A few weeks ago, the Christian Libertarian Facebook group had a great discussion about forms of civil religion that we encounter regularly. It was such an interesting thread that I just had to record the highlights for posterity here at LCC. (I’ll add some light edits for clarity.)

The discussion began with Drew: “In just a few words or a couple sentences, please describe the worst forms of nationalism, idolatry, and/or propaganda that you encounter regularly. For example, one of my pet peeves is the idol worship of past presidents like Lincoln and such. I’m working on a new writing project and I wanted to get some your thoughts or experiences.”

Here are some of the responses:

“The idol of the dollar. People spend countless hours of their lives working for a piece of cotton while basing all their transactions with it. People devote their lives to it.”

“Worship of ‘Public Safety Personnel.’ Farmers and a few others have higher injury and fatality rate. Last I checked I can survive most days without a police officer writing a report about something bad that happened, but would be hard pressed to survive without the farmer’s production. Which job is more dangerous? Which is more important? Which actually defends my liberty? Which is most beneficial to me? The farmer whose property we steal and leave with no retirement is my advocate. The officer consumes my sustenance, depends on me for his salary and retirement and increasingly threatens my liberty as the state increases in power.”

“I would add idolatry of the [Jewish state] as well.”

“The flag, blind patriotism, and the pledge of allegiance.”

“Lincoln’s a big one. The whitewashing of Reagan galls me, too.”

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He got us out the Great Depression, you know.”

“Many liberals I know have said that they believe rights come from the government or ‘the people.’ Seriously disturbing.”

“Who can deny the way Americans worship the ‘Founding Fathers’? I was certainly guilty of this when I was [part of the] religious right. I think American evangelicalism in general places an emphasis on the founders that is unhealthy.” … “[The Founders] were just ordinary men who lived in an extraordinary time, but they are worshiped and some have elevated them to the level of prophets. Further, the Constitution is venerated to such a degree that, though you will be hard pressed to get any of the one’s who worship it to admit it, they view it as another book of the Bible.”

“How about political freedom as an idol?” … “Milton Friedman was a liberty-idolizer. He even said it was his ‘god’, in a manner of speaking. Worldly liberty, while I see it as the true loving ‘political’ or ‘governing’ act… free-will is [still] from God… It is God who gave us liberty. I’d much rather worship God than His creation of liberty. Even better God offers an even greater liberty from the chains of sin!”

“The god named ‘Society’ who has forced us into a contract, despite this being a complete contradiction. Its priesthood are primarily soldiers and teachers. Its church is the preferred political party.”

“One that hasn’t been mentioned yet… the worshipful singing of the national anthem before every sporting event known to man. Happens more often these days than praying before meals. What should that tell you?”

“My oldest is in preschool, and it drives me nuts that he recites the pledge of allegiance every day. I look forward to the day when he’ll be old enough to understand why he shouldn’t recite it and can decide for himself whether or not he wants to.”

“The idolatry of the American Soldier. I was majorly guilty of that one. Many people hold them to a point of Sainthood. I have a great amount of respect for them, but they are venerated in modern society — and the unfortunate indictment – modern evangelicalism.”

“Government and banks creating money from nothing is a claim to create something ex nihilo, which only God can do. This is a logically precise case of government as god… No one claims to create new physical laws. Neither can any other law be created by man. The claim to create law is a claim to be god, by government, legislators and by those who approve of the lie that men can create law.”

“Misinterpretation of Romans 13:1-7, leading to logically incoherent application of Scripture to the role of government, a term not even present in the text. This leaves Christians advocating for and self-censoring themselves in support of ungodly government, thus idolizing government.”

“Hollywood, of course. The celebrity spokesmen (and assumed authorities on all topics) for the state.” … “We Americans (indeed the whole world) WORSHIP Hollywood. Look at all the magazines and TV shows that hang on every word out of the mouth of the likes of Brat Pitt, Angelina Jolie, or George Clooney. (ad nauseum) They are considered experts on whatever cause they happen to be focusing on at the time. We gush over their clothes, hair, make up, marriages, breakups, etc. It’s sickening.”

“Don’t complain unless you are part of the political process, vote, etc, as though that its a test of genuine concern for ‘the nation.’ [In other words] worship of the political process. Also, worship of the political party, rather than seeking wisdom and standing on principle.

“The greatest idolatry, in my honest opinion, is the worship of democracy. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe said, [democracy is] ‘the god that failed’ … After all, what are governments but mere men pretending to be gods?”

That’s a lot of input! Do you have any other examples that the above discussion missed? Let us know in the comments.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Sacraments of the State

Richards is Director and Senior Fellow of the Center on Wealth, Poverty, and Morality at the Discovery Institute, a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, and co-author, with James Robison, of the New York Times bestselling book Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late (FaithWords, 2012). Richards and I have many common interests: Christianity, theology, economics, politics. He sounds like my kind of guy – except that he’s not.

Richards is your typical "criticize the welfare state while you support the warfare state conservative." I wasn’t sure at first, but after looking at his new book Indivisible, and especially his remarks in chapter five ("Bearing the Sword") on pacifism, just war, the war on terror, the military, and defense spending, my suspicions were confirmed.

Richards maintains in his Public Discourse article that libertarians "tend to disagree with conservatives on social issues." He views the issues of abortion and marriage as "the two greatest sources of conflict between libertarians and conservatives." He believes that "there is a tacit if inarticulate conservative wisdom that recognizes that the libertarian commitment to free markets and limited government is best preserved within a broader conservative context." He posits that this "conservative wisdom" should appeal to the "‘everyman libertarian’ who values limited governments, individual rights, and free markets, but is not otherwise committed to a deeply libertarian philosophy." Richards concludes: "We conservatives need to strengthen our base without alienating our near allies. One way to do that is to show how the central convictions of ‘everyman libertarians’ can find a peaceful repose in a conservative home."

Baloney.

One does not have to be a conservative to oppose abortion and defend traditional marriage. And one should certainly not be a conservative when it comes to other important issues.

I have argued that because the non-aggression axiom is central to libertarianism, and because force is justified only in self-defense, and because it is wrong to threaten or initiate violence against a person or his property, and because killing is the ultimate form of aggression that, to be consistent, libertarians should be opposed to abortion.

If conservatives are so committed to pro-life principles, then why did they continue to fund Planned Parenthood during the Bush presidency? Why did John McCain and others vote to confirm pro-abortion judges like Stephen Breyer, Ruth Ginsburg, and David Souter to the Supreme Court? Why did George H. W. Bush even nominate Souter?

I agree with Richards that "just as government may not redefine our rights as individuals, it has no authority to redefine marriage." Marriage has always been and will forever be the union of a man and a woman. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Anything else is just cohabitation, fornication, civil union, voluntary contract, or domestic partnership, whether it is called a marriage or not. Same-sex marriage, which is not even supported by some homosexuals, is like a square circle, solid jello, or liquid steel.

But more importantly, and as I have also argued, the state should get out of the marriage business. Why do governments at every level require a license for people to engage in consensual, peaceful activity? And not only that, in some states there is not only a hefty fee to get a marriage license, but a required waiting period or recommended premarital counseling course. Why do two individuals need the state’s permission to get married? Who knows better if two individuals are fit to be married than the two individuals? If they want advice regarding their union, they can consult their pastor, parents, co-workers, and/or friends. It is none of the state’s business.

Marriage predated the state. It needs no protection, regulation, or monitoring by the state to continue its existence.

The real threat to the institution of marriage is not homosexuals wanting heterosexuals to recognize their same-sex marriages, it is Christians standing in a church and saying "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part" and then getting divorced a few years later. The real assault on marriage is by serial adulterers who preach family values like the thrice-married Newt Gingrich. As Doug Bandow has recently said: "When it comes to sex the Republican Party is divided. A few members actually don’t believe it is the government’s business. However, the GOP is full of leaders with multiple marriages engaging in multiple affairs who lecture everyone else about the importance of sexual morality."

So, should libertarians be conservatives? Did not Ronald Reagan famously say: "The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism"? The issues of abortion and same-sex marriage are used by conservatives to sucker pro-life, pro-family libertarians into believing that they should abandon libertarianism for conservatism. This would be a terrible mistake, for there is much more to conservatism than its emphasis on social issues.

There are four areas I would like to briefly mention that show the incontrovertible divide that exists between libertarians and conservatives.

First, the state. As concisely summed up by Mises Institute chairman Lew Rockwell:

The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.

Second, the welfare state. As recently explained by Future of Freedom Foundation president Jacob Hornberger:

Conservatives are having a heyday calling President Obama a socialist. What they block out of their minds is that by their own measure, they are socialists too. . . . But while conservatives want to protect the assets of the rich from IRS confiscation and welfare-state redistribution, conservatives cannot deny that they themselves also favor the welfare-state concept of taxing people so that the state can redistribute the money to others. The only thing different between conservatives and liberals is the identity of the people they wish to tax and the identity of people they wish to receive the loot.

Third, war. I have said on more than one occasion that the very heart and soul of conservatism is war. Patriotism, Americanism, and being a real conservative are now equated with support for war, torture, and militarism. I firmly stand by this assertion that I first made in 2009, although it was true long before then.

And fourth, the drug war. Out of one side of their mouth conservatives talk about individual liberty, free markets, limited government, less intrusive government, cutting regulations, personal responsibility, and the Constitution, but at the same time they say out of the other side of their mouth that if you buy, sell, or possess a substance the government doesn’t approve of then we will lock you up in a cage. And if you buy, sell, or possess too much, then we will throw away the key.

