First I would like to thank Lew Rockwell for inviting me to give this talk. I'm very honored
and humbled to be able to do so. Let me clarify the title. I don't mean anything more profound
than what it suggests that there is in the popular culture this idea that free market
economics in particular and Christianity in particular are somehow at odds with each other.
I think many people would say, for those of you who espouse and endorse free market economics,
How can you call yourself a true Christian?
And so that's what I want to discuss today.
And as we'll see, I don't think that that criticism is entirely warranted.
But on the other hand, I think those of us who are Christians can't just dismiss it as out of hand
and think that, oh, there's nothing to that complaint.
So there's one sense that's quite obvious in which, if you're a free market economist,
that that could conflict with your Christianity.
And that would be if you place that above your faith.
If you think that your occupation is more important in your life than your faith is,
and of course you wouldn't say that in the abstract, but if by your behavior that's what
you show you really care about, then of course that's a problem if you're a Christian.
But there's nothing peculiar to economics in that regard, whether you're a botanist
or a chemist or a philosopher, if you care more about your work and put more effort into
that than you do your faith, then of course that's a problem.
Just to let you know, though, that this isn't just a remark I make just because it's obvious
and we move on, that I noticed myself, I violated that very precept myself a few weeks ago.
I had to sign up for a new email account and I was, as you can imagine, there's more than
one Bob Murphy walking around and so I was trying different permutations of things and
I even think I tried Bob Murphy and put my bank pin number on, which is probably the
the stupidest thing you could possibly do, in retrospect. Fortunately, someone else is using my pin in Bob Murphy.
Finally, I settled on one that was Bob Murphy and CAP. That went through, and I was really pleased.
That's anarcho-capitalist, for those of you who don't know.
But then it occurred to me a few minutes later, why was it that I was trying to come up with some way to describe myself?
Why did I describe myself? Why did I pick my political views? Why didn't I say Bob Murphy Christian or Bob Murphy, my boss is a Jewish carpenter, to make people pause and think, and then, you know, oh, that's clever.
So why did I go the route of the political aspect? Why did I choose that to describe myself? And it disturbed me, and I think that that is a problem.
And just not to justify why I did that, but just thinking about psychologically what was it that led me to act that way, I was thinking about it and I realized, well, one thing is, if you call yourself a Christian in America, that's not giving people too much information, in other words, there's plenty of Christians and that doesn't, you know, sort of like saying, I have a heartbeat, right? But, whereas to say I'm an anarcho-capitalist, it's not like everyone would say, yeah, tell us something we don't know. So there's that aspect to it.
And you know, that's in a sense defensible, but then the aspect that's not defensible
and that I did regret was that there was also the element that, oh, you know, it's cool
to be an anarcho-capitalist and it shows I'm a rebel and that really, you know, it gives
an insight into my personality, whereas, you know, I'm a Christian.
But if you think about it, that's exactly wrong, that to be a Christian, if you are
a real Bible-believing Christian, that's far more radical than to be an anarcho-capitalist.
Sure, anarcho-capitalists, oh, you think the government is flawed and that you critique the government and that institution of power, but a true Christian believes that the world itself has fallen and that all forms of power, in a sense, are the realm of Satan and that that's his arena, and so I think that for the very reasons that we think, those of us who are anarcho-capitalists, that it's in a sense kind of cool and rebellious to be that, that by the same token all the more so, it's cool and rebellious in a sense to
against the institutions of this world, to be a Christian.
And just to, if I can go on a little bit on this point and come back to the main topic in a moment,
it's funny because I think a lot of libertarians, radical libertarians, whenever there's something wrong with humanity,
some sort of social problem that we can all identify as, yes, that's a problem,
the standard libertarian solution or approach is to first say, okay, how is government causing that problem?
problem. And that's usually, the government certainly has a hand in it, but I think from
a Christian viewpoint that that's missing the big picture, that ultimately it's not
merely that, oh, government is messing things up, but that human beings themselves are flawed
and there are plenty of things that, it's true, government exacerbates it and of course
you have fallen men in the government doing it, but even if there were a libertarian so-called
and Utopia that really wouldn't be the Garden of Eden. That even if everyone endorsed Rothbardian
ethics and we had everyone obeying property rights, this would still be a sinful world
and that Satan would still have means by which he would deceive people. So anyway, my point
there is just that that's one type of tension I've perceived between not so much free market
economics but radical libertarianism and I'll come back to that at the end of the talk if
I have some time. But back to the main topic, the alleged or perhaps real tension between free market economics and Christianity, I have this quote from C.S. Lewis, who most of us in this room I think respect, and we certainly can't just dismiss anything that he says as being foolish, and this is from mere Christianity, I believe, and he says,
There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed.
