Can someone be a Christian and a lassiez faire Capitalist?

[Ryokan]

Works for who? And compared to what?

And for how long?

Keynes, who's economics are the norm today, was confronted with the reallity that in the long run his ideas would lead to widespread systemic breakdown. He said that in the long run we'll be dead.

He's dead.

Actually, Keynsian economics has long been discredited, and while he felt it could, in the long run, have a less efficient outcome than straight market ones, he said nothing about systemic failure. And what does that have to do with floating currency?

[Hoosier]

Actually, Keynsian economics has long been discredited, and while he felt it could, in the long run, have a less efficient outcome than straight market ones, he said nothing about systemic failure. And what does that have to do with floating currency?

Nixon, when he instituted wage and price controls, said that "We're all Keynesians now." Though the debate has ranged more in a supply side direction since that time, Galbraith's (a Keynsian) ideas have not departed. The so called Chicago school seems to be dominant presently, vying with neo-classisists, but Japan has been paving their entire landscape with public works to 'Keynes themselves' out of recession. Keynes quipped that we'd all be dead in response to a criticism ---- you're correct that he never said anything about systemic failure. He ignored it. I'd have to dig through a lot of material to nail down the exact circumstance, so apologize if I have the remark slightly out of context.

IMO, the Austrians shed the most light on market forces through the scientific study of praxeology. They built upon the classical economists, but refined their work. Most of the rebuttals of Austrian theory misunderstood the earlier work of Bohm-Bawerk, or ignored the clarity and correction of Mises. The Austrian model is really the only truly lassiez faire one today. The others all involve some sort of intervention to 'correct' market forces.

Regarding floating currencies, I didn't realize that your "It works, though," was specifically addressing that. Still, my questions stand. Floating fiat currencies could never exist had they not grown from specie, the offspring of commodity money. I think it works mainly because most people don't understand it, and that Argentina and the BIS debt loads of developing nations mitigate against your casual statement as well. If you wish to elaborate, I'll listen.

[Ned Netterville]

I posted this on another thread, but I think it applies equally here:

I have browsed this thread unsuccessfully to find a correct definition of economics.

In his magnum opus, entitled HUMAN ACTION, (Yale U. Press, 1948) the brilliant Austian-school economist Ludwig von Mises described economics as "the youngest of all sciences...Economics opened to human science a domain previously inaccessible and never thought of. The discovery of a regularity in the sequence and interdependence of market phenomena went beyond the limits of the traditional system of learning. It conveyed knowledge which could be regarded neither as logic, mathematics, psychology, physics, nor biology...

"It is the science of every kind of human action. Choosing determines all human decisions. In making his choice man chooses not only between various material things and services. All human values are offered for option. All ends and all means, both material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a dicision which picks out one thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at or want to avoid remains outside this arrangement into a unique scale of gradation and preference. The modern theory of value widens the scientific horizone and enlarges the field of economic studies. Out of the political economy of the classical school emerges the general theory of human action, praxeology. The economic or catallactic problems are embedded in a more general science, and can no longer be severed from this connection. No treatment of economic problems proper can avoid starting from acts of choice; economics becomes a part, although the hitherto best elaborated part, of a more universal science, praxeology...

"Economics is a theoretical science and as such abstains from any judgment of value. It is not its task to tell people what ends they should aim at. It is a science to be applied for the attainment of ends chosen, not, to be sure, a science of the choosing of ends. Ultimate decisions, the valuations and the choosing of ends, are beyond the scope of any science. Science never tells a man how he should act; it merely shows how a man must act if he wants to attain definite ends."

The principles that Jesus taught his followers, particularly in his Sermon on the Mount and his Sermon on the Plain, do tells us how we should act. And if we were to follow his instructions in our intercourse with other people, we would necessarily have to renounce the use of force in the conduct of our affairs, and that would make capitalists of all of us. For capitalism is the only system of economic exchange that is possible in the absence of force and violence. Any and all of the other socio-economic arrangements--socialism, communism, mixed, syndicalism, guild socialism, corporativism, etc.--require the initiation of force by the state and are incompatible with the principles Jesus espoused. Of course if people were to adapt the principles that Jesus taught, capitalist society would be very different from what exists today, but it would be capitalist nonetheless.

