What’s Wrong with the World

"The mistake of many — both conservative and liberal — is their pernicious belief that we can engineer human goodness. We can’t — at least not in the way that they imagine."

Which is besides the point. We do know how to deal with inflation, depressions, and rent seeking usurers - all we need is the political will. If we have to wait for enough of this "spiritual capital" in order to prosper, well, I fear the sun will run out first.

The whole 99%/1% thing is about plutocracy stomping on free enterprise, of course.

Just curious, does their chemistry department offer graduate programs in alchemy and necromancy?

You conflate free enterprise with Austrian economics.

The Austrian economics, being based upon explicitly atheist axioms, is incompatible with Catholicism.

"t follows that some economic and political theories begin with an evil design. You can easily spot them by the millions of corpses they leave behind."

It can be argued that millions of aborted children are consequences of the spread of the ideas of Manchester Individualism (as Chesterton calls it).
Now you call it free enterprise.

Gian, please support the claim that "Austrian economics [is] based upon explicitly atheist axioms."

A program of study of some evil economics theory should not be contrary to a commitment to social justice. Nor should a program concentrating on Nazism, for instance. Historians teach about evil regimes all the time, so why shouldn't economists teach about evil economic theories? There's an obvious difference between teaching and indoctrination, right?

The problem seems to be that this program would attract "Austrians," as a program on Nazism might attract Nazis. But there would seem to be a solution to that problem. Just make sure that most of the professors teaching Austrian economics are not "Austrians." If your economics department is full of professors espousing some evil theory, then you've got a problem whether there's a program dedicated to it or not.

For what it's worth, I think George Gilder has answered this question compellingly and resoundingly in his Wealth and Poverty. So also has Michael Novak in The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.

"It can be argued that millions of aborted children are consequences of the spread of the ideas of Manchester Individualism (as Chesterton calls it)."

Wendell Berry has made exactly this point in several essays, managing to tick off pro-choicers and economic individualists in one fell swoop. Good on 'im.

Interesting post, Ken. Two things, briefly:

First, as you see in the comments, people who truly believe that Austrian economics is inherently evil, based on "explicitly atheist axioms," and responsible for the abortion holocaust in the West (say, what?), are, to put it mildly, unlikely to change their minds. One can try talking to them, asking them to defend their statements, reasoning with them. I've tried all of those. One gets nowhere.

Good for you for standing up and speaking out against those at Loyola who hold such views. (Though, cynically, I would bet that the majority of those opposing the Austrian economics program are political liberals and aren't just overly concerned with the abortion holocaust--isn't it funny how those nasty free marketers seem statistically in America to be the ones more concerned with that?) But I doubt you'll get terribly far.

My second comment concerns your reiteration that economic systems do not manufacture goodness in citizens. I entirely agree. Indeed, that insight is part of what critics of free enterprise don't understand themselves. I would add, however, that it is possible to see certain connections (since the critics are so big on "connections") between systems that actively encourage dependence on the state instead of the family, that break the connection between actions and consequences, and the like, and particular kinds of spiritual malaise. I have not yet gotten a chance to read Jay Richards's new book _Indivisible_, but I believe he argues in that book for just such a connection. Others have done so as well, as Michael Bauman has mentioned. Even some of the writings of Theodore Dalrymple support the same conclusion. I remember one really telling piece he had on a girl who was given an apartment, over and over again, by the Euro-socialist country (England) in which she lived and kept getting boyfriend after boyfriend who trashed it. She was simply being, I believe the jargon term is "enabled" by the state in her self-destructive lifestyle. There was no connection whatever between action and consequence for her. The spiritual hellishness unique to nanny states was really glaring in the story. Her problem, emphatically, was not poverty.

I would add, however, that it is possible to see certain connections (since the critics are so big on "connections") between systems that actively encourage dependence on the state instead of the family, that break the connection between actions and consequences, and the like, and particular kinds of spiritual malaise.

My wife was watching something about Pompeii that made a similar point. In its earlier history, Pompeii was a healthy pyramid society with a strong middle class and a lot of working class who were nevertheless not poor. As bread and circus not only became normal for magistrates seeking higher office, but became common and extravagant, many simply lived off the extravagance and within about 100 years, the divide between the rich and everyone else was very extreme.

The inability of people like Jeff and Maximos to realize that guaranteeing support for all people, regardless of their situation is troubling. The reason you don't want to ensure that every unwed mother, drug addict, thug, etc. can rely on a generous welfare system is that you don't want them to think "I can do this really bad thing and count on someone bailing me out." Help you can rely on as reliably as the sun coming up is not charity and is in fact quite dangerous to certain types of people because it distorts their decision-making process. Larry Elder once pointed out that despite what many claimed, welfare reform didn't result in skyrocketing poverty, it actually caused people to change their behaviors instead!

Well, Loyola's main monetary interest is selling degrees that have no value, while encouraging young Catholics to lose whatever faith they have.
I am sad that I did not know anything about Austrian economics back then- A class from Block would have undoubtedly improved my sad experience there.
I suspect the firestorm comes out of a sense of self-preservation. If your main product is a scam, selling a product that inoculates people from that scam seems counterproductive.

Let's also keep in mind that no one would bat an eye about a masters program in Marxism or Keynesianism. Even at Catholic universities the former's explicit atheism never stopped anyone from studying it.

Whatever your criticism of their work, the idea that Friedrich Hayek or Wilhelm Ropke never produced any material worthy of advanced study is anti-intellectual obscurantism of a truly base sort.

Well, Paul, from a perspective of close association with academia, I would say that having a master's program "in" a particular area is usually going to indicate and foster endorsement of that type of thought. I myself would _not_ support a master's program in Marxism for that very reason. It's one thing to read some Marx in an undergraduate Great Books course, just to say you've done it. It's quite another to have an entire MA program in Marxism. You're no doubt right that no one at Loyola would bat an eye at such a proposal, but what that really tells us is what the academics at Loyola think of Marxism. No doubt their English department already has plenty of people, in essence, doing MA's or PhD's in Marxism, at least as applied to literature.

So we might as well admit that a MA program in Austrian economics is not, as Aaron perhaps generously (?) suggests above, going to be like a program on Nazism which is like a history of the Holocaust and involves telling us how wicked the ideas in question are! Nor is it simply going to be entirely neutral study for information's sake. No doubt professors hired for such a program _would_ by and large be favorable to Austrian economics and teaching it as a legitimate and viable set of ideas.

Hence, if one thinks those ideas genuinely evil, one will understandably be bothered by such a proposal.

Ken's post, rightly, challenges that proposition--that Austrian economics is evil--on its face. I think that's the right way to proceed.

I personally don't think a system with choice built into the system, especially a free market system, is either inherently good or evil, it is amoral. The problem is not the systems it is the people. People are the sources of both good and evil and people are the variables within a system that can make the system look either good or evil.

I agree with the point that when a system is designed to be evil, like the iron maiden, it is evil. It is evil because of the evil within the creator. The creator chose to make that system evil. When a system has free choice for the majority of the people then it is up to the people to make the system good or evil.

Great post and thinking point.

Sad to say, the usual liberal Roman Catholic attack on Austrian School economics, that I hear, goes like this. 'Ayn Rand extols the virtue of selfishness. Ayn Rand is an advocate of Von Mises brand of Austrian School economics. Ayn Rand operates off explicitly atheist axioms. Therefore the Austrian School of Economics is based on explicitly atheist axioms and is not compatible with Catholicism.'
When it comes to Marx, the same liberal Roman Catholics, respond that all truth is God's truth even if it was discovered by an atheist.

It goes without saying that left-leaning Christians are often far too uncritical of Marx and leftist thought in general. But the critique I've heard from Catholics re: Austrian economics takes issue primarily with what is seen as Mises' non-Christian understanding of human action. It's therefore not so much that Mises sounds like Rand, as that both Mises and Rand, being atheists, are incorrect about human nature/activity.

Back in my undergrad days I remember my philosophy prof, a Christian and a traditional conservative of the Russell Kirk sort, saying that Christians who read Mises' Human Action should find it every bit as troubling as they find Marx, as it was just as atheistic and anti-Christian.

And come to think of it, I believe that Kirk himself somewhere said that Roepke was the only Austrian worth reading, or something to that effect.

One area where the free market can be used against certain products is pornography. There's a woman trying to get her case dismissed for infringing on porn copyrights on the grounds that pornographic copyrights violate Article I, Section 8's requirement that IP must advance the sciences and useful arts. If social conservatives were more clever about porn, they would use radical free market advocacy to annihilate the porn industry since copyright law is not really compatible with free market orthodoxy. The beauty of it is that by creating a totally unregulated market in pornography, you make it so that not even aggregator sites can make a lot of money because anyone can just rip their content and republish it.

Just a thought about free markets and morality...

** by totally unregulated, I'm not referring to things like beastiality and child porn.

2 Thessalonians 3:10 - For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Does that make the apostle Paul "evil"?

Chucky, I thought of bringing that up myself, so we agree on something.

It's interesting to see how people with a particular approach to economic matters consider only two possibilities for those who are disinclined to work: a) they get government handouts and live as best they can on those, and we just quibble over how big the government handouts should be and whether we are giving the idle a life of sufficient "dignity" or b) the government actually, literally forces them (by a mechanism not specified) in an authoritarian manner to work--essentially, slave labor.

The option left out here is letting things take their natural course and letting people who will not support themselves end up unable to support themselves and suffering accordingly.

I think the waters are muddied here by our present economic downturn in which there are many people who are quite willing to work but cannot find jobs. That tends to muddle people, at least people of a certain frame of mind, since they are then more likely to identify with anyone they see homeless or in need and to assume that there are no unworthy poor because they know plenty of worthy poor and are afraid of losing or not being able to get a job themselves and ending up among them.

But the fact certainly remains that there are people who, in the words of the Apostle, will not work. Letting cause and effect take its course there seems to have a fair bit to commend it.

You don't open a program on Marx or the Austrian school just to read their works, you open such a school to have dedicated study of those works: the dedication is in part an emphasis of large blocks of time, but it is equally an attitude that these works justify having whole groups of people dedicate their scholarship on them. It would be silly to open a school on the Austrian economics without a core group of professors who are convinced that the Austrian school is either simply right, or right enough compared to everyone else that THAT's where you ought to put your effort.

I think that human nature can get along well enough with a variety of different "systems" of social organization of production and management of wealth: the guild system worked for a fair spell, for example. As with political arrangements, there is no definitive solution that is "THE" one right system for every people in every possible situation. Each system requires its own set of customs, sensibilities, social virtues, etc. Human nature is pliable enough to work OK with more than one system. But at the same time, there are systems that are definitely the WRONG system because they are fundamentally opposed to human nature in ways that touch every person every day. As a result, every _potentially_ good system must have a smattering of basic features that will thus be hallmarks, or starting points, by which we can do a quick initial judgment. For example, no system that locks everyone into a prescribed niche by criteria that have nothing to do with the person's own list of talents, capacities, aptitudes, and preferences, can be a wholesome system. (Rigid caste systems, and some types of guild systems.)

Beyond a modest list of such basic features, you can design a number of theoretically decent systems in ether. The trick is rather finding a system that works given the real people and their real customs and sensibilities, one that accommodates their defects without giving free reign to them, one that encourages virtues without demanding virtues that the masses do not yet hold. Much to our detriment, we have lost a very significant share of the virtues of the founders and settlers of this country: industriousness, and fortitude in the face of unpleasant long-term situations are 2 examples. There are, still, plenty of people who are industrious, but as a whole we spend VASTLY more time in recreation than ever before, and expect (or wish) to spend still more time in it. As far as fortitude: probably 60% of consumer debt represents purchasing things now on credit (instead of after you save up for it) merely because you are unwilling to wait 12 months or 3 years to get it, even though it is NOT a necessity (that 60-inch TV, etc). And everyone admits that consumer debt is enormous.

