Luke Twelve: Jesus Gives Business Advice

Jesus gets interrupted during a discourse...

13 And one of the multitude said to him: Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.

Which demonstrates how jurisprudence can be had without the state,  voluntarily, and Jesus replies

14 But he said to him: Man, who hath appointed me judge, or divider, over you?

in which He declines to take on the case, especially since the elder brother made no request.  Jesus does not want religion to be used to force people to do things they don't volunteer to do.  He goes on

15 And he said to them: Take heed and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life doth not consist in the abundance of things which he possesseth.

16 And he spoke a similitude to them, saying: The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits.

17 And he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

18 And he said: This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and will build greater; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods.

19 And I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer.

20 But God said to him: Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?

21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.

The main mistake is as the man says - I I I I ...  The bumper crop is for all.  If the man sells the crop into the market, then the price falls and people have more disposable income.  What do they do with more disposable income?  Buy what is next on their needs list: repair a roof, books for the kids, new tools, some furniture, who knows.  But a boon is to be spent into the community.  In this way the fellow with the boon crop benefits indirectly as the entire community is, in whatever measure, wealthier, and provides better in all manner of goods and services, for all, including the farmer who is the beneficiary of the boon crop.  This is the unseen benefit of the boon.

What profits the farmer makes selling more grain at less price now will be benefit enough in terms of cash now for the farmer.  This he can see, and ought to accept.

On the other hand,  if the man does as he imagines, he builds the infrastructure to hold bumper crop, he is asking for trouble for the stored wheat is unlikely to cover the cost of the infrastructure to hold the product for a few seasons.   The community gets nothing but some abandoned warehouses in a few years.

The decision of the Lord is to end the life of such a greedy ingrate.

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Christian Vs Islamic Economic Results

Here is a summary of historical research with another slant, touching on Christianity vs. Islam:

Lopez contrasts the European evolution with that of a neighboring civilization, Islam, where political pressures smothered the potential for an economic upsurge:

The early centuries of Islamic expansion opened large vistas to merchants and tradesmen. But they failed to bring to towns the freedom and power that was indispensable for their progress. Under the tightening grip of military and landed aristocracies the revolution that in the tenth century had been just around the corner lost momentum and failed. (Ibid., 57)

One might want to consider who Islam had to work with, and how the peoples that islam conquered with such alacrity were apostate Christians, not the best the West had to offer to Islam.  If this is true, would it matter?  Might Islam, as it evolved given the exigencies of ruling an apostate people, to some extent be condign punishment for apostasy?

In Europe, as trade and industry expanded, people discovered that "commerce thrives on freedom and runs away from constriction; normally the most prosperous cities were those that adopted the most liberal policies" (Ibid., 90). The "demonstration effect" that has been a constant element in European progress – and which could exist precisely because Europe was a decentralized system of competing jurisdictions –   helped spread the liberal policies that brought prosperity to the towns that first ventured to experiment with them.

Just so, and this is well known by that very system of liberal laws, the Lex Mercatoria.  Where thsi private law was adopted by states, peace and prosperity flowers.  Where it is constrained, such as in USA, we see devolution of that comity.

Also, one of the most important international trade systems, the letter of credit, is under private law internationally as well. (See the UCP of the ICC).

That Mohammed was a merchant is well known, and his teachings are replete with sage advice to any merchant.  Jesus too had cogent advice to business in his teaching.  To what extent does the predisposition of the listeners indicate results?

Berman, moreover, focuses attention on a critical development that began in the eleventh century: the creation by Pope Gregory VII and his successors of a powerful "corporate, hierarchical church … independent of emperors, kings, and feudal lords," and thus capable of foiling the power-seeking of temporal authority (Ibid., 56).[10]  In this way, Berman bolsters Lord Acton's analysis of the central role of the Catholic church in generating Western liberty by forestalling any concentration of power such as marked the other great cultures, and thus creating the Europe of divided and conflicting jurisdictions.[11] 

Indeed, was not Islam’s golden age an example of just this kind of balance of powers?

The conflict of cultures is between the emerging fascist state as representated by the USA, and the newly emerging free-Islam which is necessarily in conflict.

The state conflict with the Catholic Church in USA is a domestic echo of this international conflict.  Although the Bishops have done all they can do make the Church subservient to the state, state actors, amazed at each new level of obeisance, are ever surprised at the compliance of the Bishops. With the hospitals, schools and Catholic charities now comprommised beyond recovery, abusing Bishops is now just a matter of amusement.

Islam bristles at what the state has done to the Church, how Christianity has decimated Christians in Moslems lands, and are only too aware of what “Christian” George Bush and company would visit on Islam.  No wonder they want no part of “democracy.”

Berman's work is in the tradition of the great English scholar, A.J. Carlyle, who, at the conclusion of his monumental study of political thought in the Middle Ages, summarized the basic principles of medieval politics: that all – including the king – are bound by law; that a lawless ruler is not a legitimate king, but a tyrant; that where there is no justice there is no commonwealth; that a contract exists between the ruler and his subjects (Carlyle and Carlyle 1950, 503–26).