Many of the issues that have been raised in this thread are addressed in my essay, JESUS OF NAZARETH, ILLEGAL-TAX PROTESTER, which may be downloaded without charge from website, http://www.jesus-on-taxes.com, which I invite you all to read. Rest assured that the hypotheses presented there in are amply supported by Scripture and other recognized authorities.

[Hoosier]

I'm in strong agreement with most of your post, Ned. I downloaded your essay, but haven't read it yet.

I agree too that a community or world comprised of Christians would be capitalist, not socialist. So, Christianity and lassiez faire are not incompatable. The market most quickly integrates human desires with human production, most quickly corrects mistakes of judgement regarding future demand, and delivers the widest array of goods at the lowest possible prices. That's why markets, albeit black markets, exist in even the most controled economy. These can't really be called free markets however, as they are closely tied to secret connections and inevitable graft and corruption, which effect pricing.

An excellent companion to Mises' HUMAN ACTION is Murry Rothbard's MAN, ECONOMY and STATE. It's available from the MIses Institute online, and is often priced very reasonably. Rothbard answers many criticisms of Mises, and points out the fallacies of modern economics, which either abandon praxeology in an attempt to impose an artificial, mathematical construct suited to physical, predictive sciences but unsuited to human action of willing, choosing beings, or which study the firm in isolation from the broader market of human choice.

Some of the periods of greatest Christian charity have been under the auspices of free markets, both in England and the United States.

I need to head off to work, but will have more to say later.

[Hoosier]

I said that I'd ike to say more, so will endeavor to attempt some sort of picture of a Christian 'economic'.

Before I do so, I would like to point out that the Austrian-school of economics, and most studies of economy, are basically utilitarian constructs. They are justified by the fact that they work, for some purpose. Any purpose is value laden. Austrian advocates often claim that they are 'pure economic science' but all science carries metaphysical preconceptions, or values, that exist a priori. The Austrian school presupposes the greatest happiness for the most people as it's aim, meaning the greatest economic developement to provide the products most desirable to the greatest number of people, through non-coersive means.

This point already makes it non-Christian, but not neccessary contra-Christian, as it places the ultimate value in the meeting of desires, and explicitly the most desires for the most people. As I pointed out, it is utilitarian, but utility is not, in and of itself, evil. Good and evil supercede utility. Utillity is means, coming forth to meet ends.

The desires it answers are those of physical 'progress', on one important level. There is no questioning the fact that advanced division of labor, technology and trade have brought benefit to almost all of mankind. Advanced employment of capital tools and investment have made it much easier to dig a ditch with a shovel than our fingers, and easier still with a back-hoe. It is impossible to deny the benefits of technological and market based progress. Physical, material advancement, the leisure time to pursue other interests beyond bare substinance, and the gadets we all enjoy, have brought us to a condition that counters the curse of earning bare substinance by the sweat of our brow. The curse was never intended to maim us --- only to cripple us, and to bring us back to the source of everything, as the meeting of physical needs is never enough.

But physical needs are utilitarian by there very nature. Wishes for well being are meaningless devoid of actual meeting of the physical needs which are wanting. The means with which to meet those needs can only be developed through the activity described by the praxeological science of human action, but exists prior to the 'logical', "words/thoughts about" it. Human action is teleological, and cooperative. Even though force can subvert it, it can't overcome it. Even those who employ force must convince others to cooperate in their commision, and to refrain from natural cooperation. Cooperation is the median condition, which most naturally derives, and which is built into the human condition, and built into it for an end. The end is the very one which the 'scientific economists' presuppose with no 'scientific' warrent. The means themselves point to the end, which is the greatest meeting of desires for the most. Only the fall subverts it's utility in the present, but will not subvert that utility in the end. Because the desires are the bottom line. Violent intervention does not falsify cooperation, because cooperation becomes the untiversal remedy, when universal violence is not.

I hope that introduction is of interest.