Economic arrangements do not manufacture virtuous citizens on their own. It takes a whole society to do that, including families at the bottom, government and church at the top, and customs that are _designed_ to encourage virtue and limit vice. Inherently, any society in which virtues are encouraged and vices are discouraged will, perforce, feel constraining to those who WANT their vices. It is obviously quite a task to organize the forces of encouragements so that most of the people don't find them difficult, and of those who do find them a problem only a small handful openly engage trying to overturn them. That's more difficult in a more diverse society - there are simply more levels of needs and expectations in each area of practice to accommodate.

I have said that Austrian economics is based upon explicitly atheist principles.
Conceivably, the free enterprise system could be based upon Catholic principles too.

However, the commanding heights of the economics have always been coordinated with the State. Even in 19C Britain, the nominally private East India Company was certainly coordinated with the State.

The American Conservatives have difficulty with the definition of Man as a political animal. If everything is taken care of by mutual arrangements and free enterprise, what remains for politics?

What exactly is Common Good and is it not the sum of individual goods? or there is something extra?

The Invisible Hand promotes social coordination by satisfaction of subjective desires. However, nothing stops it from harming Common Good and also individual Good (objectively considered). Thus a polity must check the operations of the Invisible Hand.

However, I would agree that presumption must be given to the Invisible Hand.

"nothing stops [the Invisible Hand] from harming Common Good and also individual Good (objectively considered). Thus a polity must check the operations of the Invisible Hand."

Very few people will argue that the free market hasn't accomplished some great things. What it tends not to be so great at is cleaning up its own messes, hence the need for extra-market entities to involve themselves. If markets were truly "free" in the way they are in economists' models, this might not be the case. But fact is, they aren't, and it doesn't necessarily follow that in all areas freer is better. For an informative read on this issue see the work of the Catholic theologian/economist Albino Barrera, such as his book on the social encyclicals or his Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics. Imo Fr. Barrera can be a bit too sanguine about the role of the state in correcting market disparities, but other than that I think his fundamental analysis is sound.

If markets were truly "free" in the way they are in economists' models, this might not be the case.

The bigger problem is that the mainstream economic model of human nature is wrong. Man is a rationalizing, not rational, animal. Exhibit A is hard drug use. There is simply no rational reason to use hard drugs because their consumption has foreseeable, dire consequences for one's health and anything beyond very strictly controlled consumption will result in many people getting caught in a downward spiral of consuming more to get the same effect. In fact, most vice is intrinsically irrational. A rational man (that is a man whose psychology is fundamentally rational) would never gamble, drink heavily, smoke modern tobacco products, etc. because they're pointless resource drains with a net negative cost-benefit ratio.

Agreed, Mike. Humans make bad decisions all the time, ones that go against self-interest objectively understood. Thing is, their decisions are almost always based on perceived self-interest, even if their perception is way off-base. One problem I see with Austrian economics is that it assumes that even badly-perceived self-interest contributes positively to the working of the Invisible Hand. Or to put it another way, the Austrians do not seem to differentiate between good and bad self-interest when it comes to economics.

Paul, Marx is indispensable when it comes to a general understanding of things but not so much for his economics. Current events have shown Keynes to be necessary but any serious graduate program in economics isn't going to focus on any one individual or school in the sense that we have here. This seems like a career dead end for individuals and harmful to the school's reputation.

Gian, please support the claim that "Austrian economics is based upon explicitly atheist principles" or "axioms."

Choice, and your checkbook, are within easy reach and consistent practice. One may assuage his conscience by casting aside ruminations on the evil of a free market society by depleting your own bank account. Though it's much easier to talk of what society, or in reality, government should do.
A coerced, supposed, morality is no morality at all, it has no more meaning than shared tooth aches. There are moral conditions at large in this case, they do not adhere to any one person but only allow for false claims to a moral status. And a lttle vote bribery.
Free market capitalism gives one the opportunity to be as charitable as one wishes, take it, if you will.

Psst, Gian, your computer and Internet connection are "based upon explicitly atheist principles." Good-bye!

Now as for Austrian Economics, it is based upon the Natural Law and I hear that many popes have commended the study of the Natural Law.

Lydia: Chucky, I thought of bringing that up myself, so we agree on something.

I fail to understand exactly why the principles of Austrian economics are considered "evil". I've never actually heard that before and that passage of Scripture immediately popped into my head.

Nice Marmot: One problem I see with Austrian economics is that it assumes that even badly-perceived self-interest contributes positively to the working of the Invisible Hand. Or to put it another way, the Austrians do not seem to differentiate between good and bad self-interest when it comes to economics.

But isn't one of the basic tenets of Austrian economics the law of consequences? The market determines the merit of an individual's (or an entity's) actions - good or bad. Austrian economists unanimously opposed the various government bailouts of institutions that had engaged in bad business practices - advocating instead to let the market work. If they had their way (theoretically at least) bad practices would have had strong negative consequences and businesses that had not engaged in them would have been rewarded with a larger market share.

Of course the government, even under Austrian economics, would police against force and fraud in business dealings (another thing that didn't happen when the bubble burst.)

I withdraw my contention as to the explicit atheism of Misean axioms though his argument that man acts to alleviate his dissatisfactions may be implicitly atheistic. It seems to rule out love.

Gian: I assume you are referring to the passage in Human Action in which Mises writes, "The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness." Both an uneasiness (or dissatisfaction) felt due to love (e.g., that one's children are not fed) and an act of love (e.g., feeding one's children) are not "rule[d] out" or otherwise ignored in Mises' description. By "uneasiness" he means (so I think, based on the context of his remark) some discontentedness with one's present state of affairs--one prefers matters to be otherwise. (If a man were content with his state of affairs, then he would not act to change it--for he prefers matters as they are.) He might be discontented with his relationship with God or his wife, perhaps believing it to be too weak, and thus act in such a manner that he believes would strengthen it. Mises formulates his axioms in such a way as to address all human action, not merely that which is selfish (i.e., for one's personal benefit over the benefit of others) or profit-maximizing (i.e., intended for or resulting in the highest possible monetary return).

I will admit though that I have only read the beginning of Human Action, having given up because the hefty one-volume edition I had was too big for me to read comfortably. I will, however, assert that the description I provide above accords with the Austrian economics literature with which I am familiar outside of Human Action. One example is Bob Murphy's Lessons for the Young Economist, an introductory text published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

[W]e must stress up front that there is no “economic man” in the following pages; we are always discussing the principles that explain the choices of real people in the face of scarcity. The principles involve the fact that people have desires in the face of limited resources, but the principles are broad enough to cover people with any desires.

"though his argument that man acts to alleviate his dissatisfactions may be implicitly atheistic. It seems to rule out love."

Right -- even man's altruistic actions are performed out of dissatisfaction. If I remember correctly Mises even applied this to God, arguing that any action undertaken by a rational being implies an attempt to move from a dissatisfied state to a satisfied one. By definition God cannot be dissatisfied; therefore either God cannot act, or there is no God, which amounts to the same thing.

Mises also had some harsh words about the New Testament's warnings against riches, even going as far as to criticize Christ for his rich man/eye of a needle statement.

Even if these principles are not explicitly atheistic, they are profoundly non-Christian.

It's interesting to see how people with a particular approach to economic matters consider only two possibilities for those who are disinclined to work: a) they get government handouts and live as best they can on those, and we just quibble over how big the government handouts should be and whether we are giving the idle a life of sufficient "dignity" or b) the government actually, literally forces them (by a mechanism not specified) in an authoritarian manner to work--essentially, slave labor.

As Karl Denninger put it in a recent post (he's a libertarian Catholic), the Catholic Church has spent decades encouraging its members to support the government so it can offload its burdens onto the state similar to how GM and others enthusiastically support shifting healthcare costs to the government. It lets them keep their wealth and socialize a particular burden (employee healthcare for GM; relief of the poor for the church) that was theirs to bear alone.

I think what needs to happen is that these Christians need to be persecuted by the federal government until they repent of ever supporting a broad secular welfare mandate instead of demanding that the institutional church provide that in accordance with scripture and tradition.

I would think that one thing that could be done in a class (or program)on Austrian economics, especially at a Catholic school, would be to discuss such passages in von Mises and their modification in explicitly Catholic and Christian thinkers such as those named here. The Acton Institute must have material on those issues as well.

Even if these principles are not explicitly atheistic, they are profoundly non-Christian.

I'm hardly an expert but even that sounds far too strong to me. I'd put it more like "Austrian economics is based on principles and conjectures in clear tension with traditional Christian ones." Still a long way from authorizing a proscription on advance study of these thinkers. Remember, one could hardly come to learn Austrian economics without a deep immersion also in the economic theories against which the Austrians formed their critique, Marx and Keynes most notably.

At the risk of seeming to be pettifogging, the fact that von Mises criticized some words of Jesus is not, in itself, a "principle" upon which his entire approach to economics is "based."

Moreover, there are plenty of things that one could regard Austrian economics as based on that are strongly in line with traditional Christian thought. Viz: The principle that man has free will. The principle that men have special responsibility to those nearest and dearest to them (I can find you Bible verses expressly stating this). The principle that man is responsible to work and has no right to eat if he will not work. Or, if we want to dig deeper, a principle not stated in the Bible but underlying all of natural law, to whit, the principle that something cannot be created from nothing and that mere will cannot change empirical facts.

If it can be argued, as I believe it can, that contrary approaches to economics tend to oppose themselves to these principles, that could be turned around to support an argument that "Anti-free market approaches to economics are based on principles in clear tension with traditional Christian ones and with natural reason."

"Still a long way from authorizing a proscription on advance study of these thinkers."

Yes, I'd never argue for that. Only that their thought s/b viewed with a certain amount of suspicion rather than swallowed whole, as seems to be the case among many conservatives. We on the right criticize Christian leftists for baptizing Marx (and rightly so), yet we ourselves often do the same with the Austrians.

Further, I wouldn't equate Austrian economics and free markets. It's entirely possible to believe in the latter without buying into the former.

Also, I'd be hesitant without further study to equate Mises's understanding of free will with the traditional Christian one.

I wouldn't equate Austrian economics and free markets. It's entirely possible to believe in the latter without buying into the former.

So I hear. Invariably from people who think that something they wish to call "the free market" is compatible with...rather odd proposals. Like massive and continuous government redistribution of wealth to correct "disparities," like a principle that all wealth in society is the "common stock of the people" and that a proportion thereof can and should be continuously distributed to each by the government as an entitlement from the central bank, which will create more by some unknown process, and other ideas that seem to me to have, to put it mildly, problems. Problems of the very sort that what _I_ call "free market economics" is intended to avoid.

Really? Like Russell Kirk, for instance, who wrote a basic intro to free market economics for use in Christian schools, but had little time for the Austrians save Roepke?

I wouldn't equate Austrian Economics and free markets. It's entirely possible to believe in the latter without buying into the former.

As an aside, let me say that it is a shame that Ezra Taft Benson did not continue to be a working economist rather then become the head of the Mormon cult. It is also sad that Romney didn't learn any economics from Ezra Taft Benson. If he had; he might understand what Dr. Paul is saying.

NM, I was thinking more of people like yourself, people with whom I have directly interacted. Whether Russell Kirk ever talked about "disparities" caused by "capitalism" which the government must forcibly correct, I don't know. I hope not. Whether he ever implied that the material blessings of the free market, such as clean bathrooms, are distasteful, as other heroes of people like yourself have implied, I don't know. I hope not.

That's actually kind of funny. So basically what you're saying is that in order to state that one believes in free markets he must be in favor of unrestrained capitalism? It's either laissez faire or nothing?

I find that a kind of interesting response, NM. Not, "Oh, goodness gracious no. _I_ and those critics of Austrian economics whom I admire don't advocate Luddite hatred of clean bathrooms and forcible redistribution of wealth. That's a straw man."