All these people told us not to lend money at interest, and lending money at interest, what we call investment, is the basis of our whole system.
Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong, but I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great civilizations had agreed, or so it seems at first sight,
in condemning the very thing on which we have based our whole life.
So when I read that, it disturbed me, and not in the sense that how could C.S. Lewis have been so crazy,
but rather in the sense that, yeah, I mean, he's right, and, you know, of course, coming from the Austrian tradition,
we know about the law of time preference and that, and that's the explanation and justification, if you will, for interest,
for Interest, but it did seem hard, how do you square it with that and how could it be
that all these great traditions that we endorse in terms of our faith lives, how could they
have been so completely wrong, or rather, is it that they're wrong or is it more nuanced?
So that was, so that's an issue for me.
And just to make it a little bit more personal to understand why I'm particularly interested
in this one, my dissertation topic involved capital and interest theory and portions of
I was, in a sense, saying this is the proper way or this is a better way to defend the
capitalist earning of interest in a market economy as opposed to some of the other defenses
that have been given.
And so, if C.S. Lewis, if his point is a valid one, then that led me to worry a bit.
And just to tell you two incidents that happened, when I was a graduate student, I was wrapping
up my dissertation and so you'd work on it at home and then you'd go into the office
and work on it there.
And so I was at home working on my laptop and then I had to go into the office. I didn't
want to be carrying around a floppy, so of course you email it to yourself so that when
you get into the school you can get it off your email there. And it must have been nearing
the ends of the process because I converted it to an Adobe file that was really big and
attached that so you can go and do it. I don't know if they give it to all their graduates
or just PhD students or how it works, but I was filling out the form, you know, how
How did you enjoy your time here? How did this compare with other institutions and so on?
And one of the things was a bubble sheet with all the different, you know, graduate school of the arts and sciences and what department were you in?
And what do you think the three digit code for the economics department was? It was 666.
And I'm not making this up. You'd think someone would have caught that, but maybe they thought it was funny. I don't know.
But, so this is what I'm saying. It's not merely an academic thing. There was really, there was a time when I was really concerned about these things.
Now, for Austro-libertarian economists who aren't particularly prone to excessive self-doubt,
people like Walter Block, for example, I don't know him that well, but I don't picture Walter
Block laying awake at night saying, am I doing the right thing with my life?
He could explain these events, of course, he could say, well, NYU, it's a bunch of commies,
and yes, of course, their program is from the devil, that they're teaching you to contrast
That's the free market decentralized outcome with the central planner solution, and I'm
not making that up.
That's, I mean, you guys are familiar with Pareto optimality, and that's the way mainstream
economists say this is what ought to happen, and then what does the market do in equilibrium.
But they didn't call it the Pareto optimal outcome.
They actually referred to it in class, you know, on the board as the central planner
solution, and that was the benchmark against which.
So there, you know, it's no surprise that that came up as 666 in its description.
As far as my dissertation, will I criticize Mises and Rothbard? So what do you expect? That would happen.
Now, but to be a bit more serious about this, I think there is an element of truth in there, or at least even those of us who, in terms of academics, endorse the Austrian theories concerning interest.
In our personal lives, there are certain situations where we can at least understand the popular rejection of interest as somehow being exploitation.
So, for example, when we were newly married, my wife and I, on a few occasions, either from my parents or her parents, we would get a moderate-sized loan for a few months.
We hit trouble, and rather than having to go to get a cash advance and a credit card, of course, one set of our parents would say,
Well, here, we'll lend you the money and just pay us back in a few months when you can.
And of course, they didn't let us pay them interest on it. They would have been insulted.
They wanted us to pay them back. It wasn't that they were just giving us the money,
but it would have been inconceivable to them that they would have charged us prime rate plus 10 points or something,
because, you know, that's what the market will bear.