That introduces my thesis.

[geochron]

In my youth I spend a lot of time mucking around with optimisation routines in multivariate spaces. Laissez faire capitalism is, it seems to me, very analogous to "step downhill" algorithms. It takes you from where you are to a local optimum, but will completely ignore a much better solution if it happens to be isolated from the "valley" you start in. From certain starting points it drives you to hopelessly poor solutions. The role of government legislation is to drag you back to a new start position when the downhill mechanism has failed.

If the company is a death trap, they're gonna go under very fast. I think that's the point Ryokan is trying to make: If the company doesn't find a good balance between cutting costs and safety, people won't work for them and they'll go under.

It seems to me that this ignores variations among the attitude to risk of the workforce. The following scenario seems equally plausilbe to me.

The company employs the 0.1% of the population who are most willing to take risks - say people supporting crack habits. By doing this it markets its products cheaper than all the other companies. Pretty soon, all companies have to adopt equally dangerous practices in order to stay afloat, and the only jobs available are those associated with high risk. The original company cuts safety even more, and the cycle continues.

Eventually the government steps in and imposes minimum safety standards enforced by inspection. From the new starting position market forces drive to a different solution.

[Ned Netterville]

Good go, Hoosier. You have a pretty good grasp of Austrian economics. There are, as I point out in my essay, certain immutable laws of markets that are akin to physical laws such as the law of gravity, which laws must be taken into consideration by Christians and athiests alike if they are to avoid pratfalls. The similar nature of these market laws and physical laws suggest to me that free markets, like the physical universe, reflect the handiwork of a Divine Creator in their respective designs.

Geochron, the problem with your analysis, in my opinion, is that it presumes that the state knows better what is good for people than does the market. But you must tell me, without falling into the heresy known as statolatry, where does the state acquire its superior knowledge or superior concern for people's welfare? The state is comprised of very falible human bureaucritters, politicians, soldiers, jailers, executioners, etc., in limited numbers, whereas the market is comprised of everyone's decision to buy or refrain from buying. And of course in all of its regulating, the state must resort to force or the threat thereof against individuals in order to alter their decisions to buy or not buy. Corporations, which are creatures of the state created by it, do not respond to regulation for they are legal fictions immune to the lethal ministration of the state. And since the state ultimately relies on violence to achieve any and all of its objectives, its actions are sure to be counterproductive of producing any NET benefit by the law that precludes bad means from producing good ends. As Jesus put it, "Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit. but the bad tree bears bad fruit."

[geochron]

Hi Ned,

Geochron, the problem with your analysis, in my opinion, is that it presumes that the state knows better what is good for people than does the market. But you must tell me, without falling into the heresy known as statolatry, where does the state acquire its superior knowledge or superior concern for people's welfare? The state is comprised of very falible human bureaucritters, politicians, soldiers, jailers, executioners, etc., in limited numbers, whereas the market is comprised of everyone's decision to buy or refrain from buying.

You haven't shown how this is a good thing, whereas I've given an example of a situation where it is a bad thing. I showed how everybody's choice was dictated by the choice that a few were willing to make.

If 10% of the people vote for a state policy, it never gets enacted into law. In the absence of law, 10% of the people choosing to work in dangerous conditions compel everyone to work in dangerous conditions or not work.

And of course in all of its regulating, the state must resort to force or the threat thereof against individuals in order to alter their decisions to buy or not buy.

Indeed, we use the threat of force to control the market for child pornography. Bad thing or good thing?

And since the state ultimately relies on violence to achieve any and all of its objectives, its actions are sure to be counterproductive of producing any NET benefit by the law that precludes bad means from producing good ends.

So the threat of force to stop child pornographers cannot achieve a net good?

As Jesus put it, "Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit. but the bad tree bears bad fruit."

I think you take this quote somewhat out of context.

[Ned Netterville]

Hi Geo,

You wrote,

You haven't shown how this is a good thing, whereas I've given an example of a situation where it is a bad thing. I showed how everybody's choice was dictated by the choice that a few were willing to make.