Essentially, NM, you are confirming my point. Anyone who goes around using code phrases like, "I'm not in favor of unrestrained capitalism" does _not_ merely mean that, e.g., he thinks pornography or the selling of human bodies should be illegal. In that sense, I also am not in favor of "unrestrained capitalism." But no, that isn't what the code phrase means. It always includes these other things as well. Thanks for making my point for me.

It goes without saying that such silly statements are straw man arguments.

You seem to be unfamiliar about the large volume of critique of capitalism stemming from the right, incl. various conservative agrarians, Voegelinians, localist/decentralists, Southern conservatives, etc.

But I guess they're all crypto-leftists or paleo-liberals.

Hey, you're the chap who recently brought up "disparities" as a criticism of "capitalism." The "clean bathrooms" comment, I admit, refers to something by Wendell Berry instead.

What I said was that capitalism often has trouble correcting its own disparities given the fact that markets aren't (and never will be) completely "free." I take it you don't believe there are such things as market-created disparities?

Berry's a master of common sense and should be read by all conservatives, even though I realize that WSJ/Fox types will have no use for him. The conservatives who put together this collection think otherwise:

http://www.isi.org/books/bookdetail.aspx?id=2e193ca6-6817-41a1-99b7-f6a4da36febf

N.M.:

If I remember correctly Mises even applied this to God, arguing that any action undertaken by a rational being implies an attempt to move from a dissatisfied state to a satisfied one. By definition God cannot be dissatisfied; therefore either God cannot act, or there is no God, which amounts to the same thing. [...] Even if these principles are not explicitly atheistic, they are profoundly non-Christian.

I have heard this about Mises but haven't read it for myself. Nonetheless, I will say that what you describe here isn't a principle but the application of a principle outside the purpose for which it was intended, viz., the analysis of human action. The application of Mises' axioms to a necessarily-anthropomorphized God is not only wrong-headed but also it has no effect on the Austrians' explanations regarding supply and demand, the business cycle, etc.--actual Austrian economics as opposed to Mises' theological opinions.

Lydia:

Moreover, there are plenty of things that one could regard Austrian economics as based on that are strongly in line with traditional Christian thought.

It's been a while since I've read them, but I think that Thomas Woods' The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy and Alejandro Chafuen's Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics cover this ground somewhat. They're good reading anyway, though.

NM, I don't regard "disparities" as some sort of inherent problem that somebody has to come along and correct. That's wrong-headed egalitarianism (of a particularly problematic type), not Christian ethics.

"The application of Mises' axioms to a necessarily-anthropomorphized God is not only wrong-headed but also it has no effect on the Austrians' explanations regarding supply and demand, the business cycle, etc"

True, but I was making a point primarily about Mises' atheism, not his economics. His understanding of human action is just as wrongheaded as it is of divine action. It takes great faith to believe that someone who gets God and man so wrong will get economics right.

"Thomas Woods' The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy and Alejandro Chafuen's Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics"

From the other side see Christopher Ferrara's The Church and the Libertarian. As a non-Catholic I found that he lays the specifically Catholic stuff on a little heavy, but that's because the book is aimed at Catholic readers.

I don't really see the problem with studying Austrian Economics. It is not obviously stupid or false, so even if the department has an official stance against the Austrians it is at least profitable to maybe think about it for a while rather than give it the ol' shut-out.

Regardless of system, there is no such thing as the 'free market'. There are markets and there are constraints on markets. No market is completely unconstrained. These constraints can come from individuals, families, churches, businesses, the state, pretty much anywhere. Sometimes the markets need to be constrained. This last is often considered to be dangerous lunacy or crypto-fascism these days regardless of politics.

The Austrians deny pretty much all of this as a matter of doctrine. Being more charitable though, any sensible Austrian will agree that in practice there is no market that operates totally freely, and that markets can be constrained by more than just the regulations of the state. However, they generally give no thought to any distinctions between markets, like say the difference between a fruit stand and the gigantic Wal-Mart et al. These are all part of the abstract market, rather than different bodies whose interests can and often do collide. They also see no other constraints on a market as being significant other than individual and state action. In their minds, individual action is legitimate and generally always blessed (free choice is the top of the pyramid of virtue), while state action is always wrong and always damned, due to being 'coercive' where other constraints are not.

There are elements of truth to these things. Legal interference in a market is different than the constraints of custom, say. Wal-Mart and the fruit stand do have some things in common. Also, a lot of the discontent with current orthodoxy, which is sort of a mad hybrid of Keynesianism and Supply-Side economics, stems from a perception that the state's interference in markets is abstract or arbitrary; in service to some undefined interest group or perhaps just at the whims of the rulers and whatever passing fad they are taken up with. This drives a lot of people towards laissez-faire Austrian attitudes despite them not really agreeing with every doctrinal jot and tittle. I would be hard pressed to claim that Austrian dominance would be worse than the bizarre Frankenstein economics we have today. But I can't sign on to it for the reasons listed.

"I don't regard 'disparities' as some sort of inherent problem that somebody has to come along and correct. That's wrong-headed egalitarianism (of a particularly problematic type), not Christian ethics."

Depends on what you mean by disparities. I'm not talking necessarily about income disparities, but about market externalities which result in unnecessarily inequalities, which has nothing to do with egalitarianism. I'm as anti-egalitarian as they come.

So we're agreed that the conflation of "Austrian economics" with "free markets" is false; and we're agreed with Mr. Bickford (which is also evidence in treatments like Oakeshott) that an economic system is a artifact made by man for the use of man, which, like any other tool, cannot generate its own telos. This rationalism which imagines we can discover the purpose of a thing in the empirics of its working-out, is a really a pernicious inclination in economic theory. We might call it hard-science envy.

And I think we're generally agreed that studying these Austrian masters cannot possibly by thought beyond the bounds of our extraordinarily eclectic higher academic sector. A man could take a degree in Bob Dylan musicology but not F. A. Hayek criticism of social science, as exemplified in The Fatal Conceit? As I've suggested, I would expect that even advanced study in Austrian economists would produce Keynesian scholars and classical liberal scholars and even Marxist scholars, because these men were not corner-cutters when it came to scholarship; and every Marxist worth his salt knows the emigres were a force to be reckoned with.

I'd agree with all three of those statements, Paul.

I certainly agree with Ken's analogy of a tool, and I think that supports the idea that this sort of thing is not inherently evil, as his analogy of the hammer demonstrates. A phrase like "generate its own telos" is a little foreign to my philosophical approach. I would be inclined to say that artifacts _do_ usually bear their telos on their face, precisely because they _are_ artifacts. A hammer, for example, is obviously "for" hitting or pounding things. Probably things a short distance away. And I think one could rationally conjecture that even though a hammer _can_ be used as a weapon, it probably wasn't originally designed for that use, because it would have a much longer handle if it had been. Things like that. I think we can tell pretty well what things are for and that, in fact, we do this partly by watching them work. If anything, this is more "Aristotelian" (or pseudo-Aristotelian, since it's coming from me) than "hard-science envy." For example, we figure out that a heart is "for" pumping blood by watching and observing that that is, in fact, what a heart does very well. If you were an intelligent alien with a mechanical bent, you would use observation to discover what the various parts of a car are for. And so forth.

Similarly, by watching the free exchange of goods and services, we discover that when that free exchange is facilitated, it is an incredibly efficient way to motivate people to engage in human actions that generate goods and services desired by other people. We can therefore conclude that insofar as the rulers of a people oil the gears of such a system--or even just resist the urge to impede it--this is "for" the purpose of efficiently generating valued human goods and services.

Certainly that doesn't mean that all valued human goods and services are objectively good, objectively valuable.

But I would say that beyond that extremely generic description about efficiency, the "telos" of the human action we find in economic action (hence, in the free enterprise "system") is micro-teleology. That is, it is the teleology of a _given_ person's actions. He himself starts a business, seeks a job, hires other people, makes things, offers his services, etc., for his own purposes, which will vary tremendously from one person to another and from one economic activity to another. They will include both the purpose of the economic action itself and the further purpose for which he hopes to make money, what he hopes to do with the money he earns. Or, to put it in barter terms, the purpose/telos both of what he offers to trade and of what he wants to trade it for.

Where I get rather nervous in talking about questions like, "What is the free market for?" is because it is all too easy, fatally easy, really, when discussing things in those terms to think of this "artifact" as created by some uber-mind, by the government, not to mince words, and therefore as being the creature of the government and naturally, therefore, the object of constant tweaking, retooling, redesigning, and steering by its Maker in order to make it better serve His Purpose. With that centralized perspective, I don't agree.

Miseans think of man primarily as a market animal and all things proceed from exchange.
Thus they have no use for Man as a political animal.

Miseans say man wants liberty but what man generally wants is liberty to bind himself. This is a typical Chesterton paradox. Miseans have no paradoxes thus they understand not family, not marriage, not nation. They theorize about contracts, vows and state very awkwardly.

If State can justly ban a voluntary exchange such as porn then certainly state can justly regulate terms of exchange for a non-banned trade as well. As I said previously, a people has every right to regulate what is vital to it and all the peoples have freely used this right. British banned slave trade and Chinese banned opium.

Miseans, instead of trying to understand the actually existing economic systems and how these interact with actually existing States, spend their energies in propagandizing for their Utopia where man shall not engage in politics. Thus man shall not be man.

"the object of constant tweaking, retooling, redesigning, and steering by its Maker in order to make it better serve His Purpose."
Lydia,
What do you think is the proper role of legislators? i.e. the people elected by the American people to represent themselves. What are they for and how should they occupy their time in Congress?

N.M.: True, but I was making a point primarily about Mises' atheism, not his economics.

Sorry, I was under the impression that you were referring to Mises' economics (or at least his account of human action underlying his economics), since you were responding to Gian's' assertion that Austrian economics rests upon atheistic principles.

N.M.: His understanding of human action is just as wrongheaded as it is of divine action. It takes great faith to believe that someone who gets God and man so wrong will get economics right.

Perhaps he gets man wrong, even very wrong; I haven't read all of Human Action. But the claim earlier that his axioms somehow leave out human love is false. As for his economics, I think that his arguments regarding, say, the problem of economic calculation under socialism cannot be dismissed out of hand due to whatever his theological views were.

---

I get the impression from comments such as Matt's that "Austrian economics" and "libertarianism" are taken by some here as synonymous. I can see why, because many adherents of Austrian economics push libertarianism and many libertarians push Austrian economics. And a graduate program in Austrian economics would probably contain some politically libertarian readings, so bringing up libertarianism is by no means out of the question.

Largely overlooked, however, is the opportunity for a graduate program in Austrian economics at a Catholic university to include courses in theology, Catholic social thought, etc. in addition to courses on the history of economic thought, praxeology, etc. Lydia brought up a similar point earlier.

Moreover, I agree with Paul that the study of Austrian economics necessarily entails the study of Marxism, Keynesianism, etc, because much of Austrian economics are a response to other ideas. Students in any worthwhile graduate program in Austrian economics will be exposed to many ideas contrary to those put forward by Austrian economists. It couldn't be an echo chamber for Austrian economics, let alone libertarianism.

---

Gian, I understand it's easier to make claims about "Miseans" rather than Mises himself or any other specific thinker, since none of us know who these people really are. But keep in mind that the people you have in mind are not necessarily identical to Austrian economists past and present.

"As for [Mises'] economics, I think that his arguments regarding, say, the problem of economic calculation under socialism cannot be dismissed out of hand due to whatever his theological views were."

True, but couldn't you say something similar about Ayn Rand? She's a great anti-statist read as far as it goes, but her underlying philosophy is pernicious. I think you have to say the same thing about Mises, even though the pernicious aspect of his philosophy isn't nearly so obvious. In some ways that makes Mises more dangerous.

What do you think is the proper role of legislators? i.e. the people elected by the American people to represent themselves. What are they for and how should they occupy their time in Congress?