Should libertarians be conservatives? To be consistent, must pro-life, pro-family libertarians be conservatives? Absolutely not.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on May 14, 2012.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Should Libertarians be Conservative?

According to his profile at the Acton Institute PowerBlog:

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, online editor for First Things, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator (Crossway).

Although I am familiar with the Acton Institute, and appreciate its defense of the free market, I had never heard of Joe Carter until I was directed to a series of posts he wrote attacking the idea that one can be a Christian libertarian. If you are interested in reading them, see here, here, here, and here. If you are interested in reading some responses, see here, here, here, and here.

I never bothered to respond to Carter because (1) I am much too busy writing other things, (2) I have already made the case for Christian libertarianism in a lecture I gave at the Mises Institute on "Is Libertarianism Compatible with Religion?" and (3) because I have a number of friends who are in fact Christian libertarians: David Theroux of the Independent Institute, Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation, William Anderson of Frostburg State University, Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, Andrew Napolitano of Fox News, Shawn Rittenour and Jeff Herbener of Grove City College, Guido Hulsmann of the University of Angers, Lew Rockwell and Tom Woods of the Mises Institute, Norman Horn of LibertarianChristians.com, Timothy Terrell of Wofford College, Gerard Casey of University College Dublin, Jason Jewell of Faulkner University, Robert Murphy of Free Advice, Gary North of GaryNorth.com, and Jeff Tucker of Laissez Faire Books (my apologies to any of my friends I have inadvertently forgotten).

But it’s not just Christian libertarianism that Carter has a problem with.

One post of his that I do feel compelled to respond to is "How to Love Liberty More Than a Libertarian Economist." The economist in question is Brian Caplan, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University who blogs at EconLog. In his attack on libertarianism, Carter refers to a post by Caplan titled "My Beautiful Bubble." To this post of Caplan, the conservative Steve Sailer replied: "Of course, if there were a big war, it would be nice to be defended by all those dreary American you despise. And, the irony is, they’d do it, too, just because you are an American." Caplan replied to Sailer’s comment in another post titled "Reciprocity and Irony: A View from My Bubble." In his post, Carter reprinted the concluding part of Caplan’s reply in full:

1. I pay good money for these protective services. So I don’t see why my American defenders deserve any more gratitude than the countless other people – American and foreign – I trade with.
2. Since my American defenders are paid by heavy taxes whether I like it or not, they deserve far less gratitude than my genuine trading partners, who scrupulously respect the sanctity of my Bubble.
3. In fact, I think my American "defenders" owe me an apology. My best guess is that, on net, the U.S. armed forces increase the probability that a big war will adversely affect me. While they deter some threats, they provoke many others. If I lived in a Bubble in Switzerland (happily neutral since 1815), at least I’d know that I was getting some value for my tax dollars.

I take no sides in any dispute between Carter and Caplan or Caplan and Sailer. I only mention all of the above to provide the necessary context for Carter’s closing paragraphs:

What Caplan misses in Sailor’s criticism is that the "dreary Americans" are not protecting him because of the pittance he pays in taxes. They are protecting him because they love liberty more than he does.

Caplan’s libertarianism leads him (rightly, I believe) to embrace pacifism. As he says, the foreign policy that follows from libertarian principles is not isolationism, but opposition to all warfare. The [sic] is internally consistent yet self-defeating since the conclusion is that libertarianism means loving liberty only to the point that you are not required to defend it by means of warfare.

In contrast, I – like many other veterans in America – served my country (fifteen years in the Marine Corps) precisely because I loved freedom. I loved it so much that I was willing to sacrifice some of my own freedom, or even my life if necessary, to secure it for myself, for my nation, and for libertarian pacifists like Caplan. He is able to afford the luxury of living in his beautiful bubble because other Americans have bought that liberty for him. For over two centuries, American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have paid the cost necessary to allow people like him to live freely. We have provided him with the safety and security he needs to crawl off in his elite bubble and forget that people like us exist.

Caplan is free to move to Switzerland, though I suspect he’ll keep his Bubble in Arlington, Virginia. As a libertarian economics professor at George Mason he’s smart enough to do the calculus. He knows that his optimal choice is to stay put and keep free-riding on the benefits provided by other people – whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian – who love liberty more than he does.

I want to focus on Carter’s remarks about the military in the first and third paragraphs because most of the statements he makes are typical of conservatives, and especially conservative Christian warmongers.

According to the Department of Defense, "All four active services met or exceeded their numerical accession goals for fiscal year 2011." Here are the actual numbers:

Army – 64,019 accessions, with a goal of 64,000

Navy – 33,444 accessions, with a goal of 33,400

Marine Corps – 29,773 accessions, with a goal of 29,750

Air Force – 28,518 accessions, with a goal of 28,515

This means that 155,754 Americans joined the military in fiscal year 2011 (Oct. 1, 2010–Sept. 30, 2011). Does anyone besides Joe Carter actually believe that even a majority of those who joined the military did so because they loved liberty more than Brian Caplan? Could it rather have something to do with being talked into it by lying military recruiters, the billions the military spends on advertising, the No Child Left Behind Act, the promise of free money for college, the desire to get away from home, the chance to kill foreigners for real instead of just in video games, revenge for 9/11, the adventure, the world travel, family tradition, or the generous retirement benefits? I suspect the main reason is the economy; i.e., the poverty draft.

Sorry, Joe, you – like many other veterans in America – didn’t serve your country. You served the state. You helped maintain a global empire of troops and bases. You helped carry out an evil interventionist foreign policy. You didn’t defend anyone’s freedoms. You didn’t preserve the American way of life. You didn’t uphold the Constitution. You didn’t protect the nation. You didn’t "uphold the freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for future generations" like the lying Marine Corps recruiting postcard says that was sent to high school students. Your death wouldn’t have secured anything. Your death would have been in vain.

And as for American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines paying the cost for over two centuries to allow libertarians to live freely – instead of defending our freedoms, they have jeopardized our freedoms. But don’t take my word for it; take it from VMI grad and Army reservist Jacob Hornberger: "The Troops Don’t Defend Our Freedoms" and "An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms."

Oh, U.S. troops have been busy for over two centuries, but they have been busy doing more intervening in foreign countries than defending Americans’ freedoms. Things like disaster relief, humanitarian aid, nation building, regime change, assassinations, forcibly opening markets, bombing, invading, occupying, maiming, torturing, killing, peacekeeping, enforcing UN resolutions, preemptive strikes, spreading democracy at the point of a gun, garrisoning the planet with troops and bases, training foreign armies, rebuilding infrastructure, reviving public services, unleashing civil unrest, policing the world, intervening in other countries, and fighting foreign wars.

Americans today face the triple threat of the warfare/national security/police state, largely due to conservatives in Congress (fully supported by conservative Christians outside of Congress) during the Bush years not overturning all the evils of the federal government that were already in place and adding much more evil of their own

One reason why conservative Christians like Joe Carter are so different from, and so puzzled by, Christian libertarians is because they are conservative Christian warmongers who worship the golden calf of the military.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on May 2, 2012.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Another Conservative Christian Warmonger

Biggest item? Well, Norman is gone, so that means I’m in charge (at least until he approves my article for  submission).

Most absurd item of the week: Playmobil now has a TSA Checkpoint set for kids. (Short video here.) Now your kids can pretend to be molesters TSA agents, and/or parents can use this as a tool to encourage obedience to the State.

Ron Paul fans will be happy to know (if they don’t already) that Ron Paul has accumulated a considerable number of delegates for the GOP Tampa convention. Is his “Moneyball” strategy working? Rachel Maddow (ironically) seems to be the only cable news host covering this with any level of honesty. Fox”News” seems to concede at times, but largely ignores Paul’s progress. Could this be 1920 GOP convention all over again?

My newest article is the most important article you’ll ever read (this week). Click here for it.

Libertarian Christians (and Norman) getting some positive attention on Infowars here, compliments Laurence Vance. (HT2 Libertarians (New) Facebook Group member Nick).

I cannot stress enough how much Jeffrey Tucker’s writings on Laissez-Faire Blog encourage me every day. While writing about state-related issues, Tucker has the uncanny ability to see it through the eyes of somebody hopeful toward the future through innovation and commerce. If you don’t have Laissez-Faire Bookstore on your RSS feed already, please do so.

Anthony Gregory on why Iran isn’t really the threat the state propagandists wants us to believe it is. Related to Iran, share the image below with your neocon friends:

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

News of the Week (coup edition)

The average American is in favor of freedom and he’ll tell you so in no uncertain terms. He wants Church and State separate, he would object if government were to censor the press, he doesn’t want some bureau­crat dictating to professors what they should teach. But at the same time he wants government to con­trol and regulate business; he thinks industry and trade need to be policed in order to protect the con­sumer from the wolves. Warming up to his subject he proceeds to catalogue the wickedness of people engaged in commercial activity, and especially the sins of "big business."

Strange to say, these turn out to be the same old sins one finds in every walk of life. Some men in the business world are wicked, no doubt; but so are some ministers, some pro­fessors, some publishers, some en­tertainers, and even some television commentators. There’s no reason for singling out businessmen—except to provide a specious rationale for saddling economic life with ever more bureaucratic regulations and controls. This has adverse economic effects, of course, adding to the costs of doing business and making all of us poorer, but that’s not the worst of it. When economic enterprise is not free every other freedom is in jeopardy.

