Socialism" (p. 159):

Capitalists are usurers in the broadest sense of the word. We understand usury in the same sense as Franz Schaub does, as any contractual expropriation of what is clearly surplus value. So, in our time, we use the word capitalism to mean a social system where usury operates with more or less complete freedom. The concept, capitalism, signifies a quest for gain that is totally uninhibited. Capitalism, therefore, means economic dominion by capitalists…

Pesch is also a Thomist, mentioning St. Thomas frequently in this work.

Hilaire Belloc, although some of his writings are Liberal, describes usury well in his chapter on usury in Economics for Helen; cf. Fr. Slater's description of usury in his A Manual of Moral Theology for English-Speaking Countries p. 321. Belloc and Fr. Slater eloquently explain that usury leads to economic disparities and imbalances. Belloc essentially expounds on St. Thomas's definition of usury as selling what does not exist. Although Belloc's description of usury was interesting, it seems Calvinist. Calvin was the first to say that interest can be charged on productive loans. Catholics before Calvin considered any "buying and selling of time" usurious.

Science, Truth, & Morality

Just as Einstein noted that a physicist must not restrict himself solely to physics but must also be a philosopher so that he can "make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities," Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2009 encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate ("Charity in Truth"), relates the importance of combating a segmentation of knowledge to that of economic prosperity (my emphasis and [comments]):

30. In this context, the theme of integral human development takes on an even broader range of meanings: the correlation between its multiple elements requires a commitment to foster the interaction of the different levels of human knowledge in order to promote the authentic development of peoples. Often it is thought that development, or the socio-economic measures that go with it, merely require to be implemented through joint action. This joint action, however, needs to be given direction, because “all social action involves a doctrine”. In view of the complexity of the issues, it is obvious that the various disciplines have to work together through an orderly interdisciplinary exchange. Charity does not exclude knowledge, but rather requires, promotes, and animates it from within. Knowledge is never purely the work of the intellect. It can certainly be reduced to calculation and experiment, but if it aspires to be wisdom capable of directing man in the light of his first beginnings and his final ends, it must be “seasoned” with the “salt” of charity. Deeds without knowledge are blind, and knowledge without love is sterile. [Summa Theologiæ, Iª q. 12 a. 13 ad 3: "[Faith is] a kind of knowledge, inasmuch as the intellect is determined by faith to some knowable object." Cf. this.] Indeed, “the individual who is animated by true charity labours skilfully to discover the causes of misery, to find the means to combat it, to overcome it resolutely”. Faced with the phenomena that lie before us, charity in truth requires first of all that we know and understand, acknowledging and respecting the specific competence of every level of knowledge. Charity is not an added extra, like an appendix to work already concluded in each of the various disciplines: it engages them in dialogue from the very beginning. The demands of love do not contradict those of reason. Human knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by themselves the path towards integral human development. There is always a need to push further ahead [This is what Einstein means, too, by saying: "At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation..."]: this is what is required by charity in truth. Going beyond, however, never means prescinding from the conclusions of reason, nor contradicting its results. Intelligence and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love.

31. This means that moral evaluation and scientific research must go hand in hand [Morality involves determining what the greatest good is in a given situation. It involves much more than resolving never to kill anybody, to "be nice," etc. It guides even questions in science such as "How should I approach this problem?", "What methodology should I use?", "Where is it taking me?", "It is worth it?", etc.; consequently, morality is vitally important for those who seek truth (cf. Veritatis Splendor).], and that charity must animate them in a harmonious interdisciplinary whole, marked by unity and distinction. The Church's social doctrine, which has “an important interdisciplinary dimension”, can exercise, in this perspective, a function of extraordinary effectiveness. It allows faith, theology, metaphysics and science to come together in a collaborative effort in the service of humanity. It is here above all that the Church's social doctrine displays its dimension of wisdom. Paul VI had seen clearly that among the causes of underdevelopment there is a lack of wisdom and reflection, a lack of thinking capable of formulating a guiding synthesis, for which “a clear vision of all economic, social, cultural and spiritual aspects” is required. The excessive segmentation of knowledge [Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical LetterFides et Ratio (14 September 1998), 85: AAS 91 (1999), 72-73.], the rejection of metaphysics by the human sciences [Cf. ibid., 83: loc. cit., 70-71.], the difficulties encountered by dialogue between science and theology are damaging not only to the development of knowledge, but also to the development of peoples, because these things make it harder to see the integral good of man in its various dimensions. The “broadening [of] our concept of reason and its application” [Benedict XVI, Address at the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006.] is indispensable if we are to succeed in adequately weighing all the elements involved in the question of development and in the solution of socio-economic problems.

An excellent book that tackles this problem is The Way toward Wisdom (vide this excerpt and this article) by Benedict Ashley, O.P., a proponent of River Forest Thomism.

Mother Teresa on Abortion

Mother Teresa on Abortion:

I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child—a direct killing of the innocent child—murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?

[...]

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

—Bl. Mother Teresa, National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C, February 5, 1994

Bioethics

The following is an excerpt from the textbook Ethical issues in modern medicine: contemporary readings in bioethics by Steinbock et al. which the UofA class on bioethics uses. It treats abortion, obligations to the unborn, and assisted reproduction like in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Section 1 : The morality of abortion --
The unspeakable crime of abortion [excerpt of Evangelium Vitæ] / Pope John Paul II --
Why abortion is immoral / Don Marquis --
Why most abortions are not wrong / Bonnie Steinbock --
The morality of abortion / Margaret Olivia Little --

Section 2 : Obligations to the not-yet-born --
The rights of "unborn children" and the value of pregnant women / Howard Minkoff and Lynn M. Paltrow --
Reproductive freedom and prevention of genetically transmitted harmful conditions / Allen Buchanan, Dan W. Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler --
Cheap listening? Reflections on the concept of wrongful disability / Richard J. Hull --

Section 3 : Assisted reproduction --
The presumptive primacy of procreative liberty / John Robertson --
Instruction on respect for human life in its origin and on the dignity of procreation [excerpt of Instruction on respect for human life in its origin and on the dignity of procreation] / Vatican, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith --
What are families for? Getting to an ethics of reproductive technology / Thomas H. Murray --
Grade A : the market for a Yale woman's eggs / Jessica Cohen --
Payment for egg donation / Bonnie Steinbock --

Reproduction bioethics

Japan Earthquake ≈ Tsar Bomba's Energy

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS)'s energy and broadband solution of the recent earthquake near the coast of Honshu, Japan, it has radiated an estimated 3.0×10¹⁷ Joules of energy. Fat Man, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II, was 88 TJ (88 terajoules = 8.8×10¹³ Joules). So this earthquake was about 2,000 times more energetic. The largest nuclear bomb ever detonated was the Tsar Bomba, detonated on October 30, 1961, in Russia. It released 210 petajoules = 2.1×10¹⁷ Joules of energy, roughly 70% what this Japan earthquake released.

Does one need any more proof for original sin?

Despite the vision and farseeing wisdom of our wartime heads of state, the physicists have felt the peculiarly intimate responsibility for suggesting, for supporting, and in the end, in large measure, for achieving the realization of atomic weapons. Nor can we forget that these weapons as they were in fact used dramatized so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil of modern war. In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

—J. Robert Oppenheimer, Physics in the Contemporary World (1948) pg. 66

OnlineSchools.org presents Japan One Year Later