To carry out the duties assigned to them by the US Constitution, a document which happens to prohibit many of the forms of legislation that people who are generally in favor of government intervention to "correct things" find to be too restrict to be relevant. The only general economic activity that can be regulated is interstate commerce. Not production, commerce. The act of buying and selling goods and services across state borders.

The people are free to impose the most stringent controls they want at the state level, but if the federal constitution is to mean anything, it must be read in its plain text which creates only a limited government that is capable of providing a common defense policy, foreign policy, border protection and regulation of interstate/international trade.

Lydia's treatment of the idea of telos in a tool is well-taken. I'm particular impressed by her idea of micro-teleology:

the "telos" of the human action we find in economic action (hence, in the free enterprise "system") is micro-teleology. That is, it is the teleology of a _given_ person's actions. He himself starts a business, seeks a job, hires other people, makes things, offers his services, etc., for his own purposes, which will vary tremendously from one person to another and from one economic activity to another. They will include both the purpose of the economic action itself and the further purpose for which he hopes to make money, what he hopes to do with the money he earns. Or, to put it in barter terms, the purpose/telos both of what he offers to trade and of what he wants to trade it for.

Incidentally, this sounds lot more like supply-side writers than it does Austrians, at least to my ear.

and we're agreed with Mr. Bickford (which is also evidence in treatments like Oakeshott) that an economic system is a artifact made by man for the use of man, which, like any other tool, cannot generate its own telos.

But it's not an artifact, is it? I mean, it is a vast array of bits, but the bits are not "designed" to fit together. Suppose you have a park that has 3 ball fields - soccer, baseball, and football - side by side. If you were an uninitiated observer who comes to visit and watch what's going on, you could spend years and years watching the 3 fields to try to figure out the "point" of this thing called soccerbaseballfootball, and never succeed, because it ISN'T a thing, it was never intended or designed to be a thing, it doesn't all fit into a single pattern. It doesn't even have the quasi-thingness that a single watch has, much less the integrity an organism has.

and we're agreed with Mr. Bickford (which is also evidence in treatments like Oakeshott) that an economic system is a artifact made by man for the use of man, which, like any other tool, cannot generate its own telos.

But it's not an artifact, is it?

This is an example of where philosophers and theorists tend to forget that their models are just that, models. It is like when political philosophers speak of a "state of nature" which has so long since past, if it ever existed, that there is literally no evidence of what it actually was or if modern anarchy (say, Somalia) bears any resemblance to it. It is more likely that political systems, like economic systems, are so rooted in the mists of time and have grown organically with us that we cannot really claim that we "created them" as though men got together one day and said "it would be nice to have this thing called 'a government' (or economic system), so let's make one." It's far more likely that everything we have today is an evolution of our most primitive relationships and habits from obeying the tribe alpha male (government) to bartering and collaborating in a hunt (the economic system).

I suppose you could say that all economic and political philosophy that assumes man purposefully created government or economies with any sort of the same intention he creates a tool is inherently wrong-headed because there is no evidence that our primitive ancestors ever went from a state of simply not having these things (or something that could form a direct foundation) to having them.

"by watching the free exchange of goods and services, we discover that when that free exchange is facilitated, it is an incredibly efficient way to motivate people to engage in human actions that generate goods and services desired by other people. We can therefore conclude that insofar as the rulers of a people oil the gears of such a system--or even just resist the urge to impede it--this is 'for' the purpose of efficiently generating valued human goods and services."

Due to entropy even the best, most well-oiled machine produces undesired results. The finest, most expensive car in the world still pollutes, and cannot clean up its own pollution. In the same way the market's ability to deal with its negative results varies greatly from situation to situation. It is only in models that markets correct ideally. Thus the "let-the-market-take-care-of-it" nostrum is far from universally successful.

I grew up in a midwestern city which was terribly polluted (both water and air) due largely to industry during the 60s and 70s. There's no doubt in my mind that if we'd have waited for the market to correct this we'd still be waiting. In situations like this (and many others) something external to the market is needed to correct such abuses.

I remember reading something that a coal company executive said regarding mountain top removal mining. The gist of it was that the coal industry found itself in a dilemma in many of these places: the people who lived there needed the mining because of the money it brought in, but as a result it caused these locales to become places where no one wanted to live.

"Incidentally, this sounds lot more like supply-side writers than it does Austrians, at least to my ear."

Adam Smith, 200 years before supply side,

"THIS division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another."

"Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion."

FWIW, interesting piece on the supposed distinction between supply-side and Austrian economics:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/supply-side-economics-and-austrian-economics/

N.M.:

True, but couldn't you say something similar about Ayn Rand? She's a great anti-statist read as far as it goes, but her underlying philosophy is pernicious. I think you have to say the same thing about Mises, even though the pernicious aspect of his philosophy isn't nearly so obvious. In some ways that makes Mises more dangerous.

I'm not sure, since I am not familiar with Ayn Rand and her work. Perhaps it is due to this ignorance that I do not know what your point is or what sort of response you expect from me. Pernicious? Dangerous? Is the idea here that students in a graduate program in Austrian economics will learn Mises' regression theorem and renounce their faith--or something like that?

I want to applaude Loyola University for its vision in instituting a Masters program in Austrian Economics. Free market economics such as the Austrian model stand in stark contrast to the leftist and government building Kayensian model which has been assisting the growth of our government, hand over fist. Free market economics fit the christian worldview without any problems. Go to fee.org who have been championing von Mises and Austrian economics for over 50 years. There are several other universities teaching Austrian economics, Grove City College, Auburn University and others. Perhaps these graduates can help to pry the excessively large government's hands off of our dwindling private lives.

Free market economists, such as the Austrian economists generally see their models working with limited government systems where government is non-intervenist. They also view banking and finance models that are strictly regulated. They would never combine conventional and investment banking for the obvious reason that the two systems do not function in the same financial world.

Austrian economics then is a model which believes in restraint of government whereas the Kayensian model enables government to grow bigger and bigger.

All this to say that liberal academia will always fall on the side of the liberal system. That is not Austrian Economics. As you know, von Mises was asked to fix the Austrian economy after Socialism and WWII had devestated their economy. He gave them his economic system and Austria prospered. It is a great test case to put against any socialist economy today. Academia doesn't like it. It restricts government from overstepping as so many do today.

Check out the voices that are being raised against Austrian economics. I will bet you that 100% of them are your usual leftist academic hacks.w4gck

I find it a little odd that conservatives are defending Austrian economics - most Austrians these days are anarchists, following Murray Rothbard, who abandoned the right and joined the New Left in the culture war, Lew Rockwell not withstanding.

That and the theoretical underpinnings that are valid have already been absorbed into neoclassical economics.

Personally, if I'm going to have a market anarchist ideology, I'd rather look at mutualist/socialist greats greats like Benjamin Tucker... 'socialism' as a term has itself been unfairly co-opted by collectivist types; originally it only meant labor getting its proper due.

Eh, it's easier than that.

The state uses force to compel people not to do certain things.

Socialism requires that we empower the state to compel people not to do perfectly legitimate, morally-good or morally-neutral, things.

The state has no just authority to do so.

Therefore the state has no just authority to implement Socialism. Socialism is always and everywhere an usurpation.

Free Market capitalism, however, is different: Under it, the government does not use compulsion against people to prevent them doing morally-good or morally-neutral things. Government compulsion is limited to deterring, halting, or punishing violations of one person's rights by another person. This means compulsion is limited to deterring, halting, or punishing only those things the state has just authority to deter, halt, or punish.

This makes all the difference.

Suppose, for a moment, that Socialism actually helped the poor more than a Free Market. It doesn't, but suppose it did?

You still couldn't support it. Well, you could, but you shouldn't.

The reason you shouldn't is because even if its outcome was better, it obtains that outcome through an immoral and unlawful usurpation of authority, and, as the Good Book says, "you may not do evil, that good come of it."

Because you may not do something evil (wield force unjustly against your neighbors), even in pursuit of a good end (feeding the poor), Socialism is excluded from the list of economic systems a good and decent person may support.

R.C. you have good points, but I am not sure that you can carry through on this claim:

Free Market capitalism, however, is different: Under it, the government does not use compulsion against people to prevent them doing morally-good or morally-neutral things. Government compulsion is limited to deterring, halting, or punishing violations of one person's rights by another person.

If person A decides he wants to sell himself into slavery to person B, there is nothing under the libertarian free market theory that gives the state right to prevent this. But in fact we pretty much agree that (at the least) the market ought to be told by government: "this is a contract we won't enforce. Even if you try to make this contract, if either party quits complying, we won't lift a finger to make him fulfill that contract." In reality we want the state to criminalize slavery and go after the slavers, but it is unnecessary to include this to raise the problem.

Closer to home, the free market unconstrained has no impediments to a person setting up a porn shop next to my grocery store (or in my neighborhood, but that gets to zoning issues that muddle the point). But I ought to be able to be free to raise my kids without having to make extraordinary efforts to protect their latency. The liberals don't consider damaging my children's latency something that the state ought to treat as a matter violating someone's rights before the law - in part because they chose to pretend latency is a figment of religious zealots' imaginations, and in part because they want the "all sex all the time" life-style to be untrammeled by anything that pinches or constricts it. But they argue that the state has no business impeding this "free market" situation.

"Rights" protection by the state will never be the basis for a settled political agreement, because there are too many ideas of what constitutes rights. Natural law principles are the only valid way to deal with the problem, and when you talk natural law you quickly find that protecting rights is always within a larger context that provides limits, qualifications, exceptions, and the possibility of more important or more urgent goods to be achieved.

"The people are free to impose the most stringent controls they want at the state level"

Mike T,
Then you follow Rousseau and unlimited Government. For Government does not mean merely Federal Govt and by legislators I did not mean those sitting in Washington only. But as Belloc said, this view is perfectly compatible with Christian liberty but many, perhaps most, American conservatives would disagree with Belloc.

"Pernicious? Dangerous? Is the idea here that students in a graduate program in Austrian economics will learn Mises' regression theorem and renounce their faith--or something like that?"

No, the idea is that if an economic system is based on an inherently anti-Christian understanding of human action, that faulty understanding will of necessity produce negative consequences, both in individuals and in society at large.

I agree, Tony, concerning pornography and slavery, and that's why principles about *what should be sold* are going to have to be, inter alia, moral principles.

I would assert, however, that that is not an economic principle. That is to say, if something (like pornography or human beings) is not the sort of thing that *should be sold* at all, as a moral matter, then that's game over. The problem with asserting that such things must be allowed to be sold is not an economic problem but a moral problem.

Economics comes in as an empirical and observational discipline when we are talking about the kinds of things that should be objects of sale and purchase *at all*. And when it comes to those many objects, from apples to widgets to, say, stocks and bonds in widget companies, the idea that there is something inherently "un-Christian" about wanting the sale and purchase of such objects to be very substantially free of government meddling seems to me wrong-headed.

The problem I have with doctrinaire libertarians is that they pretend that "Porn must be purchasable" is an economic principle, which it is not. It is a would-be moral principle, and a wrong one.

The problem I have with free market critics is that they talk as if, "The market cannot be unrestrained by moral principles," which I would endorse, has something to do with stopping people from having "too much" wealth, regulating Wal-Mart out of existence, preventing finance instruments from being "too abstract," or redistribution of wealth, none of which I am prepared to endorse. That is to say, they go beyond any obvious moral limitations on what should be bought and sold (like "no slavery," "no pornography") into a whole realm of economic manipulations of the acts of producing, buying, and selling *perfectly legitimate products* to guarantee outcomes they prefer, which manipulations and outcomes they dub morally required as "limitations on the market." There, I won't follow them.

"preventing finance instruments from being 'too abstract,'"

There would seem to be moral principles involved in matters like the necessity of one having an insurable interest, a bond rating bearing some relation to the actual risk, or lenders doing due diligence. The asymmetry of knowledge implicit in financial instruments makes regulation of some sort unavoidable.