Human liberty is a precious and a fragile thing. Human liberty can not be won, or even sustained, on the economic level alone; but it can be lost on that level, and it is being lost there. Control the economic life of a people and you control every other aspect of their lives as well. "Power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will." The truth of this ancient maxim has been pounded home in our time by the conditions of life behind the Iron Curtain.

Now, it is true that business is not the only sector of our society under fire. Our whole civilization—western civilization—has been under siege for several generations; and because our culture so largely embodies bourgeois values, the at­tack against business is reinforced by the revolutionary Communist thrust to unseat the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie are the middle class—townspeople engaged in indus­try and trade—and their emergence in the modern period was opposed by the aristocracy, whose values were quite different. Few of us live next door to counts, dukes or lords: the nobility is distant in time and space, glowingly enshrined in romance and myth. "The nobleman has cour­age, spends without counting, de­spises petty detail. There is a great air of freedom and unselfishness about the nobleman. He will throw his life away for a cause, not calcu­late the returns. That is the noble idea. In reality, he lives by the serf­dom of others, and he broadens his acres by killing, and taking other people’s land-’the good old rule, the simple plan. That they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can." These are Jacques Barzun’s words.

Dr. Barzun continues, "The bourgeoisie opposed such noble free-handedness and supported a king who would replace ‘the good old rule’ by one less damaging to trade and manufacture—and to the peas­ants’ crops. But the regrettable truth is that there is no glamour about trade. Trade requires regular­ity, security, efficiency, an exact quid pro quo, and an exasperating attention to detail. . . . There is nothing spontaneous, generous or large-minded about it. Man’s native love of drama rebels against a scheme of life so plodding and re­sents the rewards of qualities so niggling."

"What a convenient word is bourgeois!" Barzun observes. "How expressive and well-shaped for the mouth to utter scorn. And how flexi­ble in its application—it is another wonderful French invention!"

The Working Class

The free enterprise system—or what is popularly called "cap­italism"—has a special affinity for the type of man we’d call bourgeois or middle class. Industry and trade have never been the preoccupation of any aristocracy, which dislikes to sully its hands with ordinary work. Most of the world’s work today is done by those who have risen from the ranks, largely by their own efforts, in societies which have no rigid caste barriers to prevent upward mobility.

The emergence of the busi­nessman during recent centuries was not a solitary adventure; the freeing of the business sector of western society went hand in hand with the expansion of other liberties we cherish. The story is a familiar one, and it begins with the religious revolution of the 16th century which led eventually to the separation of church and state, and freedom of worship. Free speech and freedom of the press were parts of this liberat­ing movement, and eventually—as Mercantilism gave way before the current of ideas released by Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and others—economic enterprise was freed from political regulations and controls, and came under consumer guidance.

Consumers—by our millions of daily decisions in the market place to buy this or not buy that—project a pattern; and these buying habits of ours give entrepreneurs the clues they need to direct production into this channel or that, in an effort to please customers. In the free econ­omy the consumer is sovereign. You may regard your product as the best gismo available anywhere at any price, but if the consumers don’t like it they buy elsewhere and you go out of business. You, as an entrepre­neur, have no power over customers except your ability to persuade and the quality of your product. This is the free market economy, and it is an integral part of the free society.

Everyone’s Business

Freedom, we hear it said, is everyone’s business, so each of us really does have a stake in freedom in-general. To the extent that any­one’s freedom is lost, everyone’s freedom is in jeopardy. But there are particular freedoms, and when a particular freedom is attacked you’d expect those directly involved to rush to its defense. And this is what you do find in most instances. When religious liberty is threatened, churchmen unite to oppose the threat. When freedom of the press is imperiled newsmen band together. Any impairment of academic free­dom is challenged by teachers, and intellectuals do battle on behalf of free speech. And when freedom of economic enterprise is being throt­tled by governmental controls busi­nessmen and business organizations mobilize to resist the attack. Right? Wrong!

Businessmen, all too often, are unwilling to speak out vigorously, even in self-defense—as the cele­brated economist, Joseph Schumpe­ter, has scathingly pointed out: "Perhaps the most striking feature of the picture is the extent to which the bourgeoisie, besides educating its own enemies, allows itself in turn to be educated by them. It absorbs the slogans of current radicalism and seems quite willing to undergo a process of conversion to a creed hos­tile to its very existence. . . . This is verified by the very characteristic manner in which particular capital­ist interests and the bourgeoisie as a whole behave when facing direct at­tack. They talk and plead—or hire people to do it for them; they snatch at every chance of compromise; they are ever ready to give in; they never put up a fight under the flag of their own ideals and interests—in this country there was no real resistance anywhere against the imposition of crushing financial burdens during the last decade or against labor legislation incompatible with the ef­fective management of industry."

I can imagine an ideal society where each sector was alert to rebuff threats to any other sector; where clergymen would go to bat whenever freedom of the press was threatened, and publishers jealously guarded academic freedom, and professors fought for freedom of medical prac­tice, and doctors resisted every bu­reaucratic invasion of the market place, and businessmen cherished freedom of religion. In real life, however, things do not happen this way.

It is partly the fault of business itself that the freedom most gravely threatened right now is the freedom of the economy, on which not only our prosperity depends, but much else besides. Those immersed in the grubby details of the market place often lose sight of the big picture; the head of a business worries about falling sales and how to meet the next payroll, but here, in this serene academic environment, we can sit back and theorize.

Better Understanding, The Best Defense

The best defense of the free econ­omy is a better understanding of the free economy, shared by more people. So let’s put capitalism to the test. Put aside, for the moment, any opinions you may entertain about the free enterprise system we now have, and let’s draw up some plans for an ideal economic order. If we were starting from scratch what requirements would we lay down for an economic order that would meet with our approval? I’m going to sug­gest that there are four major de­mands we should make of any economic system, and after we have spelled these out a bit each of us can decide for himself whether our pres­ent system falls short and how it might be strengthened and de­fended.

A good economic system has four characteristics:

1. A good economy produces goods and services efficiently.

2. A good economy allocates re­wards equitably, to all partici­pants.

3. A good economy broadens the scope for individual free choice.

4. A good economy functions in harmony with religious and moral values.

There’s no argument on the first point; our present economic system does deliver the goods, as even its enemies admit. The American econ­omy has never been wholly free; it has operated under various political restraints from the very beginning. But compared to the politically planned economies of other nations our relatively free economy has been a paragon.

Producing and exchanging in a largely free country has bestowed a prosperity upon America that the world envies. Americans started poor. There was little per capita wealth two hundred years ago; but our forebears had an abundant faith in the nation’s future under God, a strong belief in themselves, and they practiced the Puritan work ethic. This was the land of opportu­nity, and millions of the poor and oppressed of other nations migrated here to make their own way in this "land of the free." By and large they succeeded; never have so many ad­vanced so far out of poverty in so short a time.

There have been evils in Ameri­can life, and some are there still; along with errors, shortcomings and blind spots. But what other nation is entitled to cast the first stone, or the second, or the third? Lf the American Dream has faded, if there is tarnish on our idealism, where lies the fault? The Church and the School are the institutions charged with the responsibility for things of the mind and spirit, and if we have lost that vision without which the people perish, if our value system is in disarray, we surely can’t blame business and industry—which merely reflect the consensus.

The Goals of Life

The goals of human life, the ends appropriate for creatures such as we, are the primary concerns of reli­gion and education. The increase of material well-being may be the means for achieving the good life; it is certainly not the end for which life should be lived. The economic order has the modest role of supplying our creaturely needs efficiently so that we may have the leisure to pursue our personal goals. In America the economy has performed its role commendably. It is not to be blamed for the failures of other institutions. The relatively free economy we have enjoyed in America has brought unparalleled prosperity, but an affluent society is not neces­sarily a just society. And so we come to the second test we wish to put to the free enterprise system: Does it allocate the rewards fairly and equitably?

In a free society every one of us is rewarded by his peers according to the value willing buyers attach to the goods and services he offers in exchange. This is the market in ac­tion. This market place assessment is made by consumers, and we all know that consumers are ignorant, venal, biased, stupid; in short they are people very much like us! This does seem to be a clumsy way of deciding how much or how little of this world’s goods shall be put at this or that man’s disposal.

Isn’t there an alternative? Yes, there’s an alternative, and it occur­red to people more than two millen­nia ago. We’ll invite the wise and the good to come down from Olym­pus to sit as a council among men, and we’ll appear before them one by one, to be judged on personal merit and rewarded accordingly. Then we’ll be assured that those who make a million really deserve it, and those who are paupers belong at that level; and we’ll all be contented and happy. What lunacy! The genuinely wise and good would not accept such a role, and I quote the words of the highest authority de­clining it: "Who made me a judge over you?"

The market place decision that this man shall earn twenty-five thousand, this one ten, and so on, is not, of course, marked by supernal wisdom; no one claims this. But it is a million miles ahead of the alterna­tive, which is to recast consumers into voters, who will elect a body of politicians, who will appoint bureaucrats, who will divvy up the wealth—by governmental legerde­main. This mad scheme backs away from the imperfect and lurches into the impossible! There are no perfect arrangements in human affairs, but the fairest distribution of material rewards attainable by imperfect men is to let a man’s customers decide how much he should earn; this method will distribute economic goods unequally, but equitably.