I need not show how the free market is a good thing. It has demonstrated its utility for one and all to see too often over too long a period for me to try to add to its lustre. Furthermore, you have not shown how the free market is a bad thing. You have merely postulated a hypothetical situation that is entirely unrealistic and thus beyond the realm of economic analysis.

Geo wrote,

If 10% of the people vote for a state policy, it never gets enacted into law. In the absence of law, 10% of the people choosing to work in dangerous conditions compel everyone to work in dangerous conditions or not work.

Geo, again you are stating your opinion regarding another hypothetical situation. In a free market, people don't "vote," although their buying and selling or refraining from buying and selling has often been referred to metaphorically as voting with their purses. There is nothing in the science of economics that supports your opinion regarding what would happen in the absence of law. Keep firmly in mind, when you regulate, you deprive individual people of their free choices. Where have you, or the state, obtained the superior intelligence to know what is good for people better than they do? That is the basis for your hypothetical assumption and until the state is able to explain wherein its God-like, superhuman knowledge is derived, I am not buying it. Besides its brutal to force your, or the state's. economic beliefs on others. Socialism (central planning of the economy) cannot exist in the absence of force, whereas capitalism is the only economic arrangement that can exist in such an environment.

Geo wrote,

Indeed, we use the threat of force to control the market for child pornography. Bad thing or good thing?

Bad thing, of course. You see, Geo, force is not the way of Jesus. He said, love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, turn the other cheek to force and violence, don't use it for your own selfish or even unselfish purposes because a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. You see, the powerful state with its monopoly on force that you would create to regulate child pornography is perforce also powerful enough to commit a multitude of sins with impunity, such as war and genocide to name just a few of the crimes that states are notorious for commiting. So, I say to you: Genocide, good thing or bad thing?

Geo asks,

So the threat of force to stop child pornographers cannot achieve a net good?

No, it cannot! Even if the threat of force could be applied efficaciously so as to successfully stop child pornographers, and we know from experience that it cannot because it hasn't, the question is what is the NET effect? The great French economist/philosopher Frederic Bastiat wrote a beautiful little essay that goes directly to your question with some wonderful dry humor. The title of his essay is WHAT IS SEEN AND WHAT IS NOT SEEN. His point was that the average person only looks at the immediate and visible evidence of the effect of a public policy, whereas the economist looks at ALL of the evidence, including that which may be invisible to the causal observer or does not become evident until later--in the so-called long run, in economic speak. The fact of the matter is that using force to stop child pornogrophy has many deleterious side effects and is surely counterproductive, creating more child porn than it stops.

Geo wrote,

I think you take this quote somewhat out of context.

Not at all. In fact I used it in the same sense that Jesus did. In his great Sermon on the Mount, he used the 'bad fruit = bad tree' analogy to tell us how to recognize a false prophet "who comes to you in sheep's clothing..." The state comes before its citizens under many guises, including much pomp and circumstance to give it an aura of great power, wisdom and authority. But behind it all lies its monopoly on the use of force--the club that hides beneath its black robe. Rest assured that the state can produce nothing that is good because its method--force and violence--is bad.
Keep the faith!

[geochron]

Hi Geo,

I need not show how the free market is a good thing. It has demonstrated its utility for one and all to see too often over too long a period for me to try to add to its lustre. Furthermore, you have not shown how the free market is a bad thing. You have merely postulated a hypothetical situation that is entirely unrealistic and thus beyond the realm of economic analysis.

I disagree. The mixed economy, with free market + regulations, has demonstrated its utility for all to see. Whether making it more free or more regulated would improve the current situation is arguable either way. I would argue that the removal of regulation over the past 20 years has tended to leave the average person worse off. There is a problem with defining better or worse, however, which is a whole different argument. According to the IMF (I think, cited in Wheen's book, I'll look it up if necessary), world production has grown less quickly since monetarist deregulation than it did in the state-controlled 70s.

Geo, again you are stating your opinion regarding another hypothetical situation. In a free market, people don't "vote," although their buying and selling or refraining from buying and selling has often been referred to metaphorically as voting with their purses. There is nothing in the science of economics that supports your opinion regarding what would happen in the absence of law.