N.M.: No, the idea is that if an economic system is based on an inherently anti-Christian understanding of human action, that faulty understanding will of necessity produce negative consequences, both in individuals and in society at large.

There's a difference between an economic theory (which furnishes explanations regarding human behavior) and an economic system (or, more broadly, the conditions wherein exchanges take place). Austrian economics, just like (for instance) Keynesian economics, provides explanations regarding human behavior under various conditions. But it is not itself an "economic system." I agree with earlier comments that warn against the proposition that Austrian economics is identical to free enterprise--not because people other than Austrian economists can promote free enterprise but because the proposition contains a category error.

Note further that no one here has even begun to demonstrate that Mises' understanding of human action is "anti-Christian"--by which I assume you mean "in contradiction to Christian belief" and not "in opposition to Christians." And even if someone were to do this, further argument would be required to establish anything about the study of Austrian economics generally. After all, Austrian economics was around before Mises and it could take different directions after Mises.

J.W., for the 3rd or 4th time, I have no issue whatsoever with the study of Austrian economics. My issue is with the notion advanced by some conservatives that it can be studied as mere economic nuts-and-bolts without reference to the underlying philosophy.

"they go beyond any obvious moral limitations on what should be bought and sold (like 'no slavery,' 'no pornography') into a whole realm of economic manipulations of the acts of producing, buying, and selling *perfectly legitimate products* to guarantee outcomes they prefer, which manipulations and outcomes they dub morally required as 'limitations on the market.' There, I won't follow them."

Lydia, surely you know that all free market critics don't follow the same lines. It's simply incorrect to lump conservative critics of laissez faire in with leftists; as you've probably noticed, I have little in common with Al other than a basic mistrust of corporate capitalism. And even that doesn't flesh itself out the same way. My suggestion would be that you read some of the conservative critics of capitalism, starting with Weaver's 'Ideas Have Consequences.'

N.M.: My issue is with the notion advanced by some conservatives that it can be studied as mere economic nuts-and-bolts without reference to the underlying philosophy.

If that's all, then I don't see why you felt the need to drag in such irrelevant points as the supposedly anti-Christian nature of Mises' praxeology.

The Austrian economics literature with which I am familiar is pretty clear that "the underlying philosophy" is important to the specific claims about economics. If someone disagrees with this, conservative or not, all you have to do is point him to some basic text. (For example, the introductory text by Bob Murphy to which I referred earlier begins with the distinction between natural and social science and a description of some basic axioms regarding human action.)

If that's your only issue, then I'd consider it well settled.

You say:

"I don't see why you felt the need to drag in such irrelevant points as the supposedly anti-Christian nature of Mises' praxeology."

then

"The Austrian economics literature with which I am familiar is pretty clear that 'the underlying philosophy' is important to the specific claims about economics."

It seems rather obvious that my concerns can't be "irrelevant" if "the underlying philosophy" is important. Economics is not a hard science like chemistry where one's world-view doesn't signify. In chemistry Na + Cl = salt whether you're an atheist or a fundamentalist. Economics, being a humane science, is rather different.

The problem I have with doctrinaire libertarians is that they pretend that "Porn must be purchasable" is an economic principle, which it is not. It is a would-be moral principle, and a wrong one.

When you visit sites like Reason, you realize that most of the libertarians who write and comment there aren't interested in principles. Not even remotely. They're interested in not being told what to do. They're not interested in creating a sustainable free society, they're interested in maximizing their freedom right here, right now regardless of whether or not that would lead to a possible tyranny six months from now.

It's no wonder why social conservatives often genuinely cannot understand that there is an argument for drug legalization that comes from principle, not personal desire to use drugs. Most libertarians behave like crack whores looking for a fix.

Re: von Mises, this may interest some,

"It is not the practice of birth control that is new, but merely the fact that it is more frequently resorted to. Especially new is the fact that the practice is no longer limited to the upper strata of the population, but is common to the whole population. For it is one of the most important social effects of capitalism that it deproletarianizes all strata of society. It raises the standard of living of the masses of the manual workers to such a height that they too turn into 'bourgeois' and think and act like well-to-do burghers. Eager to preserve their standard of living for themselves and for their children, they embark upon birth control. With the spread and progress of capitalism, birth control becomes a universal practice. The transition to capitalism is thus accompanied by two phenomena: a decline both in fertility rates and in mortality rates. The average duration of life is prolonged." -- Human Action

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/02/delong-smackdown-watch-gene-callahan-edition.html

N.M: It seems rather obvious that my concerns can't be "irrelevant" if "the underlying philosophy" is important.

If your point is that Mises' principles are "anti-Christian," then make that case.

If your point is simply that Austrian economics "can[not] be studied [...] without reference to the underlying philosophy," then the claim that Mises' principles are anti-Christian is actually irrelevant to that point.

'If your point is that Mises' principles are "anti-Christian," then make that case.'

Working largely from memory here, and with some notes from various things I've read, so excuse me if this isn't exactly precise.

Mises argues that thinking beings always act out of a sense of "uneasiness" or "dissatisfaction" with their current circumstance. This sense may be real or imagined, physical or psychological, but it is always there and is necessary for any action. Therefore man always acts in self-interest, and it is in fact impossible for a thinking being to act from any other impulse. If a human were completely satisfied with his state he simply wouldn't act, but would instead cease activity and simply enjoy his satisfaction, so to speak.

If Mises is correct here, then all activity is essentially selfish. Even altrusitic actions are done, not ultimately out of true desire to help others, but out of our sense that helping others will ease our dissatisfaction in seeing their needs.

Mises goes on from here to deny the possibility of a completely blessed state, eternal bliss, etc. because given his understanding of action such things are impossible. Even God cannot exist as an absolutely perfect being, because if he were absolutely perfect he'd have no "dissatisfaction" from which to act. To Mises absolute perfection is an incoherence, an impossibility.

Now it seems to me that an economic system based on such ideas about human action would be inherently problematic. It would in fact lead to an economics wherein self-interest (and not in any "enlightened" sense, since Mises' view of action precludes any absolute good) would emerge as the foundation of economic activity. This would necessitate, it seems, a utilitarian or consequentialist view of economic good, since absolute economic goods are verboten. There is no objective moral order to which we must conform our actions, but instead only relative goods understood in a "maximal gain" way.

This is only the thing in broad lineaments as I understand it. But if I am correct what we have is a dismissal of theism and a completely non-Christian of man and his activity. I would think that Christians would be extremely wary of it, at least as much as we are inclined to be wary of the ideas of other influential atheists like Marx and Freud.

NM, Aristotle said something about creatures acting out of "love," if I recall correctly. This whole "uneasiness" thing could be that abstract. It could even be turned into some kind of philosophical claim applicable only to finite creatures about our acting "towards" something or out of the need generated by the fact that we are not self-sufficient. Something like that, which would apply to a very Dantesque notion of the beatific vision.

Would that be *what* von Mises had in mind? No, of course not. But the point is that a generalization to the effect that rational beings act out of "uneasiness," especially if restricted (which for economic purposes I would assume is all that's important) to finite rational creatures, certainly need not be anti-Christian. "Uneasiness" is obviously a term of art. Why does this have to entail that all action is selfish? After all, one can be "uneasy" or feel the need to go out and act because one's conscience is agitated over a duty to God or to one's fellow man left undone!

And when you start trying to derive from "All human action proceeds from uneasiness" conclusions like "There is no objective moral order," you lose me entirely! Surely you can see all the missing premises in _that_ inference!

Mises is echoing Locke (whom Mises cites in a footnote), which suggests psychological hedonism (ECHU, Bk. II, Chap. XX, Par. 6):

"Desire. The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we call desire; which is greater or less, as that uneasiness is more or less vehement. Where, by the by, it may perhaps be of some use to remark, that the chief, if not only spur to human industry and action is uneasiness. For whatsoever good is proposed, if its absence carries no displeasure or pain with it, if a man be easy and content without it, there is no desire of it, nor endeavour after it; there is no more but a bare velleity, the term used to signify the lowest degree of desire, and that which is next to none at all, when there is so little uneasiness in the absence of anything, that it carries a man no further than some faint wishes for it, without any more effectual or vigorous use of the means to attain it."

Okay, useful quote, Perseus. First, I note that it concerns human action, not divine action, if economics needs to be an exercise in abstract theology of divine action anyway, which it doesn't.

Second, it envisages the existence of goods "whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight," so in no way does this rule out end-states in which one is delighting in things for their own sake.

Third, I still have some trouble understanding where selfishness or even hedonism comes in here. Surely we can agree that if we didn't _want_ to relieve the suffering of others, if it didn't _bother_ us not to do something to relieve it, if, in other words, we didn't care, we wouldn't act altruistically. Does this sound right? So I don't see why the thing that we are uneasy about because we "feel its absence" could not be, say, the existence of an orphanage. Even in Locke's time, still more in Mises', charitable institutions existed! Presumably because someone felt a strong enough desire for them and a sense of uneasiness at their absence that he went out and brought them into being.

Lydia,

The mention of "uneasiness" immediately brought Locke to mind since it is a sort of metaphysical principle for him.

I agree with your first point, but I can't quite fully agree with your other two points because of Locke's hedonist account of human behavior and human happiness. There was a good reason why Hume criticized "Hobbes and Locke, who maintained the selfish system of morals." Such a view does not preclude charitable acts, but they are ultimately psychologically grounded in "selfish" concern (personal pleasure/pain), which Hume and others found implausible. Whether it's inherently incompatible with Christianity or an objective moral order is debatable.

"And when you start trying to derive from 'All human action proceeds from uneasiness' conclusions like 'There is no objective moral order,' you lose me entirely! Surely you can see all the missing premises in _that_ inference!"

How can there be an objective moral order in any absolute sense when perfection related to moral agency is denied? If according to Mises even God can't act unless he's in some sense imperfect, what does that say about human activity and the classical/Christian understanding of the goal of freedom, economic and otherwise, as conforming oneself to the Good?

We're right back to Dostoevsky -- if there is no God, everything is permitted. Economics is not spared this severe logic.

"Such a view does not preclude charitable acts, but they are ultimately psychologically grounded in 'selfish' concern (personal pleasure/pain)"

Right. The good works even of Christ and the saints are put down to "uneasiness" according to this scheme. And it is not any sort of holy or conscientious uneasiness. It is the bestial uneasiness that causes us to avoid personal discomfort.

If according to Mises even God can't act unless he's in some sense imperfect, what does that say about human activity and the classical/Christian understanding of the goal of freedom, economic and otherwise, as conforming oneself to the Good?

The good works even of Christ and the saints are put down to "uneasiness" according to this scheme. And it is not any sort of holy or conscientious uneasiness. It is the bestial uneasiness that causes us to avoid personal discomfort.

As Locke put it (and I don't think that he can be so easily dismissed):

Why does a man pay another a debt he owes him when he wants the money to supply his own conveniences or necessities? ...It will perhaps be answered, because there is moral rectitude and goodness in the one, and moral turpitude or illness in the other. Good words. The moral rectitude...would signify nothing, and moral goodness be no reason to direct my action were there not really pleasure that would follow from the doing of it and pain avoided greater than is to be found in the action itself. Were there no loss of pleasure...would he not be a fool to endure the pain...?

I would tend to read that Locke quotation as meaning, inter alia, that if you are a sociopath and have no feelings whatever that favor doing good and avoiding evil, then you won't do good and avoid evil.

I mean, look: The Bible itself offers people rewards for their good deeds in heaven! And threats of the pains of hell if they reject Christ, don't feed Lazarus at the gate, etc. I realize this perhaps seems crude to the more philosophically minded Christian, but it didn't apparently seem crude to Jesus and to the apostolic writers. Even the Apostle Paul says that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. At that point it becomes a matter of understanding the nature of true happiness, true pleasure. Also a matter of accepting the concept of deferred gratification. Doesn't Aquinas himself discuss this notion of true ultimate human happiness?

"Mises is hardly unusual in this regard."