We do live in an affluent society, and the fact is that the prosperity generated by our relatively free in­stitutions has been widely shared by the American people. There are the rich, there are the less well to do, and there are still some poor; but this allocation of rewards represents the choices of people themselves—as reflecting their buying habits. But the question still remains; do we have a lopsided society in which a handful of people have accumulated the bulk of the wealth produced in our economy? Dubious statistics are offered to demonstrate that 10 per cent of the people own two-thirds of the wealth, or three-quarters, or 90 per cent, or whatever. Is there any truth in such figures, or do they tell a lie?

There’s a fairly simple way to check this out for yourself. Take home ownership. Is it a fact that a handful of people own the homes most of us live in? To the contrary; 45 million homes are owned by the families that occupy them. Assum­ing the family unit to consist in father, mother and one child this accounts for 135 million persons. Millions of other Americans can ^afford to own their homes, but choose instead to rent an apartment or a house. Take automobile ownership: 82 million people own their own cars and 33 million own two or more cars. There are 130 million licensed driv­ers in the country.

Eighty-three million housing units have electric refrigerators; there are 125 million television sets, 55 million of them color; 70 million homes have washing machines; and there is a radio for every man, woman and child in the country. And as for food, we are the only nation in history whose number one medical problem is overeating! I do not know who concocted the first share-the-wealth scheme. It was ages ago, and it was a pipe dream from the beginning. It is a pipe dream still for most of the world’s people. But in America that dream has come true—in large measure. Capitalism—the free economy—has produced material abundance, and the benefits of our prosperity are enjoyed by almost every man, woman, and child in the country—as well as by millions of people around the globe.

Let me pursue this point through one more stage. Most people, when they reflect on the matter, agree that there is no concentration of ownership in everyday things like houses, automobiles and food. But when they get into the arcane world of the corporation, they are easily misled by those who have twisted "big business" into a four-letter word; they have been led to believe that the industry of this country is owned by a handful of stockholders.

Widespread Ownership

Pick any one of the giant corpora­tions and examine its annual report. I picked Exxon, a fairly large outfit. The 1976 Annual Report reveals that Exxon is owned by approxi­mately 700,000 shareholders; that’s roughly 5½ times as many owners as employees, and it’s about as many people as live in the whole state of Delaware. That’s a lot of people, but there’s more to come.

Note the large number of stock­holders who are not individuals but institutions. Every major church body owns shares of stock in indus­try, but in some statistics a denomi­nation counts as but one stock­holder. Several thousand colleges own stock, but each is counted as one stockholder. Your local Bank and Trust Company is a stockholder on behalf of its thousands of depositors; every insurance company owns stock on behalf of its millions of policy holders; every pension fund is invested in stocks. Pension funds, including labor union funds, now own about one-third of the total value of all the stocks listed on the New York exchange. The unions have come to own so large a share of American industry that Peter Drucker refers to this phenomenon as "pension fund socialism." In short, nearly every American owns a chunk of the corporate wealth of America!

Now, it is true, of course, that there are some enormously rich peo­ple in this country. What do they do with their money? Some of them spend their money foolishly, just as you and I would do if we were in their shoes. But any millionaire, who wants to preserve his fortune and pass it along to his children and their children, has no choice but to invest it in industries which produce the incredible variety of goods which flood the market places of America soliciting the patronage of the masses of consumers. No other soci­ety has ever allocated its rewards as generously, or so equitably.

Our present economic system, the system of free enterprise, has met our first two requirements; it has made us an affluent society produc­ing over and above our own needs, an abundance that we have gener­ously shared with the world; and every person who has participated in the production of goods and ser­vices shares equitably in the fruits of his production.

The third test has to do with an aspiration deeply rooted in human nature; we want to be free; we want the freedom to choose. We want to be free to worship in the church of our choice, to choose our own schools, to read freely and speak our minds. We want to be free to be ourselves, even if this is to practice what others regard as our harmless eccen­tricities. We want to be free to choose our profession or place of employment. We want solitude when we choose to be alone, and we want the freedom to choose our associates—which includes the right to dissociate. These are some of the demands of human nature itself, this is how God made us. As Jeffer­son put it, "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time." Therefore, the third demand we make of an economic order is that it manifest, in its operations, a crea­ture who is a freely choosing being.

By Acts of Choice

Man’s will is uniquely free. All other creatures—birds, beasts, fish, and so on—obey the laws of their nature willy-nilly. Only man has the capacity to disobey the deep mandates of his being. Ortega, the great Spanish philosopher, re­marked that the tiger cannot be de-tigered but the human being is al­ways in danger of being de­humanized. It is by acts of will, by acts of choice, that man is hu­manized; and this decision pro­cess, in the nature of the case, must be engineered by the individual concerned—by an act of inner re­solve. Each person is self-con­trolling, he is in charge of his own life; and if a person refuses to as­sume responsibility for himself no one can exercise this role by proxy, from the outside.

The free society is our natural habitat; freedom accords with human nature, and the tactic of freedom as it applies in the economic sector is capitalism, the market economy. The economy is free when the productive activities of men re­spond sensitively to the needs of consumers, as these needs manifest themselves in people’s buying habits. It is true, of course, that when people are free to spend their money as they please they will often spend it foolishly—other people, that is! They’ll make mistakes. But isn’t that one of the important ways we learn in life, by being free to make mistakes, picking ourselves up every time we fail and standing a bit taller every time we succeed?

The biggest mistake of all is to persuade ourselves that we can avoid the little mistakes people make in a free society by adopting a planned economy. A centrally planned nation is necessarily a command society. Individual per­sons are no longer free to make their own decisions, their private plans must be cancelled whenever they conflict with the overall political plan. This is a giant step along the road to serfdom.

No Guarantees

To have economic freedom does not, of course, mean that you will be assured the income you think you deserve, or the job to which you think you are entitled. Economic freedom does not dispense with the necessity for work. Its only promise is that you may have your pick from among many employment oppor­tunities, or go into business for yourself. And as a bonus the free economy puts a multiplier onto your efforts, to enrich you far beyond what the same effort returns you under any alternative system.

The American economic sys­tem—free enterprise, capitalism, the market economy, call it what you will—has never been as free as the believer in the free society would wish. But it aspires toward freedom, as do most citizens of our country; and our economy has indeed been freer than the economies of other nations. But despite the restrictions and controls, our relatively free economy has (1) delivered goods and services efficiently; it has (2) allo­cated rewards equitably; and (3) it does expand opportunities for per­sonal choice in society.

There is one final point. Ameri­cans are basically a religious people who try to bring moral values to bear on the issues of public life. Does a person have to put aside his reli­gious and moral values while en­gaged in the sordid business of mak­ing a living—as some misguided voices declare? Or is there, as I be­lieve, a vital relationship between market place and altar? No man’s judgment can rise above his under­standing of the facts; and as I have pointed out, there is gross misun­derstanding of the nature of busi­ness and the economy—especially, it seems, among those given to pro­nouncing moral judgments!

Biblical religion has at least three important and relevant criteria for judging social policy:

(a) the idea of justice voiced by the Old Testament prophets;

(b) the New Testament ideal of the sacredness of persons (i.e., Rights endowed by the Creator); and

(c) the Protestant emphasis on the importance of personal deci­sion—you are closed to God’s grace until you decide to open yourself up.

Put these ingredients together in the proper proportions—justice, the sacredness of persons, and the necessity of choice—and you have the free society. The political struc­tures of a free society are designed to assure the inviolability of every per­son. They maximize his opportunity to pursue his personal goals, and they cultivate an economic order that is guided by consumer demand. This was the social goal envisioned by the eighteenth-century Whigs, the men we refer to as the Founding Fathers. What they founded was prepared for by eighteen centuries of tutelage in biblical religion.

Questions Concerning the Morality of Capitalism

This may sound good, the critic tells us, but doesn’t the psychology of capitalism take the wraps off greed, and doesn’t capitalism ele­vate money-making to the chief end of man? And didn’t Jesus condemn wealth?

The answer to all three questions is No. As my first witness I call upon the eminent sociologist, Max Weber, and quote from his celebrated book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. "The impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself noth­ing to do with capitalism. This im­pulse exists and has existed among waiters, physicians, coachmen, art­ists, prostitutes, dishonest officials, soldiers, nobles, crusaders, gam­blers, and beggars. It should be taught in the kindergarten of cultural history that this greed for gain is not in the least identical with capitalism, and is still less its spirit." Greed is a human frailty, to be condemned where found and overcome if possible. It is not the exclusive vice of any class or occupa­tion. In any event, it has nothing to do with the efficient production of goods and services in the capitalist order and their equitable distribu­tion.

My second witness is the eminent theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. Late in life, after being converted away from Socialism, Niebuhr made a sage comment on the profit motive. Even the minister is economically motivated, he wrote, "when he moves to a new charge because the old one did not give him a big enough parsonage or a salary adequate for his growing family."

We can better understand Jesus’ attitude toward material posses­sions if we contemplate a seeming paradox: Jesus had harsh things to say about the three R’s; the three R’s in this case being Religion, Righ­teousness, and Riches! We learn from the Gospels that something which resembles religion, but which is ritualistic and external, may im­munize us against the real thing, which is inward and spiritual.

Which of us does not feel, at times, the exasperation which caused a member of Parliament to blow his top and say: "Thank God for the Church of England; it’s all that stands between us and Chris­tianity!" And by the same token, perfunctory righteousness—Phar­isaism—may harden the heart and beget an uncharitable spirit. Riches, too, may pose a peril; but this is a matter of degree only, for it is just as common to be infected with a false philosophy of material pos­sessions by a thousand dollars as by a million. Avarice is a common trait in all cultures and at every economic level. There are misers everywhere, and a miser is one who puts his trust in riches, and in so doing he treats means as an end.