A free market is an entirely hypothetical situation too - that's one of my points.

Are you really claiming familiarity with the entire science of economics? If so, since there is plenty in the history of labour to cover this situation - we can look back to the 1930s to see what unregulated industry is capable of - I would suggest that the entire science of economics is startlingly incomplete.

Let's not forget that the science of economics produced the obviously spurious Laffer curve argument as well.

Keep firmly in mind, when you regulate, you deprive individual people of their free choices. Where have you, or the state, obtained the superior intelligence to know what is good for people better than they do? That is the basis for your hypothetical assumption and until the state is able to explain wherein its God-like, superhuman knowledge is derived, I am not buying it. Besides its brutal to force your, or the state's. economic beliefs on others.

Not if it prevents them from acting brutally.

And we can't all have our economic beliefs reified. Your economic belief in the unrestrained free market encounters everyone else's economic belief in the regulated free market. Clearly there can only be one market. What makes imposing a belief one way brutal, while imposing it the other is not?

I'm not suggesting the state is infallible. The ideal modern state takes an empricial approach. It listens to theorists, makes changes, sees what happens, then makes more changes. The feedback system is poor, but this is isn't a terrible way of seeking an optimum solution mathematically. It's better than assuming somewhere is optimum and sitting on that point with your fingers in your ears.

Socialism (central planning of the economy) cannot exist in the absence of force, whereas capitalism is the only economic arrangement that can exist in such an environment.

How does it stop people establishing a socialism then?

We're not talking worker ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. We're taling about regulation of a free market - through health and safety law, for instance.

Bad thing, of course. You see, Geo, force is not the way of Jesus. He said, love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, turn the other cheek to force and violence, don't use it for your own selfish or even unselfish purposes because a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. You see, the powerful state with its monopoly on force that you would create to regulate child pornography is perforce also powerful enough to commit a multitude of sins with impunity, such as war and genocide to name just a few of the crimes that states are notorious for commiting. So, I say to you: Genocide, good thing or bad thing?

It's not my position that states do no bad things. I'm disputing your position that states do no good things. Examples of bad things done by states don't trouble me.

No, it cannot! Even if the threat of force could be applied efficaciously so as to successfully stop child pornographers, and we know from experience that it cannot because it hasn't,

We know no such thing. We know there is a law against it and there is still some. I suggest that abolishing the law on child pornography would be a somewhat risky step. What happens if your theory is wrong, and child pornography mushrooms?

the question is what is the NET effect?

The question has changed then, a NET effect can include some good fruit.

The great French economist/philosopher Frederic Bastiat wrote a beautiful little essay that goes directly to your question with some wonderful dry humor. The title of his essay is WHAT IS SEEN AND WHAT IS NOT SEEN. His point was that the average person only looks at the immediate and visible evidence of the effect of a public policy, whereas the economist looks at ALL of the evidence, including that which may be invisible to the causal observer or does not become evident until later--in the so-called long run, in economic speak. The fact of the matter is that using force to stop child pornogrophy has many deleterious side effects and is surely counterproductive, creating more child porn than it stops.

Since you've looked at the long run, could you cite some evidence that regulation has created more child pornography than it has stopped?

Not at all. In fact I used it in the same sense that Jesus did. In his great Sermon on the Mount, he used the 'bad fruit = bad tree' analogy to tell us how to recognize a false prophet "who comes to you in sheep's clothing..." The state comes before its citizens under many guises, including much pomp and circumstance to give it an aura of great power, wisdom and authority. But behind it all lies its monopoly on the use of force--the club that hides beneath its black robe. Rest assured that the state can produce nothing that is good because its method--force and violence--is bad.
Keep the faith!

No, you used it out of context. The passage doesn't say "identify false prophets theoretically, then you'll know that these people can do no good". It says "identify false prophets by examining what comes from them (their fruit), then you'll know that their prophecies are false" Also, it's an anthropomorphic fallacy. "The state" is neither a person nor a prophet, false or otherwise.