His usual- or unusual-ness isn't the issue. My point is that his view precludes the Christian understanding of acting in accordance with the Good. To a thinker like Mises virtue and vice are really only relative terms.

"The moral rectitude...would signify nothing, and moral goodness be no reason to direct my action were there not really pleasure that would follow from the doing of it and pain avoided greater than is to be found in the action itself."

Locke's view makes Christian ascetism, alms-giving, and self-denial a sham. The ascetic fathers often remind that one needs to be wary of the pleasure that comes from doing the right thing, as it can veer off into pride. Thing is, they actually believe that there is a right thing objectively speaking, not just on the consequential level. It is, for example, always right to avoid fornication, but one should not pat oneself on the back for doing so. We do the good because it is the good, not because of how it makes us feel. And it is certainly not how it makes us feel that determines whether it's good or not.

There is a difference, I'd say, between believing that humans often act out of motivation relating to rewards and punishments, and believing that they by nature always act out of an either conscious or unconscious sense of dissatisfaction or "uneasiness."

It is, for example, always right to avoid fornication, but one should not pat oneself on the back for doing so. We do the good because it is the good, not because of how it makes us feel. And it is certainly not how it makes us feel that determines whether it's good or not.

Well, but NM, you must surely know all of the theological issues that gets us into, right?

Because that's only one side of the coin in the Christian worldview and the Christian tradition. We're not supposed to do what we do for immediate or worldly pleasure, to be sure. We have to be willing to suffer. Absolutely. But the idea is that "at his right hand there are pleasures ever more."

Again, we have this idea even in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of a kind of Christian eudaimonism--that if human beings only understood where true happiness lies, they would be willing to suffer temporarily for the sake of that happiness. A similar concept is of course in Pascal's Wager as well.

Simply to reject the notion of acting for the sake of pleasure or to ease uneasiness or to gain happiness as "consequentialist" and to cite asceticism in support of such rejection flattens out a whole lot of ideas in a way that would be called a caricature if done by an _opponent_ of Christianity.

Again, we have this idea even in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of a kind of Christian eudaimonism--that if human beings only understood where true happiness lies, they would be willing to suffer temporarily for the sake of that happiness. A similar concept is of course in Pascal's Wager as well.

Exactly. No act is purely altruistic, nor purely selfish. They exist on a continuum. Crudely put, it could be 25/75, 50/50, or 95/5. Goals are never purely one thing or another. It is always a mix. That is Aristotelian, and those who've never heard of Aristotle know this also by personal experience. There are near-term goals and long-term goals. There are perhaps no acts where such complexity can't easily be identified, and they may seem contradictory if the delayed gratification of virtuous persons is not accounted for. Did Christ really want to die on the cross? Do I really want to help my neighbor mow his yard? Well, yes and no. Sometimes our own self-interest as far as others can see, or even ourselves sometimes, seems about nil and we must do something we strongly dislike out of obligation. But even then there is a long-term goal that doing the right thing will help to bring about. I myself went through a confusing time where I did a service for someone grudgingly and out of obligation, but in God's grace over time began to so enjoy and love doing it that the obligation dropped away to nothing leaving me with only enjoyment. And that is disorienting because things are not as NM says. In fact we are taught to believe that we shouldn't like doing the right thing too much or something is wrong. Dallas Willard talked about how we seem to only be comfortable praying for distant things in which we don't have too much self-interest outside of our immediate families. But this is too bad since it pretty much confines our best and most impassioned activities to our immediate families to the detriment of our neighbors. We are mistaken about the character of self-interest because deep down we've been bombarded by the sort of misguided false-choice that NM has accepted, and wishes to persuade us to do likewise.

NM expresses an entirely wrong understanding of human action when he says: "Right. The good works even of Christ and the saints are put down to "uneasiness" according to this scheme. And it is not any sort of holy or conscientious uneasiness." Entirely wrong. We can simply point out this gross error as I've identified it above, refute it, and move on. We don't need to discuss the Enlightenment, the Declaration, the American Civil War, or anything else. Apologies to NM, but his assumption is wrong and he must defend himself on these grounds or nothing. Next time all you need say is "Well yes, on your understanding of human motivation I can see why you'd think that, but I don't subscribe to that understanding of human motivation" and you're done. Or, "Well we have a disagreement on the nature of altruism," and that's it. All you have to do is identify NM's underlying philosophy, note the disagreement, and say you're at an impasse. An impasse that is quite fundamental, one that no hand-waving about supposed intellectual wrong turns in the past will solve, especially when not informed by the past.

If I may, in the interest of all our sanity, characterize something more subtle about NM's underlying philosophy that I've learned over just such shifting and ambiguous disagreements time and time again. I can see J. W. is earnestly confused, and I feel his pain. Because NM's view is highly idealistic. It's as if he has no place for a human nature. It's as if people don't test theories against reality as they do. Now theory misleads people in powerful ways, but in the long run bad ideas are seen to be bad most of the time if it is important enough to test in life. People change their theoretical views based on their experiences, historians do revisions at least after a few generations, and on and on. But in NM's idealistic world, that doesn't happen. People are like matter, and when set in motion by the force of bad ideas they don't question it no matter what their experience is. The shot-clock always runs out before the winning shot can go in, and the cavalry never arrives or even starts. Once bad ideas start out on their destructive course, all we need do is calculate what they could do and they must do that forevermore. No remedy to this state of affairs is ever proposed. It's an idealistic and nature-denying sort of approach whose benefits for those so inclined are not hard to see.

I mean no insult NM, but you should appreciate the importance of recognizing the underlying philosophical assumptions of your own view. I don't mean to be rude or insult, but I am taking your claims as seriously as I can.

In fact we are taught to believe that we shouldn't like doing the right thing too much or something is wrong.

Which is Kant. Or one understanding of Kant.

Not Christianity.

Yes! Yes, yes! An acquaintance made the connection for me years ago when he said the church had thoroughly bought into Kantian understanding of that. I had forgotten this explicit connection. Sweet.

NM: We do the good because it is the good, not because of how it makes us feel. And it is certainly not how it makes us feel that determines whether it's good or not.

But Locke provides an out if one can "prove a law" that is "not made by us, but for us." Locke's criticism of Aristotle and others is that without such a law that has "rewards and punishments annexed, the force of morality is lost, and evaporates only into words and disputes." If that law is supplied by, say, Christianity, then good and bad are properly grounded.

Lydia: Simply to reject the notion of acting for the sake of pleasure or to ease uneasiness or to gain happiness as "consequentialist" and to cite asceticism in support of such rejection flattens out a whole lot of ideas in a way that would be called a caricature if done by an _opponent_ of Christianity.

Agreed ("consequentialist" seems rather broad--as you say, it's Kantian in flavor).

We do the good because it is the good, not because of how it makes us feel.

We do the good because it is good, and it happens that that makes us feel good at least oftentimes. That makes it easier to repeat, so it is an added motivation for repeat action. It's a virtuous cycle. And though it is true we do the good because it is good, sometimes the way we feel in doing something makes us recognize something good that we'd not have seen as good (or as good) until it was experienced. If one doesn't believe any of this I submit that the examples any of us could give in demonstration of such things are so trivially easy to call to mind that it isn't even very interesting. The burden of proof would be on one denying such obvious truths. It's a false choice, and a dogma. And though my Kant is poor, that is the one thing that is really easy to get about Kant, or at least a common understanding of him as Lydia pointed out.

Agreed ("consequentialist" seems rather broad--as you say, it's Kantian in flavor).

Agreed. Language can easily trips us up if we're not careful. The term "consequentialist" has been abused so greatly I'm afraid it has confused many. It's a technical term that seems to have proved itself dangerous for laymen because of its seeming self-explanatory quality. Everyone knows what consequences are. But consequences are supposed to be a part of any rational moral judgements as one decision factor among many. It isn't necessarily consequentialism to decide to save 5 orphans instead of 3, certainly not in the case that all other things are equal. It is called being sane. It is only when the consequences is held to be the only deciding factor there should be that you have consequentialism.

Likewise, language is also a problem with the phrase "the ends don't justify the means." But something in the phrase in unstated. In order for it to be true that ends can't be used to justify means, it is understood that the means must be evil. It would be clearer to say "the ends don't justify immoral means." Because if the means are morally justifiable, then of course the ends may justify the means. That is often the case. But like I said, I think unfortunately the term "consequentialism" has confused the general public. I don't recall the same confusion when utilitarianism was the term of choice to convey the same general idea. I think for the purposes of most uses as we see in this forum that term would do quite well enough. At any rate, misunderstandings of this type have been at the root of some of the bitterest debates I've seen here, if memory serves.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:

In actual usage, the term ’consequentialism‘ seems to be used as a family resemblance term to refer to any descendant of classic utilitarianism that remains close enough to its ancestor in the important respects.

I mean no insult NM, but you should appreciate the importance of recognizing the underlying philosophical assumptions of your own view. I don't mean to be rude or insult, but I am taking your claims as seriously as I can.

You could have fooled me.

Also, Mark, I didn't catch your opinion of Austrian economics, or whether Free Enterprise is evil, or whether Loyola ought to facilitate the study of the latter through the lens of the former. It seems you'd rather set down personal denunciations of particular commenters and then add some lectures concerning the perils of giving terminology to laymen.

Yes, Mark, frankly I'm tired of dealing with you. By criticizing my views as resulting from either ignorance or hidden motives is a form of debating in bad faith. I don't have time for it and will ignore your posts in the future.

"In fact we are taught to believe that we shouldn't like doing the right thing too much or something is wrong.
Which is Kant. Or one understanding of Kant."

No, Lydia, that is not what we are taught. What we are taught is that we must be watchful of our motives, even when we do an inherently good act, because the possibility of the sin of pride is ever-present. It's not Kant, it's the Church Fathers.

"Simply to reject the notion of acting for the sake of pleasure or to ease uneasiness or to gain happiness as 'consequentialist' and to cite asceticism in support of such rejection flattens out a whole lot of ideas in a way that would be called a caricature if done by an _opponent_ of Christianity."

I think not. It's inherently consequentialist if one does, as Mises does, reject out of hand the possibility of any absolute Good.

Really, is this so hard? It's just Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences and Lewis's Abolition of Man applied to the theories of an atheistic economic thinker. I get the impression that we're willing to give his philosophy a pass because we like his economics. This is no less than what the Christian Left does with Marx, and it's just as bad.

Well, hang on now, NM. We have not established that von Mises is an atheistic thinker. What we have established is that his account of human motivation is in tension with some Christian accounts.

Nor am I on board with the equivalence with Marx, whose theory was not incidentally atheistic, or rationally vulnerable to relativism, but decidedly and formally materialistic from top to bottom.

NM, you have attempted to derive from, "Human beings act out of uneasiness" the conclusion, "Any absolute Good is impossible."

I haven't yet seen a convincing argument from one to the other! Look, if this is just, "So-and-so was an atheist. The moral argument works. Therefore, atheism is incompatible with the existence of absolute good. Therefore, so-and-so's system of economics is inherently atheistic and wrong," it's the last step that I'm going to challenge. There's such a thing as the natural light. That step just doesn't follow. Economics is likely to be based on on observation of human motivation and action, which an atheist could observe correctly.

In my opinion, a far more just criticism of the Locke/Mises proposition under discussion--something like "Human beings act out of uneasiness"--is that it's tautological or trivial. That it can be reduced to something like, "Human beings act because they would prefer to act than not to act." Such a criticism isn't something I would especially care to dispute. That particular theoretical proposition isn't one I've ever thought was profound. Far more important free market propositions are things like, "Human action, and the human motivation to create wealth, rather than government good intentions, is the source of wealth." That one has some meat to it and is, moreover, denied both in theory and in practice by a lot of people with economic ideas about "how things oughta be"!