My guess is we’d find such a tradition every bit as robust in Islam.

Other recent scholarship has supported these conclusions. In his last, posthumous work, the distinguished historian of economic thought, Jacob Viner, noted that the references to taxation by St. Thomas Aquinas "treat it as a more or less extraordinary act of a ruler which is as likely as not to be morally illicit" (Viner 1978, 68–69). Viner pointed to the medieval papal bull, In Coena Domini – evidently republished each year into the late eighteenth century – which threatened to excommunicate any ruler "who levied new taxes or increased old ones, except for cases supported by law, or by an express permission from the pope" (Ibid., 69). Throughout the Western world, the Middle Ages gave rise to parliaments, diets, estates-generals, Cortes, etc., which served to limit the powers of the monarch. [13] A.R. Myers notes:

Almost everywhere in Latin Christendom the principle was, at one time or another, accepted by the rulers that, apart from the normal revenues of the prince, no taxes could be imposed without the consent of parliament … By using their power of the purse [the parliaments] often influenced the rulers policies, especially restraining him from military adventures. (Myers 1975 29–30)

The Church does not recognise the legitimacy of the state. Kingdoms, yes; the state no (such as democracies).    Perhaps its forbearance to the point of subjection is a result of an inability to work with such a regime.

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Land Ownership in Israel

It is interesting property rights are not absolute in Israel -

The land shall not be sold in perpetuity for the land is mine and

you shall be strangers and temporary residents with me

(Leviticus 25:23)

In Hong Kong, which is about as peaceful and prosperous a polity as can be imagined, land cannot be owned either.

Plutarch makes much of land reform and property redistribution in his "Makers of Rome."  It seems to be a recurring problem, with Mohammed allowing land unused for 3 years to be assumed by whomever will work, and common law in Christian lands allowing for a process called adverse possession.

ON the one hand the religions assume, even demand, that the land be worked.  But also presume this is not perpetual or eternal.

Property is generally defined as what you mix with your labor, and perhaps that can be refined to "as long as you are mixing it with your labor."  As they say in biology, use it or lose it.

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Interest and The Loan, and Charity

For all intents and purposes "interest" today means usury, although once upon a time, on the theoretical argument level, there was a difference.  And even then, interest meant a loss, not a gain.

But as Judge Noonan emphasized to me, and this is an example of the kind of clear thinking you need to be a judge, usury is about the loan.

A loan can only be a charitable act.  A buddy in a jam, the widower down the street making ends meet, travel money to be paid back later.

A loan would never be for consumption, for if the widower is starving, she needs another kind of charity, not a loan.

A loan would never be for business purposes, for business requires shared risk, and usury expressly requires guaranteed return when life has no guarantees to offer.  If you want to make money with your money, you invest it at risk in a business, not lend it at usury to a business or person.

A loan of a horse or a car earns no consideration or fee, for the instant one charged a friend for the use of a car it becomes a rental.

A loan of a horse for a fee is not a loan but a rental.  Loans and rentals are different because to rent something is to make use of it but not own it.  There is wear and tear in a rental that is acceptable.  And if the horse dies, it is the owner who is out, not the renter.  Same with a house that burns down (sans negligence).  Under usury, if the loan money goes up in smoke, under any circumstances, it must still be paid back.  And there is the enslaving trap.  When sure things don't work out, you end up enslaved.

A loan is a charitable act in itself.  One does not have the use of his money until the loan is repaid, so yes, there is a lack experienced by the lender and in that measure there is charity.  With a loan another charitable act is immanent: forbearance or even forgiveness.  Making a loan is running the risk you will be paid late or not at all.  In that case, the lender is obliged to let it go.

Business and charity ought never mix.  If they come together the outcome is necessarily evil (in the sense of "lack of good.") When the sacred couples with the profane, in divine hybridization, the result is profane.  You can get profane from the sacred and the profane, but you cannot get sacred from that union.

Make money doing business.  Next, do charity.  Mohammed is much clearer on this than any other prophet.

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Peace, Prosperity, Anarchy and Terror

My legs were not blown off in Boston the day of the marathon, nor was I killed.  But I certainly would deserve such a fate, and worse.  What goes around comes around, and as an American taxpayer, I am certainly responsible for what happened to Razia, especially when there is not the slightest effort to prosecute the perpetrators of her injuries, nor act on the certain knowledge that our presence in her country is wrong.  I, like you, am personally responsibly for what happened to Razia.

I do not for a second believe two Chechen knuckleheads had anything to do with the bombing, because if they did, someone somewhere by now would have provided evidence somehow linking them to the crime.  Hasn't happened, won't happen.  At the same time, there is overwhelming evidence others did it. It doesn't really matter.  In these things, there are bad guys on both sides, and the bad guys on both sides benefit when bombs go off.