This is the point of Jesus’ parable of the rich man whose crops were so good that he had to build bigger barns. This good fortune was the man’s excuse for saying, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years! Take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry." There is a two-fold point in the parable; the first is that nothing in life justifies a man in assuming this attitude; we must never stop growing. It has been well said that we don’t grow old, we become old by not growing. The second point is that a material windfall may tempt a man into the error of quitting the struggle for the real goal of life. Jesus condemned the man who put his trust in riches, who "layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." Which is not the same as condemning material possessions per se, or wealth held under proper stewardship.

Life is probative; our three score years and ten are a test run. As St. Augustine put it, "We are here schooled for life eternal." And one of the important examination ques­tions concerns the economic use of the planet’s scarce resources and the proper management of our material possessions. These are the twin facets of Christian stewardship, and poor performance here will result in dire consequences. As Jesus put it, "If, therefore, you have not been faithful in the use of worldly wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?"

Economics, the science of means, needs religion, the science of ends. To inflate a means into an end is idolatry. In sober truth, no economic system can be anything more than a means. The ends for which life should be lived take us into another dimension, into the domain of our moral and religious life. As created beings we are designed to achieve a transcendent end: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." But if we are to live as we should live during this life, we must be free; and one of the imperatives of the free life is freedom of economic enterprise.

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Humane Values and the Free Economy

Life presents us with plenty of opportunities for improvement, whether in the form of problem-solving (repairing something) or life-enhancing (inventing something) activities. When it comes to solving problems, the way it is approached can be summed up in two possible phrases:

“Something ought to be done…”
and
“There’s gotta be a way to…”

At first glance it seems these two statements are similar enough to be nearly the same. But consider the contrast between the mind which says, “Something ought to be done about pollution,” and the mind that says, “There’s gotta be a way to address the problem of pollution.” It’s subtle, but the difference is in the attitude. The former is an assertion uttered based on the premise that somebody else (usually the State) ought to take care of the problem. The latter assertion is by somebody who will find a way to solve it without initiating force.

One is the way of violence. The other, the way of peace.

Without making too much of the contrast in these phrases, I believe it stands at the heart of competing worldviews, evidence that the world is full of both producers and looters (can anybody guess what book I’ve just finished?). Those who want somebody else to take care of it, and those who solve problems themselves. Those who wish to outsource their social responsibility with the legal apparatus (not inherently a bad thing), and those who take personal gratitude in shaping a positive social outcome.

Political solutions are often approached as if a single entity ought to take care of social problems. Libertarians are typically already against such assumptions, though some are still minarchists. Many Christians (even Christian libertarians) are minarchists. Whatever your position on the role of the State, consider it your highest responsiblity to yourself and to your fellow human beings to always cherish and pursue nonviolent solutions.

Tu Ne Cede Malis!

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The Way of Peace

Man is not simply a spiritual being; he is a spiritual being who feels hunger, needs protection from the cold, and seeks shelter from the elements. In order to feed, house and clothe himself, a person must work. Augmenting his labor with tools and machinery, he converts the raw materials of his natural environment into consumable goods. He learns to cooperate with nature and use her forces to serve his ends. He also learns to cooperate with his fellows, his natural sociability reinforced by the discovery that the division of labor benefits all. "Trade is the great civilizer." There’s an unbroken thread that runs from these primitive beginnings to the complex economic order of our own time: it is the human need to cope with scarcity, to satisfy creaturely needs, to provide for material well-being.

The visible signs of this endeavor are all about us; factories, stores, offices, farms, mines, power plants. These are the locations where work is performed, services rendered, goods exchanged, wages paid, money spent, and so on. This is the economy, and in the free society the economy is not under government control and regulation.

In the free society the law protects life, liberty and property of all men alike, ensuring peaceful conditions within the community. This lays down a framework and a set of rules, enabling people to compete and cooperate as they go about the job of providing for their material well being. When government performs as an impartial umpire who interprets and enforces the agreed upon rules, then the uncoerced economic activities of people display regularity and harmony—as if guided by Adam Smith’s invisible hand!

The Capitalistic Economy

In a society where people are free, the economy is referred to as capitalistic. Some prefer the term free enterprise; others like the private enterprise system, or the private property system, or the market economy. Now, of course, no society has ever been one hundred per cent free, which means that we’ve never had a completely free market economy. Some people have always seized and misused political power to rig the market in their favor. Obviously, it is not the market’s fault if some people choose to break the rules.

The appalling thing is that many intellectuals mistake these deviations from free enterprise for free enterprise itself! And so they condemn "capitalism." But the "capitalism" they condemn is actually the failure of certain people to live up to the rules of capitalism–the system of voluntary exchange among uncoerced people. We’re aware of human frailties and shortcomings; we know that it’s easier to preach than to practice, easier to announce a set of ideals than to live up to them. Economic theory provides us with a description of the way an economy would work among a people who exercise individual liberty and practice voluntary association. It is this theory we seek to understand and explain, and it is the deviations from this ideal that we seek to correct.

Every person of good will wants to see other people better off; better fed, better housed, better clothed, and well provided with the amenities. So everyone wants the economic order to function efficiently. But how important is it that the economic order be free from bureaucratic direction and political controls? Does it do any harm if we allow the economic order to be quarterbacked by government? Let’s examine a concrete example to indicate the serious secondary consequences of government control.

In the economic sector of our society there is a multi-billion dollar industry engaged in the production of newspapers, magazines, and journals of opinion. There is also the book trade. Those who publish and distribute the printed word constitute The Press, and one of the important freedoms cherished in our intellectual heritage is Freedom of the Press. The concept is now extended to cover the media—radio and television—where the same principle applies.

Freedom of the Press means simply that the government does not tell editors what to print and what not to print–nor does it dictate to purveyors of television commentary. Some editors print stuff they think will sell. Some editors are men of strong conviction trying to promote a cause they believe in; others are party hacks thumping the tub for some ideological idiocy like communism, or anarchism, or the New Left, or whatever. But not a single editor in the country is out crusading for government censorship of the press; except indirectly!

Editorial Inconsistency

A large number of editors, writers and commentators who demand freedom for themselves in one breath, demand government regulation of business and industry with the next! If, at the urging of The Press, government continues to extend its controls over one business after another, how can anyone believe that government will respect the editorial room as a privileged sanctuary, and keep its hands off that section of business known as The Press? Socialize the economy and The Press becomes a branch of the government bureaucracy, free no longer.

The fact that The Press actively cooperates in its own entrapment makes the end result even more bitter. It is one thing to go down fighting; it is something else to cooperate in your own demise. Political control and regulation of the written and spoken word means excessive influence over the minds and thoughts of people. It means eventually a ministry of Propaganda and Information, and an Office of Censorship.

If you get the impression that I don’t think highly of some of the people involved with The Press, you’d be correct; they are—with notable exceptions—a sorry lot. They, along with their counterparts in the University and in the Church—with notable exceptions—are guilty of that "treason of the intellectuals" denounced by the French writer, Julien Benda, in his 1927 book of that title. The intellectuals’ treason in the modern world, wrote Benda, is to abandon the pursuit of truth and to seek political preferment instead.

Lest you think I am being unduly harsh on some of those who refer to themselves as Intellectuals, I shall quote a few words of C. S. Lewis:

It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by an unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her… It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary; it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.(1)

A Vital Connection

I use The Press to point up the vital relationship between intellectual freedom and economic freedom. Freedom of thought, bound only by the rules of thought itself; freedom of belief, in terms of the mind’s own energy; freedom of utterance, guided by logic and within reason–these spiritual freedoms are of the very essence of our being. When they are threatened directly all of us rush to their defense. My point is that they are threatened indirectly whenever—and to whatever degree—their material and economic support is straitjacketed by government regulations and controls.

The same analysis would apply to the Academy and to the Church. If the government owns the campus and pays the professor’s salary, the teacher becomes a political flunky, no longer free to research, write, and teach according to his best insights and conscience. And when private property is no longer regarded as the sine qua non of a free people, when private property suffers increasing encroachments by government, then church properties, too, become politicized. And, as taxes increase and disposable individual income diminishes, private voluntary funding of churches correspondingly declines and religious programs suffer. Accept economic controls, and what then becomes of Academic Freedom and Freedom of Worship?

In short, freedom is all of a piece; philosophy is not the same as digging a ditch, but socialize the ditch-digger and the philosopher begins to lose some of his freedom. Freedom of the marketplace and liberties of the mind hang together as one depends on the other.

The great philosopher, George Santayana, reflected sadly that, in this life of ours, the things that matter most are at the mercy of the things which matter least. A bullet, a tiny fragment of common lead, can snuff out the life of a great man; a few grains of thyroxin one way or the other can upset the endocrine balance and alter the personality, and so on. But the more we think about this situation and the more instances of this sort we cite, the more obvious it becomes that the things Santayana declared matter least, actually matter a great deal. They are so tied in with the things which matter most that the things which matter most depend on them!

