Center for Economic and Social Justice

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The Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) is a nonprofit think tank based in Arlington, Virginia. It was founded in 1984 and operates as a 501(c)(3) organization. CESJ works to promote a free-enterprise approach to global economic justice by expanding capital ownership. Its mission is to advance liberty and justice for every person by giving equal opportunity to become a capital owner.

CESJ combines ideas from Catholic social teaching with the economic thinking of Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler. They argue that private property and capital ownership can power a fairer, more dynamic economy. They challenge the idea that economic growth must come from saving and reducing consumption, a view often linked to Keynesian economics. Rather than blaming capitalism itself, CESJ says the problem is that capital ownership is too concentrated in a small private elite.

CESJ uses the term “Just Third Way” for its proposed alternative system. In this view, capital is widely owned and people can earn income from both their labor and their ownership of capital. They define capitalism as a system where profits and capital control are concentrated in a few, and socialism as a system where the state owns capital. CESJ advocates for non-coercive ways to acquire capital, such as leveraged Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and other credit that people repay with future earnings from the capital itself. They believe reforms to institutions can universalize access to capital without redistributing wealth.

A key idea is Capital Homesteading: giving every citizen the opportunity to accumulate income-generating capital. This builds on earlier Kelso ideas and has evolved into proposals like the Capital Homestead Act. CESJ describes a path where people gain ownership and a stake in the productive economy rather than relying only on wages or welfare.

Notable moments in CESJ’s work include helping implement the world’s first ESOP in a developing country (the Alexandria Tire Company in Egypt) in 1990, with funding from USAID. The organization has published books and papers, including works on capital homesteading and economic justice, as well as a series called Paradigm Papers and Economic Justice Classics. CESJ does not endorse one political party, though some groups have adopted its Just Third Way ideas. In 2011, CESJ members formed the Coalition for Capital Homesteading to push for a Capital Homestead Act.