It's been quite a few years since I did any reading in Mises, but it was brought back to mind via my recent reading of Ferrara's The Church and the Libertarian, in which he discusses Mises' theory. My memory is perhaps not as good as it used to be, but I think Ferrara is largely correct in his appraisal. Ferrara's book is one written by a Catholic for Catholics, and as such I sometimes found his tone a little strident and the specifically RC stuff layed on a little thick, but I still would say it's well worth reading.

"you have attempted to derive from, 'Human beings act out of uneasiness' the conclusion, 'Any absolute Good is impossible.'"

No -- Mises specifically says both, and relates them himself. That's the problem.

Can you give a quotation in which Mises says, "Any absolute Good is impossible"?

And if so, can you show how the denial of the possibility of any absolute good is actually, logically, centrally bound up with

a) his economic theories

b) what ordinary folks like me take to be the central insights of free market/supply side/Austrian economics (such as the one I gave above about the source of wealth)?

Frankly, if Ferrara is as historically "knowledgeable" about Mises as he is about Locke--his discussion of Locke that I've seen consisting chiefly of RC ranting, claims to be able to divine hidden motives, snark, and ignorance--then his views on Mises are prima facie worthless.

Also, Mark, I didn't catch your opinion of Austrian economics, or whether Free Enterprise is evil, or whether Loyola ought to facilitate the study of the latter through the lens of the former. It seems you'd rather set down personal denunciations of particular commenters and then add some lectures concerning the perils of giving terminology to laymen.

I know you don't approve of me. Not much I can do about it. I certainly won't defend myself in a public forum. I won't comment anymore. I am glad I came back for a few last comments since your last complaints about me though. I won't bore you with why. With all sincerity I wish you the best Paul.

I don't approve of some of your comments, Mark. This was a guest-post on a specific topic, which you did not participate in until your "Nice Marmot is incorrigible" pile-on. It appears that there is a history between NM and you. Maybe he is incorrigible. I don't know. But this is not the place for that. Basically we're talking about a threadjack.

And, as before, criticism is not the same as banishment.

I don't have a copy of Mises' book(s) and it would take me a day or two to get one. Ferrara has quotes with citations however, so I could provide those if they'll suffice. All I have is my personal notes with citations, but not direct quotes.

As to the other, I'd have to wait till I have book in hand. Like I said above I'm largely working from memory, and from some notes I made.

"his views on Mises are prima facie worthless"

Might want to read them before jumping to conclusions. He does have a lot of documentation in his book.

By stating the above I'm not saying I can't do it, only that there will be a delay of a day or two....

And, as before, criticism is not the same as banishment.

It isn't even possible to ban someone in a no-auth combox, so I don't know how you thought I was implying that. I said I wouldn't comment, which I'm now violating, but that's all.

But look, I've been very rough on NM and I probably did go too far in my critique, but you've made this out as some personal vendetta of mine against him and that isn't so. I am taking him seriously, and even picked up a book he told me to read and am reading it. Life is short, and though I may be a bit unusual, I do accept others as they are and don't ask themselves to change ways of thinking that they can't. I could've expressed the same thing differently and wish I had, but the substance would still be the same and I can't meet your special pleading over method as I suspect you know. For example, how would I have met your pleading in this thread, when you said I "betray a stridency and impudence unbecoming of republican discourse"? I don't know. But now I've given you reason to close in and characterize my last comments as typical of all your complaints, and this is no one's fault but mine.

For the record, and the benefit of NM, my "shifting claims" remark just doesn't mean that I think he's dishonest, nor is it a vendetta. I've already said before that I think his main issue is the assertion of "decline," a conclusion, and the reasons don't matter so much. There is no shame in holding that position. A few days ago I was arguing on another blog combos with an author who makes a logically identical claim to the one NM always makes, but he's Jewish and stridently holds the "decline" thesis based on the Church failing to convert the barbarians for starters. Seriously. The "shifting" claim was not about being dishonest. I don't think people making these claims are dishonest. That doesn't follow. There is no one here who has not had reasons refuted that hasn't shifted to other reasons when they realized it. Because we all have multiple reasons for holding beliefs, and it is very often that we believe the right things for the wrong reasons. We all do fairly frequently, and when this is the case debate helps us to shift things around as we think things through.

So NM, please accept my apologies for so ham-handedly pointing out that your assumptions are where the action is and should be, right or wrong, as is most of the time the case for any argument. I don't think you're dishonest, and I think our reasons for believing this is as complex and mixed as our motives as I was pointing out in the thread. I don't need to think you're dishonest, and the simpler and more charitable explanation is to assume people aren't.

Anyone that wishes may have the last word. Too much drama. I honestly do appreciate those who put up with me. I have benefitted quite a bit. There's a selfish motive as I've said before.

Fair enough, Mark. What I'm trying to do is maintain a comment thread. In blogging, the two chief antagonists of rational and civilized discourse are (a) personal animosity and (b) threadjacks. I thought your first comment in this thread strayed dangerously toward problem areas in both, because it was a pile-on of criticism of another commenter largely unrelated to the subject at hand.

For the record, I think you have contributed some excellent comments here. There is no reason for you to leave. I would just ask for more care in staying on topic and avoiding personalizing disputes.

(Also for the record, it is indeed possible to ban commenters. We'd had to do so several times, unfortunately.)

Fwiw, my first serious look at Mises came as a result of this quote by P.H. Reardon in a Touchstone editorial from 1999:

***First, the pursuit of wealth is never without risk, and the danger grows as that pursuit itself casts off godly and humane restraints. Whereas limitless economic growth is an idolatrous ideal that Christians should employ every effort to repudiate, it is a rare thing to hear conservative Christians do so nowadays. To the contrary, for too long a goodly number have fashioned dubious political alliances with those elements in political life devoted only to individual freedoms and the limitless pursuit of material prosperity, forgetting the deep gulf that divides those who deny that “man lives by bread alone” from those who assume that he does.

If conservative Christians would actually sit down and study the atheistic economics of such darlings of the political Right as Ludwig von Mises in the light of what they already know from their reading of, say, the prophet Amos, they would quickly discern how little they have in common with the former. (Maybe they will want to do what I did several years ago: spend Lent reading the whole of Human Action to its last disgusting and indigestible page; it was a penance more severe than flagellation.)***

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-05-006-e

Now Fr. Reardon is one of the smartest and most learned men I have ever met and has the philosophical chops to go toe to toe with anyone. He has taught philosophy, Scripture, and history at a number of colleges and seminaries. I've heard him lecture on philosophical subjects and it is truly a thing to behold. I had known him about 8 years when he wrote this, and I knew enough to know that if he wrote it it was worth paying attention to.

Apology accepted, Mark. I find much of what you say interesting, and I'd be happy to continue discussion with you, if you'd only lose the sarcasm and condescension.

Never lose the sarcasm Mark. Snark makes the internet go around, Al Gore told me so himself after he invented it :)

The human action vs government action dichotomy is itself a consequence of libertarian thinking. For Dante, classical Greeks and a lot of moderns, the State is the supreme human achievement. Dante even held the Empire to be a divine institution, co-equal with Papacy.

The conclusion of Austrians and libertarians more generally that a minimal or non-existent State would maximize the long-term wealth of a nation is not validated.
It is certainly very doubtful in the real world. To guide the morals of a society is one of the essential functions of the State and if there is a precipitous decline in the morality (as in the present-day West) the society itself collapses and no amount of deregulation or lower taxes are going to lead to an increasing prosperity.

For the record, I think you have contributed some excellent comments here. There is no reason for you to leave. I would just ask for more care in staying on topic and avoiding personalizing disputes.

I appreciate it Paul, but my motives are different from others for commenting and I don't think I can change in a way that would still be beneficial for me, and I honestly have no idea what others get out of this if they don't see it as I do. Some things must be pressed for certain things to be understood, and respect for rules was never my strong point. I can be shameless in discovering what I want to know, and that is my vice. I am the incorrigible one. On the other hand, Proverbs likens debate as "iron sharpening iron" for some reason I suppose. I think sportsmen get this and learn to always clap each other on the back in the end and know it isn't personal, even though they are itching for another go round to win this time, or by a larger margin. But in the end I see only shades of gray when it comes to being on topic, and I'd wear myself out by expending more thought and energy figuring out if I should respond than anything else. Seriously. In order for that to work I'd have to limit myself into the more abstract topics that I care less about. But that's so modern, and so unlike me. I'm an average guy, of average intelligence and abilities, but I guess open rules is the only way I know. Education was once disputational in nature. Unfortunately, the often remarked anonymity of online discourse doesn't allow me to show that I don't have ill-will towards those with whom I disagree.

Well enough about me, what do you think about me? Ha ha. Seriously, I do appreciate your conciliatory remarks even though I took a couple of shots at you. I think I should stop commenting just because there will be a diminshing return for others given the differing interests between myself and many others here. So I don't plan on it, but thanks for saying its ok anyway.

Lydia's point about morality setting bounds to economic sphere is elucidated by Edward Skidelsky in First Things -May 11.

The phasing-out of avarice and related terms?a process substantially
completed by the time The Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776 had the
effect of stripping economic activity of its ethical character, of
rendering it morally indifferent. Legal infractions such as theft and
fraud were still censored, of course, but not as expressions of the
acquisitive drive so much as breaches of general principles of justice.
This was a radical shift of perspective. For Aristotle and Aquinas, acts
of avarice form a natural continuum ranging from the trivial to the
viciously criminal. Aristotle?s list of the avaricious in the
Nicomachean Ethics includes pimps, usurers, profiteers, dicers, petty
thieves, and brigands; Aquinas in the Summa numbers restlessness,
fraud, perjury, and violence among the ?daughters? or effects of
avarice. For the thinkers of the Enlightenment, by contrast, there is a
clear-cut binary division between lawful and unlawful economic acts, and
everything lawful is innocuous. Morality no longer pervades economic
life from within but constrains it from without.

This transformation of attitudes to wealth creation cleared the ground
for the new science of political economy. Having been demoralized, so to
speak, economic acts became open to analysis and assessment in terms of
their effects, intended or otherwise. They could enter into a calculus.
It now made sense to ask, for instance, whether it might not be more
beneficial in the long run to let corn prices fluctuate freely, even in
a famine, than to regulate them?a question that could not have been
decently posed when the duty to feed the poor was regarded as absolute.
Without this prior demoralization of economic activity, Smith?s
enterprise would have been unthinkable. Aquinas, for instance, would
have regarded it as akin to an earnest discussion of the benefits of
cutting up a hospital patient and distributing his organs among others.

From the new perspective, however, all expected consequences of the
sacking?whether intended proximately, ultimately, or not at
all?contribute equally to its ethical value. What matters is the
aggregate. So long as our employer can expect any suffering caused by
his action to be outweighed by its indirect social benefits, he has
nothing to reproach himself with. Responsibility for promoting the good
has been shifted onto an impersonal causal mechanism. He is free to
pursue his own interest?legally, of course, and within the framework of
a properly functioning market economy.

This new method of moral reckoning was to become famous as
utilitarianism, but is more aptly called (in a term coined by G. E. M.
Anscombe) consequentialism. For what was crucial was not the stress on
utility or happiness that, after all, had been central to many ancient
ethical theories?but the insistence on pooling or aggregating all the
expected consequences of an action. Utilitarianism was just one of many
species of consequentialism, though always the dominant one. If
consequentialism holds that the moral value of an act is determined by
the sum of its expected consequences, utilitarianism adds that the only
relevant consequences are pleasures and pains. But this limitation is
not inherent in the general doctrine. The Russian nihilist Nechayev
commended as moral everything favorable to the revolution. G. E. Moore
defined as right all actions tending to bring about good states of
mind. Both were consequentialists, but not utilitarians.

So to answer Paul Cella original question, if a multi-billionaire that wants to make a few more billions, puts all his mind and soul into the effort then he is greedy even if his greed leads to more people being employed. His greed will ripple outwards, perverting justice and inwards.

A state that is naturally concerned with justice is thus concerned with this man making another billion and the state may justly regulate him and his enterprises.

