The Political Animal

Economic Justice and the Sovereignty of the Human Person

Michael D. Greaney

ISBN: 978-0-944997-06-2    144 pp.    $10.00 (U.S.)   £8.00 (U.K.)

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“Often thought in the modern world to be completely unrelated, even antithetical to the restoration of a just society, the restoration of morality and widespread direct ownership of the means of production go hand-in-hand, as moral authorities through the ages have recognized. The problems facing modern society cannot be solved and the natural moral law restored except through the action of ordinary people organizing for the common good. Further, ordinary people will never have the power to organize effectively until and unless they have direct ownership of a meaningful stake of income-generating assets. As Daniel Webster observed in 1820, ‘Power naturally and necessarily follows property.’

“The problem is how to empower ordinary people with the means of acquiring and possessing private property and thereby lay the groundwork for solving today’s problems. In a modern economy, that necessarily means democratic access to money and credit by reforming the money and credit system.”

— The Political Animal, p. 117.

Michael D. Greaney, Director of Research of the Center for Economic and Social Justice, has written widely on money, credit, banking, and finance from a Just Third Way perspective. This is his fourth book published by Economic Justice Media.

Saint Thomas à Becket

The Holy Blissful Martyr

Robert Hugh Benson

ISBN 978-1602100015   132 pp.   $18.00 (U.S.)   £12.00 (U.K.)   $18.00 (AUD)

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Unique among the works of Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), this short biographical sketch of St. Thomas à Becket, “the holy blissful martyr,” began as research for a historical novel undertaken in collaboration with the sinister “Baron Corvo”: Frederick Rolfe.  The project fell apart when Benson realized Rolfe’s true character and cut the connection. Benson reworked the material into a compelling non-fictional portrait of one of England's most popular and significant historical figures.

The story of Becket is well known.  His murder at the instigation of Henry II launched the famed pilgrimage to Canterbury and inspired countless works of literature and films.

Seeing the rapid increase of State power that characterized the late nineteenth century and the whole of the twentieth, Benson seems to have used the “passion” of Becket to illustrate the dangers of an all-powerful State released from the moral guidance of organized religion and freed from the bonds of respect for the sovereignty of the human person under God.  Becket’s martyrdom can be taken as the exemplar of what happens when the State subsumes all rights unto itself, and only recognizes those it deems expedient.

This deluxe edition is particularly well-designed and formatted, and features an in-depth foreword by Benson scholar Michael D. Greaney