If you turned it round and showed that everything that comes from the state is bad, then you could identify someone advocating a state as a false prophet. You can't start from the view that the state is a false prophet according to your theorisimg, therefore no effect of it can be good.

Well you can, of course, there's no regulation to stop you . It's just not convincing or based on a sound interpretation of the passage

[Paul]

I've noticed that some posts argue for capitalism or a variant thereof on the basis of its utility. They assume a utilitarian moral framework. Thus to that extent those systems would be incompatible with Christianity as Christianity proposes that what is good is much more than what maximizes utility. God is good. If something glorifies God while being economically inefficient, that doesn't make the system less good for economic inefficiency is only a secondary consideration to the primary considerations of justice, charity and truth.

[super dave]

I'm going to jump into this discussion as safety regulation and government policy is one of the few things discussed on this board that I actually know about!

The posters' differences of opinions come from trying to balance the rights of an individual with the obligations of a broader economy. Everyone has assumed so far that it is a fundamental, individual right to a safe workplace. May ommuntiies, particularly in Asia, would not assume this right - they would argue that there is a greater, community good and so working down an unsafe coal mine is fine because the additional money goes to the wider community. Even in the industrial Revolution, we are talking about higher accident rates, not wanton slaughter.

And whilst we're on the topic of safety expenditure, why are companies required to spend millions of dollars in what are now marginal safety improvements whilst the countries they operate in have no safe water and poor medical facitlies? Even in first world countries, the risk of dying in a car accident is hundred of times higher than being killed at work.

whoa! i don't mind employees getting paid "incentives" for hazardous work; but there are people (neighbors and/or victims) that did not agree to the "cutting corners" that the capitalistic (sic) and employee agreed upon. when hazards and damages occur peripheal to that work location, affecting others not privy to that employer/employee contract; can "hands off" capitalist simply relieve themselves of responsibility because the benefit to the public outweighs any injury to individuals? pure (however that french term for hands off government is spelled) insist this scenario.
has anybody considered the benefits that distributism(as advocated by chesterton) has to offer(local guilds and private property to all individuals)?

[Ned Netterville]

geochron wrote,

It's not my position that states do no bad things. I'm disputing your position that states do no good things. Examples of bad things done by states don't trouble me.

Actually, geo, your position would be exactly right if you did argue that states do not do bad things. Only people do bad things. So when we say, as R.J. Rummel said in his monumental statistical analysis of the numbers of people murdered by various governmental regimes (Death by Government, 1994, Transactions Publishers), that the Soviet Union under Stalin slaughtered 42,672,000 innocent people between 1929 and 1953, and the Chinese government under Mao Tse-tung murdered 37,828,000 between 1923 and 1976, and Nazi Germany during the reign of Adolph Hitler murdered 20,946,00 between 1933 and 1945 (firgues do not include military combatants killed, rather only murdered innocent civilians), what we are really saying is that those leaders and the agents of their respective governments murdered that many innocent people. Of course it was only by means of the organized, tax-funded apparatus of modern government that these monsters were able to slaughter so efficiently and prolifically.

Geo, you may not understand the very nature of the state. Under and above all of the many things that the state is or that the state does is its use of force to accomplish its objectives. But, as we alluded to above, the state is truly only a "legal fiction." Only real live people can carry out the deeds attributed to the state. Probably the most insidious thing that this legal illusion does is allow those individuals in their capacity as agents of the state to escape responsibility--but not accountability before God--for innumerable crimes committed by individuals in the name of the state. When a tax collector extorts a portion of a laborer's wages, he is said to be merely doing his job, but that is the illusion. In fact, he is guilty of is stealing. When a military person drops a bomb that kills indescriminately, it is euphemistically called "unfortunate collateral damage," but what it really is is murder and what the bomb-dropping airman is is a murderer. These thieves and murderers may have acted "legally" under the state's sanctioned use of force, but rest assured that neither God nor Jesus are fooled by the illusion. Furthermore, because of the indisputable legal axiom that a principal is responsible for the acts of his or her agent in the course of the agent's duties, not only is the tax collector guilty of extortion and the soldier guilty of murder pursuant to the law of God (the Decalogue), but the agents' principals are equally guilty in the sight of God. In America, the principals who are equally guilty of those agents' crimes are the people--the citizens--who wield the "sovereign authority" over the United States government.

