Does Jesus Negate Economics?
Bob Murphy, an anarcho-capitalist economist who is also a Christian, is a daily blogger who writes about economics from various angles, some of which I can’t even pretend to follow, others which are more philosophical in nature (which is where I’m most interested in human action and economic analysis). On Sundays, however, he writes a single post with a few “spiritual” thoughts unrelated to economics, though once in a while he connects the dots between the Christian worldview (at least from his perspective) and his economics worldview.
Today Bob (I hope I can get away with calling him by his first name since he’s never corrected me in an Email) posted an entry called “Economics, Selfishness, and the Gospel,” which was a follow-up entry to “Does Economics Require Selfishness?” While I didn’t follow the commenters on the first entry, it appears as though the first half of this second entry funnels into a religious comment about following Jesus. This sentence is worth pointing out:
If everyone really followed the commands of Jesus, it’s entirely possible that society would be so incredibly transformed that humans would live on a different plane of existence.
For many Christians disgruntled with what they falsely believe are the inherent dangers of capitalism and the free market, it’s very difficult to read these words coming from a self-profclaimed anarcho-capitalist who has written two essays in market anarchy [PDF] defending a likely success of private law and private defense. Anybody who has listened to the free audiobook of Chaos Theory and not been interested in giving the argument a fair shake would be aghast at his suggestions.
But I don’t find them difficult to swallow in the least because when the imagination is let loose and put to action through ingenuity and determination, there is practically no limit to the benefits in store for those who pursue such ends morally and ethically. Murphy—who has apparently gone out of his way to describe the possibilities of a stateless society (read: no government)—humbly offers that we can barely conceive of a world where everybody would actually follow the teachings of Jesus. Though offering a few suggestions, such as people not knowing what it was like to be last in a game of tag (but somebody would be last, right?), or not knowing what fiat money or the military draft were, I think Murphy in some ways is simply describing what it would be like if the world were perfect. Given that Jesus’ commands were difficult to follow by those who witnessed the miracles and were hugged by the Messiah himself, I’ll give Murphy the benefit of the doubt that he was hypothesizing on this “plane of existence.” I would disagree, however, “that the writings of free-market economists would seem naive or very limited.” No, I believe they would be very helpful in understanding human nature. Even in a world where people mostly followed Jesus’ commands, economics—as the study of human action—would be a vital science for social progress.
As a seminary-trained Christian highly interested in philosophical economics, it seems to me that in a world where people mostly followed Jesus, economists would spend more time describing the actions and interactions of human beings rather than both describing what they observe and prescribing policies for how things ought to be. What irks me the most about Christians who are hell-bent against the free market is that they tend to blame it for all sorts of social ills, but they will never admit that ideally, people ought to be free. “You need to take into account sin nature.” they say. “People are selfish, greedy, and sinful,” is supposedly a “proof” that we need a centralized authority telling people how they ought to behave, as if for some reason defending equal freedom for everyone without exception does not inherently account for a provision for such sinfulness. No, their solution is to put corrupt and sinful people into positions of absolute authority with the power of weaponry behind them. Doesn’t sound very “Christian” to me. But even on other blogs, I’ve had my faith questioned because I’ve defended the ideal of a free society, one without coercion and threat of violence from a monopoly institution.
If everyone agreed that choosing to follow the life and teachings of Jesus would create a better society, and we all agreed that we’d try very hard at doing so, and even if we largely succeeded in doing so, the world would certainly be an utterly different experience from how it is today. But I don’t think that would negate the need to study human action. If anything, it would be a demonstration of and make us appreciate the amazing progress that is made by people cooperating and trading at each other’s benefits.
Related Posts
Leave a Reply
View Comments to “Does Jesus Negate Economics?”