Commentary

0:00All right, I was asked to be a commentator, for which I'm very grateful. I was not able to read Gary North's paper, so I don't have a whole lot to say, other than I know he's an authority on the subject, and I would recommend any of his books or any of his articles on lewrockwell.com. I have read the other three papers in great detail, and I'd like to, first of all, and I will talk about the paper by Tom Woods, Catholic Social Teaching and Austrian Economics Revisited, a reply to Thomas Stork. As someone who is not a Catholic, rarely has cause to be concerned about Catholic social teaching and knows little about Thomas Stork, Stork, beyond that, he is a noted and vocal distributist. I must confess that I read Tom's paper with curiosity more than anything else. Knowing Tom as I do, and having read his book The Church and the Market, I knew that he could easily dismantle Stork's house of distributism brick by brick. But alas, that is not the purpose of Tom's paper. Instead, we have

1:13have a serious explanation of the theoretical foundations of Austrian economics with reference to the logical fallacies and gratuitous assumptions of Thomas Stork. I wish Dr. Woods had given the assertions in Stork's unnamed paper in more detail. But when someone is writing on economics and he's wrong on leisure, supply and demand, scarcity, CEO salaries, and middlemen, and then mischaracterizes both neoclassical and Austrian economics, I suppose that the less detail, the better. Stork's most ridiculous assertion is that the Austrian School fails to understand how the world really works.

2:00To the contrary, the Austrian School, since it is grounded in human action and natural Laws Instead of Mathematical Formulas and Historical Experience is the only school of economics that deals with the world as it is. Although Stork and Woods are both converts to the Catholic faith, their interpretation of their church's pronouncements on economics couldn't be more different. Stork is a distributist who believes that the capitalistic system is dangerous and unwise With fruits that have been harmful for mankind, he sees distributism as more akin to Catholic thought than capitalism. Woods is an Austrian who believes that capital investment in the free market have resulted in more productivity and a steady improvement in the worker's standard of living measured according to any criteria. He sees capitalism as more akin to Catholic thought, Stork recognizes but does not accept the assertion by the papacy that the technical details of economics lie beyond the Church's competence.

3:11Woods on the other hand accepts this assertion and prefers a Catholic social teaching that is limited to general moral principles to guide the faithful in the marketplace Instead of the distinctly unhelpful economic advice of Catholic bishops. Because the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church can lead the average Catholic in the pew to accept statements from a conference of bishops or clergy as official church dogma, Tom has his work cut out for him. But I don't know how a shark like Tom Woods can write the many important books he's written and still find time to deal with a minnow like Thomas Stork. In one of his many articles on distributism, Stork appeals for support to many of the best minds in the church.

4:04But why appeal to many when one will do? The best mind in the church, Thomas E. Woods Jr. Timothy Terrell spoke on the influence of John Calvin on economic thought. As one who has written an 800-page book on Calvin and his theology, I was especially interested in this paper, and even more so since this year is the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth. Dr. Terrell has confirmed what I concluded in my 1999 book, The Other Side of Calvinism, Calvin valued private property, capital, frift, hard work, and rejected medieval usury laws.

4:51Calvin was certainly no laissez-faire libertarian, or even a reliable advocate of the free market, but we all know that, and Timothy is not arguing otherwise. Voltaire didn't call Calvin the Pope or the Protestants for no reason. Calvin supported intervention that was broad in scope. What we have then in this paper is an honest appraisal of Calvin, warts and all. Timothy argues that Calvin, sometimes indirectly, sometimes inadvertently, and usually inconsistently, improved and changed economic theory and policy so as to enhance economic freedom. And I agree completely. Calvin's support of commerce, property rights, the division of labor, and capital accumulation couldn't do otherwise. His emphasis on heavenly reward instead of earthly gratification shows up in the importance he placed on labor and thrift.

5:52I don't think Calvin's worth ethic can be blamed for the labor theory of value. Timothy refers to Rothbard's discussion of the subject, but doesn't state Rothbard's conclusion that there is no way to prove this hypothesis conclusively. He does, however, recognize Calvin's most important contribution to economic freedom, the legitimization of interest-taking. As Rothbard says, Calvin's bold break with the formal ban on usury was a liberating breakthrough in Western thought and practice. It is the inconsistencies in Calvin that are perplexing, supporting commerce but disdaining merchants, upholding usury but disparaging moneylenders.