So if you just think about it, well, gee, why is that then?
It seems there's some validity to someone who might say,
I might say, see, you economists, you free market economists, you have these theories that you think apply to the anonymous market, but as a Christian, don't you realize that everyone's your brother and that we're all, everything is really, in a sense, a face-to-face transaction, and how can you endorse one set of ethics or norms for the so-called marketplace but a different one in your personal life? But the more I was thinking about that, I don't, it's not so cut and dry, and it really doesn't have anything to do particularly with interest. That, for example, if our lawnmower broke down,
My dad heard the story. I'm sure he would say, well, you can come borrow my lawnmower, and he wouldn't charge me $20 to do that. It would have been fine, even though, in a sense, I'm giving him back the lawnmower that was slightly more depreciated than when he lent it to me.
And so, you see, it's not so much having to do with money in particular. I think it's just more that they had certain goods that we needed for a temporary period, and also there's the issue that they knew I was good for the loan,
Loan, whereas a credit card company just going off my credit history wouldn't have as much
information and be as sure that I wasn't going to skip town and not pay them back.
And so, the more you think about it, these examples aren't, it's not so crystal clear
that we're advocating one set of norms for your personal family life and a completely
different one in the marketplace.
And of course, if we wanted to go buy a house, our parents wouldn't have given us $30,000
and said, just pay us back whenever you can and let's not even bother writing a contract
and you know they of course would have said okay and what interest rate are you
going to pass if the numbers got got bigger and bigger so as I say it's not
so obvious that there really is this double standard that one would be
advocating even if you do agree the yes in certain situations if you're lending
money to your kid or you're borrowing money from your parents that it would be
a bit unseemly if they were charging an interest rate and this this is similar I
Or I think to some arguments I had with people over Katrina that I wrote a few articles on
the complaints against the price gouging and I was saying things, well, you know, that's
exactly the exact opposite of what we need, the rise in prices of bottled water and batteries
and so on. That's the signals that the market uses to ship the goods to the people who need
them most. And some people were emailing me and saying, oh, come on, you say that, I can't
I believe you people really believe that stuff. Are you telling me that someone walking through New Orleans and it's flooded and there's all these people dying of thirst and he has bottled water and you really think that he ought to be going, 30, 30, 30, do I hear 30, do I hear 25 and be auctioning off while these people are all dying of thirst and how can you say that with a straight face? And it's true in that particular situation. No, I do think if that person's a Christian and there are people literally dying in front of them and he has the water there that it would be incorrect.
without knowing more information about the situation to not give them the water and to insist that they pay them and if they can't pay then they die
or to give all the water to somebody who offers a $100 bill and let 90 other people who don't have any money on them at that moment die of thirst
I do agree that that wouldn't be a Christian thing to do
but as I was arguing with this person and trying to push it back, what exactly does the person think ought to be done instead
I think what this person was coming from, if you pushed it far enough, basically the entire United States would have had to stop using money altogether.
Because you could say, well, the bottled water company, how could they continue to ship water to these people and just hand it out for free?
They would have gone out of business because they have to pay their workers and they have to pay their suppliers and so on.
And the response could be, oh, well, that's only because those people are being greedy.
in a just society then the workers would realize well we can't insist on wages right now we have to you know drive the trucks down and hand out the water do our part to help these these poor people and because okay but then if they didn't get wages well how would they feed their family and you could just keep pushing it back and saying well the supermarkets ought to give food for free to the people who are volunteering to help the people in Katrina by giving them water and it would just keep moving in larger and larger circles and it's not eventually it wouldn't just be a matter of incentives it wouldn't be unrealistic because it's
At some point you'd run up against people who were hypocrites and acting in an unchristian manner but eventually you would have to be planning the entire economy without money prices that people would need to know okay these bottles of water should go down to New Orleans and it's not just which goods need to go down there because there'd be the problem that you know what if a thousand flashlights went down but only 200 batteries went down and then you know would be pointless and so little things like that that don't just automatically follow from the Sermon on the Mount quantitative issues that really it's not a matter of pure
and Justice. There's quantities involved. There's numbers involved. And that's where economic calculation assists us greatly. And again, it's not just the consumption good. It's also, okay, let's suppose we can agree that this bottled water ought to go down to the people in New Orleans, and we can decide on that in the waters up in Washington, D.C. Well, how do we get it down there? Do we charter a private jet and fly down there and get it there in a few hours? Or do we put it on a bus and get it there in a few days?