Economic Liberty Paramount

In precisely the same way, economic liberty matters a great deal because every liberty of the mind is joined to freedom of the market, economic freedom. There’s an old proverb to the effect that whoever controls a man’s subsistence has acquired a leverage over the man himself, which impairs his freedom of thought, speech, and worship. The man who cannot claim ownership over the things he produces has no control over the things on which his life depends; he is a slave, by definition. A man who is not allowed to own becomes the property of whoever controls his means of survival, for "a power over a man’s support is a power over his will," wrote Hamilton in The Federalist. Economic planning implies the power to regulate the noneconomic sectors of life.

F. A. Hayek puts it this way in his influential book, The Road to Serfdom: "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends."(2)

In a totalitarian country like Russia or China the government acts as a planning board to assign people to jobs and direct the production and distribution of goods. The whole country is, in effect, a gigantic factory. In practice, there is bound to be a lot of leakage—as witness the inevitable black market. But to whatever extent the State does control the economic life of the Russian and Chinese people it directs every other aspect of their lives as well.

The Masses Content to Drift

The masses of people everywhere and at all times are content to drift along with the trend; they pose no problem for the planner. But what happens to the rebels in a planned economy? Suppose you wanted to publish an opposition newspaper in a place like Russia or China. You could not go out and simply buy presses, paper, and a building; you’d have to acquire these from the State. For what purpose? Why, to attack the State! You would have to find workmen willing to risk their necks to work for you; ditto, people to distribute; ditto people willing to be caught buying or reading your paper. A Daily Worker may be published in a capitalist country, but a Daily Capitalist in a communist country is inconceivable!

Or take the orator who wants to protest. Where could he find a platform in a country in which the State owns every stump, street corner, and soap box—not to mention every building?

Suppose you didn’t like your job, where could you go and what could you do? Your job is pretty bad, but it is one notch better than Siberia or starvation, and these are the alternatives. Strike? This is treason against the State, and you’ll be shot. Listen to George Bernard Shaw, defending Socialism, writing in Labor Monthly, October 1921: "Compulsory labor, with death as the final penalty, is the keystone of Socialism." Shaw was a vegetarian because he loved animals; perhaps he was a Socialist because he hated people!

Point One: Economic freedom is important in itself, and it is doubly important because every other freedom is related to it.

To have economic freedom does not, of course, mean that you will be assured the income you think you deserve, nor the job to which you think you may be entitled. Economic freedom does not dispense with the necessity for work. Its only promise is that you may have your pick from among many employment opportunities, or go into business for yourself, and as a bonus the free economy puts a multiplier onto your efforts to enrich you far beyond what the same effort returns you under any alternative system.

Under primitive conditions a family grows its own potatoes, builds its own shelter, shoots its own game, and so on. But we live in a division of labor society where individuals specialize in production and then exchange their surpluses for the surpluses of other people until each person gets what he wants. Most of us work for wages; we produce our specialty, and in return we acquire a pocketful of dollar bills. The dollars are neutral, and thus we can use them to achieve a variety of purposes. We use some of them to satisfy our needs for food, clothing and shelter; we give some to charity; we take a trip; we pay taxes; we go to the theater, and so on. The money we earn is a means we use to satisfy our various ends.

These interlocking events—production, exchange, and consumption—are market phenomena, and the science of economics emerged, as Mises put it, with "the discovery of regularity and sequence in the concatenation of market events."

Economics Concerns the Means to Achieve Human Goals

Economics has often been called a science of means. The economist, speaking as an economist, does not try to instruct people as to the nature and destiny of man, nor does he try to guide them toward the proper human goals. The ends or goals people strive for are, for the economist, part of his given data, and his business is merely to set forth the means by which people may attain their preferences most efficiently and economically. Economics, as Mises says, "is a science of the means to be applied for the attainment of ends chosen." And a "science never tells a man how he should act; it merely shows how a man must act if he wants to attain definite ends."(3)

When people are free to spend their money as they please, they will often spend it foolishly—I mean other people, of course! As consumers they will demand—and producers will obediently supply—goods that glitter but are shoddy; styles that are tasteless; entertainment that bores; and music that drives us nuts. Nobody ever went broke, H. L. Mencken used to say, by underestimating the taste of the American public. But this, of course, is only half the story. The quality product is available in every line for those who seek it out, and many do. The choices men make in the economic sector will be based upon their scales of values; the market is simply a faithful mirror of ourselves and our choices.

Now, man does not live by bread alone, and no matter how much we might increase the quantity of available material goods, nearly everyone will acknowledge that there is more to life than this. Individual human life has a meaning and purpose which transcends the social order; man is a creature of destiny.

As soon as we begin talking in these terms, of human nature and destiny, we move into the field of religion—the realm of ends. A science of means, like economics, needs to be hitched up with a science of ends, for a means all by itself is meaningless; a means cannot be defined except in terms of the ends or goals to which it is related. The more abundant life is not to be had in terms of more automobiles, more bathtubs, more telephones, and the like. The truly human life operates in a dimension other than the realm of things and means; this other dimension is the domain of religion—using the term in its generic sense. Or, call it your philosophy of life, if you prefer.

If we as a people are squared away in this sector of life—if our value system is in good shape so that we can properly order our priorities—then we’ll be able to take economic and political problems in our stride. On the other hand, if there is widespread confusion about what it means to be a human being, so that people are confused as to the proper end and goal of human life—some seeking power, others wealth, fame, publicity, pleasure or chemically induced euphoria—then our economic and political problems overwhelm us.

If economics is a science of means, that is, a tool, we need some discipline to help us decide how to use that tool. The ancient promise of "seek ye first the Kingdom" means that if we put first things first, then second and third things will drop naturally into their proper places. Our actions will then conform to the laws of our being and we’ll get the other things we want as a sort of bonus.

Point Two: Once we understand that economics is a science of means, we realize that economics cannot stand alone—it needs to be hooked up with a discipline which is concerned with ends, which means religion or philosophy.

There is no easy answer to questions about the ends for which life should be lived, or the goals proper for creatures of our species, but neither is the human race altogether lacking in accumulated wisdom in the matter. Let me offer you a suggestion from Albert Jay Nock. Nock used to speak of "man’s five fundamental social instincts," and he listed them as an instinct of expansion and accumulation, of intellect and knowledge, of religion and morals, of beauty and poetry, of social life and manners. He then makes the charge that our civilization, especially during the past two centuries, has given free reign only to the instinct of expansion and accumulation, that is, the urge to make money and exert influence; while the other four instincts have been disallowed and perverted. Our culture is lopsided as a result, and some basic drives of human nature are being thwarted.

Let’s move to the next stage of our inquiry and ask: What is the distinguishing feature of a science, and in what sense is economics a science? Adam Smith entitled his great work The Wealth of Nations (1776); one of Mises’ books is entitled The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth (1927). It is clearly evident that these works deal with national prosperity, with the overall well-being of a society, with upgrading the general welfare. These are works of economic science, insofar as they lay down the general rules which a society must follow if it would be prosperous.

General Principles

The distinguishing feature of a science, any science, is that it deals with the general laws governing the behavior of particular things. Science is not concerned with particular things, except insofar as some particular thing exemplifies a general principle. When we concentrate on a particular flower, like Tennyson’s "flower in the crannied wall," we move into the realm of art and poetry. Should we want the laws of growth for this species of flower, we consult the science of botany. These books by Smith and Mises lay down the rules a society must conform to if it wants to prosper, they do not tell you as an individual how to make a million in real estate, or a killing in the stock market. This is another subject.

The question before the house in economic inquiry is: "How shall we organize the productive activities of man so that society shall attain maximum prosperity?" And the answer given by economic science is: "Remove every impediment that hampers the market and all the obstructions which prevent it from functioning freely. Turn the market loose and the nation’s wealth will be maximized." The economist, in short, establishes the rules which must be followed if we want a society to be prosperous; but no conceivable elaboration of these rules tells John Doe that he ought to follow them.

Economic science can prescribe for the general prosperity, but it cannot tell John Doe that he ought to obey that prescription. That job can be performed, if at all, by the moralist. The problem here is to bridge the gap between the economist’s prescription for national prosperity and John Doe’s adoption of that prescription as a guide for his personal conduct.

A Science of Means

Economics is a science of means. It abstains from judgments of value and does not tell John Doe what goals he should choose. If you want to persuade John Doe to follow the rules of economics for maximizing the general prosperity you must argue that he has a moral obligation to conform his actions to certain norms already established in his society by the traditional ethical code.

This code extols justice, forbids murder, theft, and covetousness, and culminates in love for God and neighbor. This is old stuff, you say; true, but it’s good stuff! It’s the very stuff we need when constructing a proper framework for economic activity.

The market economy is not something which comes out of nothing. But the market economy emerges naturally whenever certain noneconomic conditions are right. There is a realm of life outside the realm of economic calculation, on which the market economy depends. Let me cite Ludwig Mises again, quoting this time from his great work, Socialism. Mises speaks of beauty, health, and honor, calling them moral goods. Then he writes: "For all such moral goods are goods of the first order. We can value them directly; and therefore have no difficulty in taking them into account, even though they lie outside the sphere of monetary computation." In other words, the market economy is generated and sustained within a larger framework consisting of, among other things, the proper ethical ingredients.

Point Three: The free market will not function in a society where the sense of moral obligation is weak or absent.

Nearly everything on this planet is scarce. There are built-in shortages of almost everything people want. For this reason we need a science of scarcity, and this is economics—a science of scarcity. Goods which are needed but not scarce, such as air, are not economic goods. Air is a free good. Economics deals with things which are in short supply, relative to human demand for them, and this includes most everything we need and use. Our basic situation on this planet is an unbalanced equation with man and his expanding wants on one side, and the world of scanty resources on the other.