6:41One of the most important things Timothy brings out in this paper is that Calvin explicitly distinguishes the religious interpretation of justice from legal and political justice. Adherence to this principle would certainly keep modern Calvinists from embarrassing their namesake. Like when the faculty of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan wrote a textbook for use in the college's introductory economic courses that was called by the recently by the newly deceased Calvinist John Robbins, a totalitarian and socialist tract written with religious fervor by admirers of serfdom and the dark ages. Any definitive examination of Calvin's contributions to economic theory and policy would require much more research in the primary sources, of which there are many.

7:36As that is not Dr. Terrell's purpose, this survey is more than adequate to show Calvin's influence on economic thought. Sean Reitnauer spoke on 19th century Protestant theology and the biblical view of property. I thought this was an outstanding, biblically-based paper, something that needed to be written and something I wish I had written. Dr. Reitnauer argues for a uniquely Christian view of property. God owns all there is because he made it. Therefore, men hold property as stewards of God. Therefore, men have a duty not to infringe on the property rights of others. This viewpoint can be found in the Church Fathers, Middle-Age theologians, Spanish scholastics, contemporary Roman Catholicism, and historical Protestantism.

8:29That is, every Christian tradition of note except the readers of sojourners. The focus of this paper is on 19th century Protestantism and for good reason. This was before liberal Protestants swallowed the progressive and social gospel movements and began their quest for social justice through what Sean calls their faith-based interventionism. As one who has done extensive research on the Baptist minister Francis Whelan, as well as naming my Christian think tank after him, I was especially pleased to see the space given to the views of Whelan in this paper. And I should also say that I have reprinted Whelan's book on economics, and it is posted online at the Mises Institute. The most crucial and most The most relevant part of the paper is the section on private property and the ruler.

9:24Here, Sean addresses the role of the state and its agents. These four statements are especially noteworthy. Just as private citizens should not steal, the state should not steal either. The state is not authorized to become an agent of aggression who takes from the productive and gives to the politically connected. God does not command us not to murder or steal except if we work for the state, and we should not collectively take what is not ours through the state. These are things that are rarely even being said today from conservative church pulpits. Although, as I said, this is a biblically based paper, there are two crucial biblical references to property that are not mentioned.

10:12One in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament, one concerning real property, one concerning both real and personal property, one dealing with state expropriation, one dealing with voluntary transfer. The first is the Old Testament story of Naboth's vineyard, found in First Kings. Naboth of Jezreel had a vineyard by the palace of King Ahab. Ahab wanted Naboth's land for a garden of herbs. He offered to give Naboth either a better vineyard or cash payment. Naboth refused to sell. When Ahab sulked because he couldn't get Naboth to sell, his wife Jezebel concocted a scheme to obtain Naboth's vineyard. She sent official government letters to the elders of Jezreel instructing them to proclaim a fast and have two false witnesses testify that Naboth blasphemed both God and the king.

11:07This resulted in Naboth and his family being stoned to death. After this, Ahab, at the instigation of his wife, rose up to go down to the vineyard and took possession of it. I guess that's the first case of eminent domain. The other reference is in the New Testament account of the early Christians having all things common, recorded in the book of Acts. There we also read that the early Christians, because of an impending famine, Every man, according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea. Believers voluntarily sold property and possessions as needs arose and distributed the proceeds to other believers in need. This had nothing to do with economic justice or rectifying the inequality of sellers, distributors and recipients.

11:56And only someone ignorant of what communism is would make the mistake of equating voluntary consumer action with State Ownership of Property and the Means of Production. I would love to see a member of the religious left cringe when he reads in this paper that the economic institution that maintains social justice, that maintains justice in social relations regarding property is the free market. Sean is exactly right, of course, but I wonder if he's trying to do too much with one paper. I would like to see more of a connection between Violations of Property Rights and the Religious Left's Interventionist Economic Policy. But again, this is an excellent paper, and I look forward to Sean's forthcoming book on economics from a Christian perspective.