It is not enough to vote against war, which is pointless since election fraud is material in USA.  Even if I pray and fast against the war, I still enjoy the benefits of imperialism.  I am guilty as hell.

We all take comfort, and imagine, that the fact that we do not suffer for our crimes must mean that we are innocent.  If so, we mistake God's patience for approval.  I am told God's patience is ordered to our salvation.  Our love of money is the root of all evil, even if we only love seeing CEOs, starlets and ball players get fantastically wealthy, relatively speaking.  How strange it is we in poverty settle on the thrill of vicarious living.

There is a point where our banality will cross a point of no return, when Patience is ended and come what may comes.  Afterwards, there must be enough people who say no to letting others aggregate power through usury to the point they can call the shots, literally.  No law against it, just no state supporting it.

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Business Profits

The Encyclopedia of the Catholic Church has an impimatur but it is not a teaching document of the Church.  Therefore, the fact that it is positively snarky on usury really is neither here nor there.

Plato (Laws, v. 742) and Aristotle (Politics, I, x, xi) considered interest as contrary to the nature of things; Aristophanes expressed his disapproval of it, in the "Clouds" (1283 sqq.); Cato condemned it (see Cicero, "De officiis, II, xxv), comparing it to homicide, as also did Seneca (De beneficiis, VII, x) and Plutarch in his treatise against incurring debts. So much for Greek and Roman writers, who, it is true, knew little ofeconomic science. Aristotle disapproved of the money trader's profit; and the ruinous rates at which money was lent explain his severity.

It condescending attributes ignorance to Aristotle, but perhaps Aristotle knew something about the world he live in not apparent to those removed by 2500 years time.

Money was used to settle debts when a tally based on relationship would not serve.  What we know as vendor financing today was perhaps, and new evidence suggests, far more widespread then than now.  In a free market, people extend very local and very timely "credit," always backed by hard assets and payable upon performance (I'll pay you when  I get paid).

Perhaps this was practiced far wider than we, or the Catholic Encyclopedia writers, know.  Perhaps Aristotle was just commenting on a greedy and disruptive practice of demanding cash when the world revolved on private credit.  And no doubt about it, deals conducted in cash excite the powers that be to take some of the proceeds, so such activity precipitates the general decline of society.

Maybe Aristotle knew better that he is given credit.

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Tony Checks in From Napoli & Quotes A Saint

On Apr 18, 2013, at 8:46 AM, A.M. A wrote:

Translated this for free for you from the Italian while waiting in line at the pharmacy. You may use it as you wish ...giving no credit.

St. Anthony of Padua on usurers 

Ferocious beasts that pillage and devour

3 types:

The hidden ones who in infinite number slither in the shadows like vipers.

The more public ones who feign moderation and want to appear merciful.

The shameless and perfidious, wracked in vice, who in broad daylight practice usury as a profession.  It is these the devil will take onto himself for eternal damnation.

Tony

Tony,

I am reading Eugen Von Baum Bawerk on interest, a seminal 1884 work that he kept updating until about 1910, at which point it became the wareshed for keynes, etc, or modern capitalism.

He previews usury and interest and of course trashes the Church for supposedly inhibiting free trade, science, etc.  He notes that Italy was the last to accept interest (usury), prox 1800s.

Interesting, that.  From St. Anthony's time to Baum-Bawerk's time, what do we know about development and usury prohibition?  Well, the renaissance occurred under usury prohibition. And the Protestant countries after they allowed interest?    Well, shortly after the reformation things got so bad in the Northern climes that cannibalism was a pesky problem, while Italy continued to thrive.  Michelangelo vs cannibalism?  All right, that is too far, but Baum Bawerk's discrediting of Catholic countries is every bit as extreme.

And not to put too fine a point on it, the century after Baum Bawerk produced his work and it became the rock solid foundation of modern economics (capitalism) was the darkest, bloodiest mankind had ever seen.  And he should have noticed that 20 years before he started writing, the USA civil war was essentially fought over the spread of capitalism vs. free markets.  (The civil war was not more about slavery than WWII was about Jews).

The argument that strict prohibition by the church leads to backwardness (Baum-Bawerks own description) is ridiculous on its face.  Now, of course the Italians were no more faithful to Church rules then than they are now, which is to say, more or less.  AS St Paul said, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.  And certainly St. Anthony was observant, and he was commenting on what he saw in italy in his day.

Which is why I think it is nuts to have the state involved with the force of law.  We desperately need to approximate the anarchy of  12th - 16th century Italy if we want peace and prosperity.  The state, which the teutons used to replace the Church, is involuntary, which brings chaos unto cannibalism.

The church is a voluntary government.  Whose central sacrifice is eating flesh and blood, but starts and stops there with sacrifice.  After that, it wants obedience.  But it can only propose, never impose, obedience.

I'll use your translation...

John

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