Human Wants Insatiable

The human being is a creature of insatiable wants, needs, and desires; but he is placed in an environment where there are but limited means for satisfying those wants, needs, and desires. Unlimited wants on one side of this unbalanced equation; limited means for satisfying them on the other. Now, of course, it is true that no man, nor the human race itself, has an unlimited capacity for food, clothing, shelter, or any other item singly or in combination. But human nature is such that if one want is satisfied the ground is prepared for two others to come forward with their demands. A condition of wantlessness is virtually inconceivable, short of death itself.

What does all this mean? The upshot of all this is that the economic equation will never come out right. It’s insoluble. There’s no way of taking a creature with unlimited wants and satisfying him by any organization or reorganization of limited resources. Something’s got to give, and economic calculation is the human effort to achieve the maximum fulfillment of our needs while avoiding waste.

Let me, at this point, offer you a little parable. This story has to do with a bright boy of five whose mother took him to a toy store and asked the proprietor for a challenging toy for the young man. The owner of the shop brought out an elaborate gadget, loaded with levers, buttons, coils of wire, and many movable parts. The mother examined the complicated piece of apparatus and shook her head. "Jack is a bright boy," she said, "but I fear that he is not old enough for a toy like this."

"Madam," said the proprietor, "this toy has been designed by a panel of psychologists to help the growing child of today adjust to the frustrations of the contemporary world. No matter how he puts it together, it won’t come out right."

Relative Scarcity

Economics is indeed the science of scarcity, but it’s important to realize that the scarcity we are talking about in this context is relative. In the economic sense, there is scarcity at every level of prosperity. Whenever we drive in city traffic, or look vainly for a place to park, we are hardly in a mood to accept the economic truism that automobiles are scarce. But of course they are, relative to our wishes. Who would not want to replace his present car with a Rolls Royce if it were available merely for the asking?

These simple facts make hash of the oft repeated remark that "we have solved the problem of production, and now we must organize politically to redistribute our abundance." Economic production involves engineering and technology, in that men, money, and machines are linked to turn out airplanes, or automobiles, or tractors, or typewriters, or what not. But resources are limited, and the men, money, and machines we employ to turn out airplanes are not available for the production of automobiles, or tractors, or anything else. The dollar you spend for a package of cigars is no longer available to you for a hamburger.

The economic equation can never be solved; to the end of time there will be scarce goods and unfulfilled wants. There will never be a moment when everyone will have all he wants. "Economics," in the words of Wilhelm Roepke, "should be an anti-ideological, anti-utopian, disillusioning science,"⁽⁵⁾ and indeed it is. The candid economist is a man who comes before his fellows with the bad news that the human race will never have enough. Organize and reorganize society from now till doomsday and we’ll still be trying to cope with scarcity. This truth does not set well with those who have the perfect solution in hand—and the woods are full of such. No wonder economists are unpopular!

Point Four: Things are scarce, and therefore we need a science of scarcity in order to make the best of an awkward situation.

The modern mind takes the dogma of inevitable progress for granted. Most of our contemporaries assume that day by day, in every way, we are getting better and better, until some day the human race will achieve perfection. The modern mind is passionately utopian, confident that some piece of social machinery, some ideological gadgetry, is about to solve the human equation. Minds fixed in such a cast of thought, minds with this outlook on life, are immune to the truths of economics. The conclusions of economics, in their full significance, are incompatible with the facile notions of automatic human progress which are part of the mental baggage of modern man—including many economists!

I’m not denying that there is genuine progress in certain limited areas of our experience. This year’s color television set certainly gives a better picture than the first set you bought in, say, 1950. The jet planes of today deliver you more rapidly and in better shape than did the old prop jobs—although there’s some truth in the remark of some comedian: "Breakfast in Paris, luncheon in New York, dinner in San Francisco—baggage in Rio de Janeiro!" Automobiles are more luxurious, we have more conveniences around the house, we are better equipped against illness. There is real progress in certain branches of science, technology, and mechanics.

But are the television programs improving year by year? Are the novels of this year so much better than the novels of last year, or last century? Are the playwrights whose offerings we have seen on Broadway this season that much better than Shakespeare? Has the contemporary outpouring of poetry rendered Homer, Dante, Keats and Browning obsolete? Is the latest book on the "new morality" superior to Aristotle’s Ethics?

Are the prevailing economic doctrines of 1979, reflecting the Samuelson text, sounder than those of a generation ago, nourished on Fairchild, Furness and Buck? Are today’s prevailing political doctrines more enlightened than those which elected a Grover Cleveland? Henry Adams in his Education observed that the succession of presidents from Washington, Adams and Jefferson down to Ulysses Grant was enough to disprove the theory of progressive evolution! What would he say if he were able to observe the recent past?

The dogma of inevitable progress does not hold water. Perfect anthills may be within the realm of possibility; but a perfect human society, never! Utopia is a delusion. Man is the kind of a creature for whom complete fulfillment is not possible within history; unlike other organisms, he has a destiny in eternity which takes him beyond biological and social life. This is the world outlook of all serious religion and philosophy. The conclusion of economics—that life holds no perfect solutions—is just what a person who embraces this world view would expect. Economic truths are as acceptable to the religious world view as they are unacceptable to the world view premised on automatic progress into an earthly paradise.

Another Dimension Transcends the Natural Order

If there is another dimension of being which transcends the natural order—the natural order being comprised of the things we can see and touch, weigh and measure—and if man is really a creature of both orders and at home in both, then he has an excellent chance of establishing his earthly priorities in the right sequence. He will not put impossible demands on the economic order, nor will he strive for perfection in the political order. Earth is enough, so he’ll leave heaven where it belongs, beyond the grave! The effort to build a newfangled heaven on earth in countries like Russia and China has resulted in conditions that resemble an old-fashioned hell. Let us strive for a more moderate goal, let us work for a tolerable society —not a perfect one—and we may make it!

Point Five: Economics tells us that the Kingdom of God is beyond history.

Economics is a discipline in its own right, but it has some larger meanings and implications. Its very nature demands a framework in which there are religious and ethical ingredients. Establish these necessary conditions—together with their legal and political corollaries —and within this framework the economic activities of men are self-starting, self-operating, and self-regulating. Given the proper framework, the economy does not have to be made to work; it works by itself, and it pays rich dividends in the form of a free and prosperous commonwealth.

⁽¹⁾ The Abolition of Man, pp. 34-35.

⁽²⁾ The Road to Serfdom, p. 92.

⁽³⁾ Human Action, p. 10.

⁽⁴⁾ Socialism, p. 116.

⁽⁵⁾ A Humane Economy, p. 150.

Read more from the Edmund Opitz Archive.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Thinking About Economics: It’s more than just money.

Transaction costs exist for non-material exchanges as well. There is a cost to you of reading this information and a cost for me typing it. There are costs incurred in forming social bonds like friendships or marriage – traveling to the places people meet, taking the time to get to know each other, the effort of putting thoughts into words through speech, trying to decide who is trustworthy, who will think your jokes are funny or who will be offended by them. None of these are insignificant costs, and many times the transaction cost of a social interaction, just like a market exchange, may deter us from engaging in the exchange at all.

The reduction of transaction costs plays an important role in shaping how humans interact with one another and how institutions evolve. Economist Ronald Coase noted that in markets for goods and services people often form cooperative enterprises, or firms, to reduce transaction costs. For example, when an auto mechanic wishes to contract with an accountant there are costs associated with finding an accountant, drawing up the contract, deciding and enforcing the terms, monitoring the activities of the accountant and, if need be, finding a new accountant if the results are unsatisfactory. The accountant incurs the same costs on his end of the exchange. The mechanic and accountant may decide to discontinue the high-cost practice of their contractual arrangement and form a single firm – an auto garage with an in-house finance department.

Firms are not the only mechanism that makes transactions less costly. In market and social arrangements societal norms and beliefs play a major role in reducing transaction costs. People with shared values and language can better communicate, rely on each other to fulfill promises, and behave in predictable ways, which greatly reduces search and information costs when engaging in exchange.

Religion is one of the strongest institutions of shared norms and beliefs. It provides a shortcut to individuals seeking to exchange by providing common terminology and assumptions that reduce the costly process of discovering the foundational beliefs that guide the actions of others. Predictability on the part of a partner in exchange is incredibly valuable, and shared religion provides a large degree of predictability. Thus, those with similar beliefs band together under the umbrella of a religious tradition and enjoy the reduced transaction costs of an easily identifiable brand, specialization within the institution, etc.

We see examples of religion being used to reduce transaction costs in the material sense all the time. Many businesses have the Ichthus symbol in their logo. In my home town there was a car dealership called “The Christian Car Company”. These businesses were attempting to signal potential customers that they had a predictable set of beliefs and would, presumably, conduct their business affairs in a way consistent with Christian values. The intent is to reduce the search cost on the part of customers looking for businesses with a particular ethic.

In non-material transactions religion also serves to reduce transaction costs. When I was on the dating market I spent much of my time involved with a church college group. Not because I was some kind of creepy stalker consciously looking for a wife, but because I sought to form friendships with the kind of girls I may someday want to marry and I thought it unlikely to find them in bars and clubs. I am not opposed to bars and clubs per se, but the transaction cost of forming relationships with people whose values I knew nothing about was much higher than it was for people who had at least somewhat of a shared philosophical and moral foundation. I grew up in church so I knew something about church people. It took me less time and effort to discover compatibility, since I could skip over many foundational beliefs and start with a common language and assumptions.