These are the sorts of trade-offs that even if we can agree on the ultimate moral ends, it's not entirely obvious the way to achieve them.
And that's again where economic calculation comes into play.
So it's not that I had a definitive answer for the person.
I could identify in every single situation, oh yes, this would be the Christian thing to do or this wouldn't.
But it doesn't immediately follow that this person's pointing to what he called price gouging was an evil thing.
is an acceptable thing that that in certain aspects I think it would be entirely appropriate for someone to raise prices in a sense taking advantage of the situation, the temporary emergency situation of those people because if you don't allow that person to do that and you apply that principle to more and more people, well then we just lose the ability to help the people as effectively as possible. And it's not, just to clarify, I'm not merely saying that oh it's a violation of property rights and you can't use coercion and so that's why it would be unacceptable.
I'm saying if we can agree that just our sole aim were to help as many hurricane victims
as possible, then it would not follow that we should all stop charging higher prices
or charging what the market should bear.
And the sort of thing that he wanted, that he wanted to have people there handing out
water for free and not worrying about making as much money as possible, of course that's
perfectly consistent with a private property order, that people, one of the ways they can
And I was glad that relief agencies were saying this. They were saying things like,
Sure, give us a bottle of water, give us cans of tuna fish or whatever, but if you really want to help, write us a check.
And I was glad that they weren't afraid to say that, even though it sounds so unseemly to certain people.
But no, that's the way they can help those people the most, because they got their relief agencies,
have their people on the ground, so to speak, and know exactly what's necessary.
And so if you give them money, they can just go buy it and give the people exactly what they need
and the way they pay the suppliers of bottled water is through those voluntary donations that other people have given.
So it's not that, let me put it this way, respecting property rights is consistent with all sorts of responses to Katrine that if everyone had been given a bottle of water,
is through those voluntary donations that other people have given.
So it's not that, let me put it this way, respecting property rights is consistent with
all sorts of responses to Katrine that if everyone had been completely indifferent and
said, yeah, those people should have known better than to live down there and done absolutely
nothing, then I think that would have been sinful perhaps for many people to ignore the
plight that was right before their eyes.
Or on the other hand, people responding and going and donating a lot of money and responding
Banking Generously would also have been consistent with voluntarily obeying property rights and
not abandoning the market order.
Now I want to move on to some passages in the Bible to elaborate on these themes.
When it comes to property in the Old Testament, I think it's clear that it's certainly not
an unjust institution, that it seems that God has no problem with property per se.
And that might seem like a strange thing for me to talk about, but again, the relevance
for me was in arguing with certain leftist anarchists who believe that not only the government
but private property itself is an unjust institution that relies on force.
We went back and forth with our intellectual arguments, but the thing that really reassured
me that I think I'm on the right side of this debate is the Ten Commandments say do not
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They listen to this form, they repent, and then God doesn't carry out the destruction that he would threaten them with.
And what's ironic is the thing that's bad about being a prophet is not only are you saying things that are unpopular,
but most of the time people just ignore you and you're powerless and you see the warnings you had issued come fulfilled,
whereas with Jonah you'd think he would be ecstatic that here he goes to the city, he tells them to change their ways and they listen to him.
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And it's unexpected that he's telling him, you know, you were asking me, or you wanted me to kill 120,000 people who, for all practical purposes, didn't really know how bad what they were doing, what it was, you know, so we needed you to go tell them, and then he adds, and you wanted me to destroy all that livestock too.
Now, of course, it could just be that Jonah was very materialistic, we're not sure from the book itself, and maybe the Lord was just trying to, you know, wake him up and get him to see, look at what you were asking me to do, but nonetheless, that always struck me as a strange thing for him to say, that you were asking me to destroy all this property.
So, now if we move on to the New Testament, I think the modern critic who says that there's all sorts of things in Christianity that are inconsistent with free market economics or the endorsement of free market economics, there are plenty of passages in the gospels that, at least superficially, lend some credibility to that claim, but I think, let me just read a somewhat lengthy excerpt to sort of put them in perspective.