Geo, perhaps the reason that "bad things done by the state don't trouble [you]," is because you hold yourself guiltless when your government agents do wrong. You and I also may have a basic, irreconcilable philosophical difference. You see, I do not believe that the ends ever justify the means, whereas it appears that you think there are times when they do.

By the way, geo, if you would understand the science of economics, what it is and what it isn't, what it can do and what it can't, you must read Ludwig von Mises' epic exposition on that subject entitled Human Action, (1948, Yale Univeristy Press). Keep the faith--Ned Netterville (author, JESUS OF NAZARETH, ILLEGAL-TAX PROTESTER, www.jesus-on-taxes.com" target="_blank">URL link )

[geochron]

geochron wrote,

Actually, geo, your position would be exactly right if you did argue that states do not do bad things. Only people do bad things.

[snip]

Certainly the actions of the state are carried out by individual people. But then so are the actions of any corporate body. And I think the sense of not being personally responsible is just as manifest in the guy who sells a pensioner an orthopedic chair she doesn't need, as it is in the tax collector.

Geo, perhaps the reason that "bad things done by the state don't trouble [you]," is because you hold yourself guiltless when your government agents do wrong.

The phrase was intended this way. "It is not a refutation of my argument that states do bad things." It is a refutation of your argument that states do good things. My personal reaction when states do bad things is probably much as yours is.

You and I also may have a basic, irreconcilable philosophical difference. You see, I do not believe that the ends ever justify the means, whereas it appears that you think there are times when they do.

Would you kill a man to stop him killing a child?

By the way, geo, if you would understand the science of economics, what it is and what it isn't, what it can do and what it can't, you must read Ludwig von Mises' epic exposition on that subject entitled Human Action, (1948, Yale Univeristy Press). Keep the faith--Ned Netterville (author, JESUS OF NAZARETH, ILLEGAL-TAX PROTESTER, www.jesus-on-taxes.com" target="_blank">URL link )

I might be tempted to take your advice if you'd addressed any of the points in my last post.

[Ned Netterville]

geochron wrote in response to my statement that I do not believe that the end ever justifies the means:,

Would you kill a man to stop him killing a child?

geo, you have asked a question about another hypothetical situation. As a miraculous result of adhering to the nonviolent ethic that Jesus urged, those who follow his way are never confronted with situations or choices such as you imaginatively propose. Most of the behaviors that Jesus advocated, particularly some of those he urged in his Sermon on the Mount (e.g., do not swear [an oath], do not resist an evildoer, turn the other cheek, give to everyone who begs from you, love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, do not worry about the things in life you need, for God will give them to you if you seek His kingdom first) are considered suicidal by worldly people--until they try them. Upon faithfully adopting these behaviors, one finds that they do not result in the disasters anticipated by the faithless, but in a more abundant life. So my answer is: No, I wouldn't kill a man to stop him from killing a child, and the consequences of my refusal to resort to violence in order to adhere to the way of Jesus is that God would see to it that the child lived long and productively and the man did too.

geo, I didn't respond to all of the points you raised in your earlier comment because I simply do not have enough time right now to belabor those issues. Essentially all of our differences are based on our different assessments of the value and utility of the nation-state. You assign the nation-state some or even considerable value for its utility, whiereas I believe that anything and everything people do with the "authority" or through the facilities of the nation-state is doomed to be counterproductive of any good purpose. We could go through the innumerable things real people really do on behalf of or in the name of the nation-state, and belabor whether or not it would better if those things remained undone by the state, but I am afraid that debate would go on forever for the list is virtually endless. And if we throw in hypothetical things that could or might be done in the name of the nation-state, we would be arguing eternally. I am sure you and I both have better things to do. However, please don't let my failure to respond keep you from benefiting from the wisdom of Ludwig von Mises. His stature among economists doesn't need my endorsement, but anyone interested in economics needs to read von Mises.