(I do not intend here to make religion into a purely economic institution. The fact that religion serves an important role in reducing transaction costs need not diminish the other spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical roles it plays. Indeed, the practical benefits of religion seem to me to make it more, rather than less intriguing and sacred. Any married person can describe the material benefits of their marriage – a division of labor, economies of scale, ease of communication (sometimes) – yet no one I know would claim these material benefits are the only desirable thing about marriage or that they somehow diminish the romantic or emotional benefits.)

It cannot be denied the tremendous impact religion has on reducing transaction costs in our social exchanges, just as a firm does for material exchanges in the marketplace.

Agency Costs

If creating cooperative enterprises reduces transaction costs, why doesn’t the market evolve into one giant firm? There are benefits to creating a firm, but there are also costs.

One of the chief benefits of creating a firm is that each participant is freed up to spend more resources specializing in what they do best (or in economic terms, where their opportunity cost is lowest). This means that one or a few individuals serve in the role of manager, visionary, or entrepreneur, allowing the others to serve in their specialized roles. Not everyone has to create and maintain the goals of the firm, track the long-term outlook and make strategic “big-picture” decisions. Engineers don’t have to worry about branding, marketers can ignore supply chain management, and maintenance personnel need not concern themselves with bookkeeping. But where specialization within a firm reduces some costs, it increases others.

The larger the firm the harder it is for individual agents to hold each other accountable. The gains of reduced transaction costs may be more than offset by the losses from absence of competition. No one in the marketing department is likely to know whether or not the finance department is using the most efficient methods. A shared culture can reduce the risk of bad actors and instill trust, but as firm size increases the ability of culture to keep wayward individuals in check diminishes. These are called agency costs.

Public Choice Economics reveal how agency costs are starkly evident in political institutions. Most governments are so large and voters and taxpayers so many that the cost of a single government program or action is spread very thin over the population. Each individual citizen has very little incentive to spend valuable time and resources monitoring the behavior of a program for which their share of taxes is only a few cents. Those who are supposed to be filling a specific role within the government to benefit all citizens have incentive to stray far from the constraints of that role and serve interests other than those of the citizens.

Firms face these same problems. Shareholders, CEO’s, managers, board members, workers in different departments, contractors and customers often want different things and keeping all of their actions within the optimal range for the firm is impossible. An IT department, for example, may have every incentive to provide less than optimal services, since an increase in computer problems may lead to an increase in the department’s budget.

Small firms or individuals under contract can avoid many of these agency costs by engaging in continual competition and by having personal knowledge of each other. In a firm of just a few people it is much harder to get away with slacking or sub-optimal behavior. Short term contracts which can be bid out to many providers allow competitive pressure to produce better results. But, as we saw earlier, smaller firms or individual contractors also face high transaction costs.

This is why there is no optimal size for a firm. Instead, cooperative arrangements in the marketplace are constantly in flux, always trying to reduce both transaction costs and agency costs as much as possible. Terry Anderson and Peter J. Hill, in their excellent book The Not so Wild, Wild West discuss the ever-changing arrangements for protecting grazing land, mines and scarce water in the American West. Anderson and Hill talk about the “Institutional Entrepreneurs” who innovated and forged new arrangements when transaction costs or agency costs became prohibitive.

Just as religion reduces transaction costs like firms in a market, religious institutions also face the problem of agency costs. As churches or value systems become larger and more inclusive they suffer from rogue agents who use the institution for their individual benefit and to the detriment of the congregation. It becomes increasingly difficult to monitor and reign in those who are behaving in ways that are destructive to the religious mission of the institution as specialization increases and the number of members grows.

The reduced transaction cost of forming relationships with people of the same faith is offset by the increased agency cost when that faith becomes so broadly defined, or that church so large that it is no longer possible to predict what kind of assumptions members will have in common. Hence a person identifying as “religious” or, “Christian” today conveys very little information and does not greatly reduce the search and information costs of discovering what their core beliefs and values are.

Enter the Religious Institutional Entrepreneur. Just as with firms, there is no optimal size or scope for a religious institution. Religion and its sub-groups are constantly in flux. When agency costs are perceived to be too high – corruption, conflicts of vision, confusion of terms – religious entrepreneurs split off and form institutions with tighter bonds and a more defined set of beliefs.

The Great Schism, the Protestant Reformation, and the myriad denominational disputes and church splits of today are examples of the constant search for the most efficient religious arrangement.

I am not claiming that in these instances the actors involved consciously sought to reduce transaction and agency costs and create the most efficient religious institution. The reason for these divisions and innovations is usually theological, emotional, and very complex and messy. But because an outcome is not the product of human design, but merely of human action, does not mean it is any less a part of the search for the optimal institutional arrangement. Individual actors in the marketplace rarely calculate all the transaction and agency costs present in their potential decision, yet over time the market process results in institutions that work to reduce these costs as much as possible. This is the fundamental insight of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” regarding markets, and of F.A. Hayek’s work regarding social institutions in general.

I am not saying that innovations are always an improvement, or that the innovative process itself (what Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction” in the market) is painless or pleasant. In fact, in both the market and society at large, most innovations are not improvements and do not survive. I speak from personal experience when I say that church splits and denominational squabbles can be deeply painful and counter-productive for the individuals involved. As the common economic example illustrates, the automobile was not a welcome change for buggy whip makers, and I do not wish to downplay their pain. But in the long run and for the whole of society, disruptive innovations and the constant evolution towards optimal arrangements is a tremendous blessing.

I have compared religious institutions in society to firms in the marketplace, both in their ability to reduce transaction costs and their propensity to suffer from agency costs. What is the take-away?

Orders Emerge

It is common for religious and non-religious people alike to criticize massive religious institutions for both their material largesse and theological shallowness. Mega-churches, televangelists, and “watered-down” denominations are often mocked and criticized. Many of the criticisms are well-founded no doubt, but if the economic insights of the marketplace teach us anything it is to give pause before judging these institutions.

Large firms and large churches alike exist because of their ability to greatly reduce transaction costs and provide a valuable shortcut to those seeking to contribute to and benefit from their products and services. When a massive firm or institution exists, it exists for a reason and is the result of a dynamic process of seeking optimality. Though it is not permanent, its existence in the present speaks something of its ability to meet the needs of its agents and customers better than other arrangements.

Likewise, when we feel the urge to criticize the lack of unity among religions and denominations, or lament the infighting and sectarianism constantly taking place in the church community we would do well to consider the service such innovations may be providing. Divisions are another part of the dynamic process of seeking to meet our needs with the lowest cost.

Seeking truth, attempting to discover the most fundamental principles of existence and share them with our fellow man, is (ideally at least) the business of religion. We ought not judge too quickly the way that religious institutions form and are reformed, since the process itself is a necessary part of finding the best arrangement to find eternal truths. Finding truth and sharing it is important. So too are the institutions that aid us in the search by reducing the costs involved. And if these institutions are important, so too is the process by which they continually evolve.

In eternal truths, values, beliefs and institutions as in goods and services, the spontaneous order of the competitive market – both when it is creative and when it is destructive – cannot be overlooked. We should not be quick to judge it, or to presume that we know the why’s and how’s of the orders that emerge as a result.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Religion as a Firm

I was so busy last Saturday with the anti-war rally put on by the Austin Alliance for Peace (which one of my students founded) that I had no time to post my weekly news roundup. So today seemed appropriate since all of our offerings to Caesar are due today…

Pastor Jeremy Sarber has an interesting podcast about Biblical politics posted about two weeks ago that he wanted to share with us.

I’m loving the new Laissez Faire Books blog, which my friend Jeff tucker writes for quite frequently. Two articles on the blog have caught my eye recently. Commerce, Our Benefactor is all about the beautiful benefits, complexity, and justice of a the free market. The second more important article is Death by Regulation, which has nearly gone viral. It is a compelling story of how the State completely ruined the life of Andrew  Wordes. You absolutely must read it.

Allan Stevo reminds us that we are only 11 weeks into a 9 month primary cycle. Ron Paul is still a long shot, but we ought to remember that it is less about winning and more about influencing people. There is still a lot more time to use this presidential election season to teach people about liberty.

Now for some taxation news that will really annoy you…

Reason Mag shows us 5 new ways the IRS is screwing America (their words, not mine).

From that same Reason article, I found another link where Bloomberg noted that fatal car crashes tend to increase on Tax Day. Watch out on the road today, people!

Gary North discusses what happens when government safety nets break.

And now for your moment of Zen: the Beatles song “Taxman”:

Have you made it back to LCC lately? Here’s what you missed if you’ve been away:

• The Tax Man Cometh
• Key Elements to a Successful Federal Budget
• Budgeting Leviathan
• Our Marxist Tax Code
• How to Be a Crook
• Download the LCC Interview on the Aaron Barker Program

Have some relevant news and links you want to share? Post in the comments below. I read every comment and respond to almost all of them. Let me know what you’re thinking!

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

News of the Week: Today is Tax Day

10 Things I Hate About Taxes

1. Lost Productivity
2. Newspeak
3. The Truth About Government Spending
4. Privacy and Personal Income
5. Your Tax Dollars at Work
6. Withholding Taxes
7. Caesar’s Benevolence
8. Living in Fear
9. Taxation is Theft
10. Lost Prosperity

(And there’s an Epilogue as well!)

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

The Tax Man Cometh