I think most of these passages, it's not so much that Jesus is denouncing wealth and riches per se, but rather the attitude that you're getting your security from them.
So it's not if you have wealth that that means you're automatically, you must not be a good person or you must not be following God's commands.
But rather if you're really worried about the future and so what do you do? Oh, I'm going to go diversify my portfolio.
Now I feel a lot better about myself and I can handle the uncertainties of tomorrow.
If that's your attitude rather than, well, I'm going to trust in the Lord and whatever
happens tomorrow is consistent with his plan and so even if I don't understand at the time,
I better just accept it and try to know that at some point it will make sense to me.
If the first thing is your solution, then yes, I think that's what Jesus specifically
is saying the problem is.
So let me just, to back that particular interpretation up that I don't think is too, that many people
do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there, your heart will also be.
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?
For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things,
Okay, so there, he wasn't saying you don't need material goods, no, he was saying the
exact opposite, that you do need them, but God knows you need them, and the point wasn't
don't, when he says don't worry about them, I don't think he means forget about them and
just don't even consider them, I think he means literally don't worry about them, that
it'll take care of itself in a sense if you first put what's most important and accept
Now there's a few other passages that I think the critic would point to and say these particularly show the flaw in your thesis, if you're a free market economist.
So let me just deal with those. These will be shorter quotations.
So, if we look at Matthew chapter 5, the famous passage is about if someone wants to borrow, go ahead and lend to them, and if someone wants your cloak, give them your tunic as well, or your tunic, give them your cloak as well.
If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let them have your cloak also.
A little bit later, give to him who asks you and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.
And in and of itself, it does look like that's saying, how could you be a capitalist who charges what the market will bear?
But in context, you see right before those, it says, for example, you have heard that it was said,
It was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you not to resist
an evil person.
Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him also.
And then immediately after that is, if anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic,
let them have your cloak.
And then there's another verse, but then the next one, give to him who asks you and from
him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.
So in that context, it seems as if the person who is just coming up to you and asking to
borrow money, it's possible that that person in a sense is aggrieving you is the same way
This is an example in this tradition of the apparent tension between Christianity and free market economics.
In the Gospel of Mark, we have the rich man comes up to Jesus and he says,
good teacher, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life?
And he says, follow the commandments, and he lists some of them.
And he says, I've done that.
And he says, okay, one more thing.
Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
and so then Jesus turns to his disciples and says how hard it is for those who have riches
to enter the kingdom of God and they were astonished at his words and he says again
in this one in particular how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom
of God it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of God.
So there, certainly it seems as if that's evidence in favor of the thesis that there's a conflict, but again, at least in this translation, the second time he uttered it, he speds more specifically for those who trust in riches to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
And so in context of the other things I've mentioned to you, I think it's not so much that someone who has riches per se, but rather the type of person who has riches is probably also going to be the one who really seeks after them.
And so that's, I think, his point. And also, of course, Jesus knew when that particular rich man came up to him that he was going to say that he wasn't going to listen to him.
And so it's possible that the reason he said to him, what I want you to do is to sell your
riches and give to the poor and come follow me, was that he wanted to have a lesson for
his disciples.
So I don't think it necessarily follows just from that story that if you are rich right
now that means Jesus wants you to sell everything and go join a monastery or something.
Again, it's not that we're sure he doesn't mean that, but I don't think that passage
alone you could conclude straightforwardly that that's what he does mean for all people
and also one thing to consider is by their standards just about everyone in America today is fabulously wealthy so I think a lot of people like blue collar churchgoers for example probably think yeah when they read something like that Bill Gates is going to hell for sure but you know I'm not because look at how hard it is I only have my cars beat up and we you know we don't even have cable and we have a you know a dial-up internet connection where of course compared to the you know they're probably
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The Gospel of Luke mentions it where Jesus tells a story of the rich man who was dressed in fine robes and so on and then there's the beggar Lazarus and the Lazarus begs him for crumbs and then when they both die the rich man is being tormented by hellfire and Lazarus is in paradise and Abraham explains to the rich man that you had good things on earth and now in the
and then Lazarus was a poor beggar and now the situations have been reversed and then I think epitomizes the anti-capitalist interpretation of Christianity that those who do well in this world, they're going to have the exact opposite, the first shall be last and the last shall be first, but even there it's, and I have to confess my interpretation of that story was inspired by a Bob Dylan song where he, I think he's referring to this story, it's the song Joker Man if you're familiar with it, but at one point
He says, looking into the fiery furnace and see a rich man without any name.
And that's what's interesting about this story is the beggar Lazarus, his name, we know who he is.
He's a real person, whereas the rich man, we never learned his name.
It's just, oh, he's a rich man.
And so I think it's possible that what the lesson there is, is that person, again, defined himself in terms of his riches,
and that's how he viewed himself, and that was what was most important to him,
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And Solomon asks basically for wisdom in discerning justice so that he can effectively rule over the people in the way that God wants.
And God's very pleased with that answer. He says, you didn't ask me for riches, you didn't ask me for long life, you didn't ask me to destroy your enemies.
And so, yes, not only will I grant you what you've asked, but I'll grant you these other things as well.
And so he's rewarding Solomon with riches.
And so there, it's not that, oh, if you had asked for riches, that would have been bad because riches are an evil thing to have,
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So much that, of course, God wants the material goods that they're offering to him, but rather he wants them to obey his word and to trust him that even though it seems, in a sense, silly, why would I give up one-tenth of my goods, especially when God doesn't need them, that's crazy, but no, of course, the point is just to do what he says and then you'll get more than that back in ways that you wouldn't have anticipated. So again, I think it's far too simplistic to look at particular passages that on the face of them do seem to suggest a hostility between wealth
and the capitalist way of life, if you will, and Christianity, but I think there are other
passages that put it in context.
Let me move on, I'm running out of time here.
One thing I would say is whether or not we think that they can feel comfortable in the
grand scheme of things, I think Austro-libertarian economists, at least if there is this tension,
their actions are far more defensible than other possible economists, because what Austro-libertarians
do. Yes, they're scientists, they use economic science and that's what they devote their
occupation to, but the point of it is not just to study economic science per se, but
then they go and apply and try to diminish or eliminate what they perceive to be as injustice.
So somebody who gets involved in the arguments over the drug war, for example, it's not simply
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Christian said, you know, maybe I should lend out to more people without asking for interest.
Maybe there wouldn't be any ramifications from that. Maybe it would be good. But what
I am pretty sure about is if the government uses guns basically to punish people who are
charging interest, that I think would clearly be worse than the alleged evil that we're
trying to remedy. And so, to the extent that what we're doing is not so much telling individuals
how to live their lives, but rather just taking certain means off the table, namely intervention
by the Government, then I think there's a much stronger case where the Austro-libertarian
economist can clearly say, yes, what I'm doing is not inconsistent with the tenets
of Christianity.
Now, having said that, I do think that there are aspects of Austro-libertarianism that we
do need to be careful about, so I've mentioned one that I think it's incorrect or short-sighted
perhaps to say, oh, the government's causing all these bad problems and not to realize,
in the Morality of Something, so I'm not suggesting that I'm bringing up something you guys haven't heard before,
but there are, just in discussing with people, I think a lot of times it does, people do fall into the trap of saying,
well, you know, that's not a violation of property rights, so why are you criticizing it?
When, you know, you can criticize something and not mean, and therefore I'm going to use force to try to stop it,
you can just say, oh, that's a bad practice, and I don't think those people should do that, and they're wrong for doing it,
and I'm not going to associate with them, and just to say, well, gee, they're not violating anyone's property rights,
Okay, let me deal with two last biblical episodes that people would point to specifically regarding anarcho-capitalism and Christianity, and I hear these a lot, so in this talk it's appropriate to address them, and then we'll have a few minutes for questions if you want.
So, one thing of course is Paul's letter to the Romans where, just to read it specifically because he doesn't, he's not wishy-washy about it and so let me just make sure we understand for those of you who aren't familiar with it, exactly what he's saying.
Wang, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except
from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists
the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on
themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be
unafraid of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
For he is God's minister to you for good, but if you do evil, be afraid, for he does
is not bare the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him
and who practices evil.
Okay, so as I say, he doesn't qualify this, and Christians email me and say, how can you
possibly say you're against the government, and, you know, moreover, you try to argue
that that's what a truly Christian viewpoint would be when, look at what Paul's saying,
what do you do with that?
And let me admit, it is difficult, it does seem as if Paul is saying that, yeah, how
How could you possibly say the government ever does anything wrong?
But at the same time, forget anarcho-capitalism, just with people with regular political beliefs,
it seems that Paul's statements here can't possibly mean what it seems that they say.
For example, he himself, in the previous chapter, is saying if it is possible, as much as depends
on you, live peaceably with all men, beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give
I've discussed that with non-anarcho-capitalist Christians at Hillsdale College, other professors,
and I say, how do you reconcile those two? Is he assuming that the people in government
aren't themselves Christians? And the answer, the person was, what are you talking about?
No, he's not assuming that. It's just that in your private life, you're not supposed to be wrathful and you're supposed to turn the other cheek and so on.
But if you're acting as God's minister of justice in a governmental capacity, then of course the other chapter is relevant and that's your fulfilling God's...
That's the way that the Lord takes his vengeance is that he works through the government officials.
Okay, so, again, I mean, it's not, that's an understandable interpretation, but even beyond that, though, I mean, certainly, it just seems, there's no qualification here that Paul doesn't say governments that seem to be doing the right thing.
I mean, there were plenty of historical cases of governments persecuting Christians, and so, clearly, I don't think Paul would say to them, don't worry about it, that, you know, the government's persecuting you because you did something wrong.
I'm not sure exactly what he would do with that, but what I'm suggesting is this passage in and of itself, I don't think, if you're an anarcho-capitalist and a Christian, this should make you realize you're being inconsistent because it seems hard to reconcile with all sorts of more moderate political views.
For example, of course, I don't endorse this, but many mainstream Christians who, if they're arguing me over anarchism, would point to this, also supported the invasion of Iraq.
But you could just as well ask them, well, wasn't Saddam Hussein the minister of God, and, you know, if the Iraqis were getting killed by him, they must have done something unrighteous, and that's why they were, right.
And so I think, you know, even mainstream Christians who were, you know, fundamentalists and literally believed every word of the Bible would say, well, no, that doesn't follow.
And so by the same token, it's just that with our political views, if you're an anarchist,
that you think all types of human government are similarly not following other precepts
of Christianity.
Okay, and then the last thing I want to talk about is the famous render unto Caesar's what
is Caesar's quotation.
Now there, the context of that, of course, is they were trying to trap Jesus, okay?
So I think it's wrong to conclude from that that, oh, see, Jesus said, therefore, pay your taxes, because he couldn't have said one thing or the other.
In order to get out of that situation, he had to give an answer that was unobjectionable, that no one could possibly disagree with.
And how could you disagree with saying, render under Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's?
Nobody could say, oh, I don't agree with that.
But it's not clear, well, does he mean that the tax money is Caesar's?
And so, of course, if you're an anarcho-capitalist, you could easily reconcile that with your views and say,
Yeah, I don't think the government, I owe the government my money, I don't think it's the government's money.
And the issue, of course, it was very ambiguous because he prefaced that by saying,
Show me the coin, whose image is that on the denarius, and it was Caesar's.
And so that certainly makes it sound as if he's saying, Oh, well, then therefore the coin belongs to him.
The Theory of Money and Credit
The question to him is, is there a savior, the one who's going to deliver them from the occupation, the Roman authorities, they're going to be upset, they're going to think he's a sellout, so he can't just clearly say yes, but he can't say no, because then he's saying don't pay your taxes to Caesar, and then he can be liable on that ground.
And so they were trying to give him a question, no matter which way he answered, he was going to be in trouble.
And so that's why I think he needed to use that sort of evasion to be as wise as a serpent, but as harmless as a duck.
And then the last thing I'll say, and then there's a few more minutes for questioning, is certainly the libertarian objection to taxes on the very same page in my Bible earlier, he's telling the chief priests, you know, they're arguing with him back and forth, and he says, okay, tell me, so there's one son, he says, what do you think, a man had two sons, and he says that the first one go to work in my vineyard, and he says I'm not going to do it,
So, the fact that he's picking tax collectors in conjunction with harlots to tell them just how bad they are, I think, shows that certainly Jesus was not a big fan of taxation.
Let's start with Newt.
Bob, just kind of an addition on that too, that particular incident at the temple.
You're inside the temple, he asks, does anybody have a denarius?
Cesar's image of Caesar, who claimed to be God, which would be absolute anathema to carry images of other gods into the temple, carry itself, so at that point Jesus already had them.
In other words, there's a larger hidden aspect of that as well.
And one other thing, too, that Romans 13 was written at a time when the Roman government was not persecuting the Christians, per se,
that they were having a fight in Jerusalem with the Jews because the Jews were saying,
and, you know, know that you're wrong, and they were arguing back and forth.
If you go into the book of Revelation, okay, and with the reference towards Nero, you know, the 666,
then in fact, they're not saying very nice things about the Roman government at all.
They're calling them, you know, harlot, they're going to get overthrown, these guys are evil,
And so it seems to me that also in the context of that time, Paul's telling people to live peaceably, that our job is not to overthrow the Roman government any more than that.
But later on, when in fact the Roman government really does start persecuting the Christians in full force, at that point we also see the judgment put upon them.
Don't use violent means against the government, but it does seem like he says more than just that, that what they're doing is God's will, and that's difficult to understand.
The most unusual thing about the Jewish beliefs is to honor the Almighty with your everyday activity.
In the market, it says the Lord loves honest weights and measure, for example.
And then, especially around private property, it is so well documented that even the king couldn't use eminent domain to see, say, the vineyard.
They even had to pay for it, and this is so well documented. I don't know if they're being clipped.
Yeah. Roger.
Paul P. Carson, the founder of stoic philosophy, and he often borrows stoic terminology to make the point, it makes me wonder,
The Stoics held you should always obey the law, you should always obey the ruler, they also held that no one counts as a genuine ruler unless they rule justly. Nothing counts as a genuine law unless it's done.
Given that Paul in that very passage says that all legitimate authority comes from God, we could read the other way and say that any authority that doesn't come from God, therefore it's not legitimate, any rulers that aren't from God are not legitimate rulers.
I'd like to make a point about usury. It has a long history, especially in Roman Catholic thought, of being misunderstood, and I think part of it is that they didn't get time preference until some of the early Austrians came out and said,
But in addition to that, there's a history of God's people being subjected to other people and being taken advantage of.
And one way that they were taken advantage of is that they were loaned money at huge rates, and they became slaves of the people that they lived in community with.
And so this idea that usury is bad is there because God wanted to protect his people. He didn't want them to be enslaved.
I think he wanted their hearts and minds to be in obedience to him, instead of worrying about earthly things.
Yes, Joseph?
Continuing in the same frame, I think we should answer Lewis's criticism of the change in doctrine.
There is no change in dominance. One of our guys made his master's thesis on analysis of riches in the Bible, comparing riches at that time with today. At that time there was no opportunity cost.
The Latin phrase of it is domino emergent. Little by little we came to realize that if one did loan money he is losing on another field, he is losing an alternative investment, and that type of interest is perfectly legitimate.
It wasn't realized that riches in the Old Testament was a barn full of fools for the next few years.
Until then, that stuff had interest in more than one.
Because there's no dominant emergence, there's no opportunity for it.
And that explains, in part, the difference in the change in the theory.
The interest was being paid back to compensate you for the lender's loss, whereas usury was charging over and above that.
I make the point to my students that yes, in a modern economy, at least in general equilibrium, those two things are the same.
You can't charge over and above that. The opportunity cost is exactly what you would be able to get in the market.
I thought you left out that passage of Acts that's missing from the early church, and they did not consider their property to be their own, and maybe that's left out of each of those problems. Could you address that just briefly, and how that's not communist?
Clearly, if particular Christians want to come together and pool their property and live communally and they think that that's how Jesus wants them to live, then that's certainly, as radical libertarians, not only do we have, we wouldn't object to that in terms of that's not violating anyone's rights, but perhaps that even, there should be examples of that in those types of communities and maybe, that's what I'm saying, I can't say whether or not that should happen, that's a personal decision and maybe it would be good if more people would live like that, I'm not sure.
But clearly that's consistent with anarcho-capitalism and as you say, that's not communism the way, when I say I'm an anti-communist, I don't object to people doing that.