Very interesting comments, Gian.

The thing is, we don't know the billionaire's motivations. We can conjecture, but historical reasoning strongly suggests that the motives of men are mixed.

Tim Tebow made 250 grand as a bonus on his already considerable salary for one game of football. (The overtime win over Pittsburgh.)

From one angle that bonus is clearly gratuitous. Given the right rhetorical framing, folks could be easily led to believe it was rapaciousness that produced this incredible disparity, between the quarterback and his millions and the poor middle class sap whose payment for game tickets and jerseys formed a tiny fraction of the Denver Broncos' revenue stream. Before long we're ready to believe that Tim Tebow plays football to gain cash assets. That greedy SOB.

Of course, as anyone knows, they could pay him 250 million and it still wouldn't be about the money for Tebow. The kid's earnest faith and undeniable competitive spirit are quite aloof from pecuniary considerations. And his charitable work was substantial long before he cashed a paycheck from the Broncos.

But wait, what about the Broncos' owner, the actual capitalist here? His name is Pat Bowlen, scion of a family which made its fortune in (this being Denver) the oil business. Bowlen himself was also a successful lawyer and businessman in Canada. This guy is obviously just in the football business to make money, right? Well, who knows -- pro sports franchises are dubious ventures, more often a jewel in the crown than a profitable enterprise. His motivation, therefore, in paying Tebow this extravagant bonus, is not unmixed by greed; but surely we can all see that a true love of the game of football, and desire to build a winning team (far purer motivations than greed) are part of the mix too.

And these sorts of complications appear everywhere in human economic activity -- especially when we throw in the factor of statesmanship, which, following the ancients, I think we should. There is no independent realm of "the economy" untouched by the actions of statesmen and politicians.

But the question remains: did John Chambers found Cisco Systems out of greed? Was it simple desire for gain the impelled Steve Jobs? The iPhone and iPad have indeed made billions for Apple shareholders, but most people are holding Apple shares not as a speculation. It's low-risk equity asset now. Investment funds for retired middle class folks hold Apple stock to preserve wealth that was gained primarily as labored income. Is it greed or miserliness that is driving folks to pull 10% of each paycheck and deposit it in a 401k or IRA, anchored by Apple and similar holdings, for use in their children's education or their retirement?

These sketches suggest why I take the view that free enterprise is not evil, but rather susceptible to abuse by evil men. I agree that a legitimate function of the state is, as Gian says, "to guide the morals of a society," but there is wide room for disagreement as to how best that should play out. How effective the behemoth US federal government can ever be at guiding morals by national regulation, is a very real question; and there are examples too numerous to count of that behemoth attempting to guide morals but failing miserably, with destructive consequences.

Thanks, Paul. Excellent comment.

The idea that it is the job of the state to punish the motive of greed per se, aside from otherwise wrong actions that arise out of greed (for example, enslaving children, becoming a pimp, selling crack) is, in my view, completely wrongheaded and a very, very, bad idea.

The cute eight-year-old who starts a lemonade stand may be doing so out of greed while the millionaire makes his millions to endow charities. The real worry is that the "charities" themselves may be doing bad things. Millionaires have notoriously bad judgement when it comes to things like that and may think of Planned Parenthood as a charity. The millionaire who donates to PP does more harm than the greedy chubby 8-year-old who gorges himself on candy bars with the money earned at his lemonade stand. But that just means PP should not exist, because the murder of babies is not one of those things that should be sold.

It is not greed as a motivation that should be outlawed or regulated. Nor, as Paul points out, should the mere making of "too much" money be used as a proxy for greed and regulated per se.

At least these are concrete and interesting claims (in both directions) that can be debated. Frankly, in my opinion, "Human beings act out of uneasiness" is a fairly trivial truism that doesn't make for much interesting debate, and trying to base a claim that Austrian economics is atheistical and evil on this theoretical point is weak. Gian's claim that Austrian/free market/supply side economics is anti-Christian because it encourages and allows "greed," for which making "too much" money is a reliable if not definitional proxy, is meatier, but also, in my view, flat wrong. I'll take my stand with the allegedly "non-Christian" position on those issues.

So to answer Paul Cella original question, if a multi-billionaire that wants to make a few more billions, puts all his mind and soul into the effort then he is greedy even if his greed leads to more people being employed. His greed will ripple outwards, perverting justice and inwards.

You don't seem to pay enough attention to the behaviors of the individuals who actually do make this money to notice that the money isn't their primary desire. It's power and prestige. The titans of industry in the computer business, for example, are more concerned with power and influence (which bring vast amounts of money as a byproduct) than merely getting richer. In fact, if you look at the way they compensate themselves, it's almost entirely in stock in their own business, so their net worth grows dynamically with the perceived health of their entire enterprise. If they double their billions, it's because their actions have doubled the paper wealth of all of their shareholders.

What you are doing is asking the state to regulate the heart of man which is a heretical concept. The state cannot know the man who is motivated by pure greed from the one who is a workaholic who wants to build the best business he can. It can only treat them as the same man because man cannot judge the heart.

Frankly, in my opinion, "Human beings act out of uneasiness" is a fairly trivial truism that doesn't make for much interesting debate, and trying to base a claim that Austrian economics is atheistical and evil on this theoretical point is weak.

At face value, I don't understand the objection to "human beings act of out uneasiness." Love causes unease when you see suffering. If you are able to feel at ease when you see people suffering for reasons other than those they justly deserve, you certainly don't love them.

Love causes unease when you see suffering. If you are able to feel at ease when you see people suffering for reasons other than those they justly deserve, you certainly don't love them.

Bingo. Exactly the type of point I've tried to make above. The idea that relating action to uneasiness enshrines selfishness or makes the actions of the saints impossible or even that relating action to pleasure and pain is unChristian seems to me obviously incorrect. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says of Christ, "Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down on the right hand of the majesty on high."

You all really should read the Skidelsky piece Gian quoted from. I've mentioned it here before:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-emancipation-of-avarice

Pretty strong stuff for FT, by the way.

"At face value, I don't understand the objection to 'human beings act of out uneasiness.'"

It's because Mises makes it the sole cause of human activity, and because he relates it to the fact that there is no absolute good. Man acts out of desire for perceived goods only, and those goods are always and everywhere only relative.

The bearing of this on economics should be obvious: if all human activity is out of "self-interest," and if there are no absolute goods, then it is impossible morally speaking to reign in or limit self-interest. Economic decisions become purely prudential and individual -- any moral questioning along economic lines is ruled out of court.

"The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says of Christ, 'Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down on the right hand of the majesty on high.'"

Yep, and following Mises' logic, Christ was therefore imperfect because he experienced "unease" which caused him to act, action being caused only by imperfection.

Well, yes, the proposition that there are no absolute goods, and in particular, no actions that are absolutely and intrinsically evil, is going to cause all manner of problems. You have yet to show that this is somehow inextricably entangled with free enterprise economics.

It's because Mises makes it the sole cause of human activity

If he's wrong about anything, it's primarily on the edge cases such as highly ambitious achievers and certain types of inherently altruistic people who are a statistical minority in both cases. Most people do their typical work out of a desire to alleviate the unease caused by various factors ranging from love of family, to personal unease at the thought of not having the next pay check to live on.

What seems to upset you about this particular argument is that it is wrong only insofar as it is taken to hyperbole by saying it is the sole, not primary motivation.

because he relates it to the fact that there is no absolute good. Man acts out of desire for perceived goods only, and those goods are always and everywhere only relative.

This is a separate matter, isn't it?

My objection to Gian's arguments is that they are impractical for reasons that should be obvious to the point of not even bothering to raise them from a Christian. You cannot as a matter of law examine the heart of a billionaire and say he has too much money now and the state must stop this without risking other goods such as him or her no longer leading a company successfully. Gian and others like him never ask what happens when that billionaire just says "f#$% it, I'm going to retire in the Bahamas" and suddenly the company is left rudderless. Look at Microsoft if you need an example of what happens when a brilliant, probably greedy billionaire leaves the company he built. It's often very ugly; Microsoft today is slowly imploding from a lack of real leadership.

You and Gian have the same blinders for the rich that the left has. The common man is generally just as greedy as the rich man. It's simply a matter of talent and opportunity to achieve that. Gian didn't explain why the same state who says a billionaire now has too much shouldn't be equally interested in minutely regulating compensation for the everyday man to make sure that he or she is not being overpaid. After all, why should a union auto worker make $75 in total compensation when Honda, Toyota, etc. show the free market value of their labor is really $20/hour plus benefits? That extra $40-$50 in pay and benefits is certainly an unjust wage by the standards applied to the top 1%.

Because such a belief is problematic to all human activity with a moral component. Economics is not chemistry or metallurgy; it involves moral decisions.

After all, why should a union auto worker make $75 in total compensation when Honda, Toyota, etc. show the free market value of their labor is really $20/hour plus benefits? That extra $40-$50 in pay and benefits is certainly an unjust wage by the standards applied to the top 1%.

That's not only an extremely good point, Mike T., it is a practical point as well, not merely hypothetical. The to my mind undeniable _greed_ of the unions for their workers is often overlooked because at the individual level it doesn't often make people vastly wealthy. However, the demands, multiplied in their thousands and ten thousands, create all manner of problems, including the drive to punish non-unionized workers and right-to-work states (and their people), motivations for companies to locate outside of the country, and so forth. A huge drag on the economy, which affects real people. Yet all of that is not only overlooked but even _lauded_ by critics of free enterprise. It is the employers who are accused of greed for hesitating for a moment to accede to union demands! The union negotiators and workers are never accused of greed for making unreasonable demands.

This is a function of a blinkered approach to the entire question of economics which sees great wealth as a proxy for greed, and that in both directions (i.e., we're not going to accuse you of greed or think that your greed might have negative systemic effects unless you are vastly wealthy).

Once we realize the ubiquity of bad motives and the complexity of all motives, the mix of good and evil, throughout human society, we will hopefully abandon the goal of regulating through government action human motives per se. This will hopefully stop us from accepting simplistic and wrongheaded proxies for bad motives. The acceptance of such proxies and the attempt to force good will into existence by regulation are the sources of much bad policy. (Think "hate crimes" legislation, anti-discrimination quotas, and other attempts to get people to act in certain ways to demonstrate various politicized or controversial notions of good will.)

We will also, hopefully, start asking ourselves what the source is of concrete human actions that do in fact benefit mankind by producing wealth in legitimate ways, producing jobs, etc. We will stop burdening such activities with spite taxes and regulations loaded on like chains just to prevent people from "making too much" because "making too much" has been turned into a proxy for greed and because the government is assumed to be the proper embodiment and enforcer of disinterested good will as a counterbalance to the "motive of greed"! (There's a faulty assumption for you.)

I view the harping on the evils of greed and the alleged encouragement of greed by free enterprise and the need to rein in greed as a source of much misguided policy.

"You and Gian have the same blinders for the rich that the left has"

Yeah, kinda like St. James. See his epistle, ch. 5:1-6.

"I view the harping on the evils of greed and the alleged encouragement of greed by free enterprise and the need to rein in greed as a source of much misguided policy."

Your perennial foes the social liberals would of course say something similar about lust and modern society.

Well, first of all, the fact that two statements can be stated in grammatically parallel form doesn't mean that they stand or fall together.

Second, this may sound shocking, but I don't view my social conservatism as based on the general notion that government's job is to "rein in lust." A man can sit around lusting in the privacy of his mind all he wants, and there's not a thing the government can or should try to do about it. If somebody invented a machine tomorrow that caused a light to come on on a man's forehead when he was lusting, I would think it creepy, not useful.

My social conservatism involves, as I've said repeatedly on this thread, the idea that certain goods and services are _bad_ and _should not be objects of sale_. I would be willing to add to that some such corollary principle as that certain behaviors and images should not be displayed in public or engaged in in public. I take these principles to be something akin to surds. They are not derived from some syllogism like

Lust is bad.

Government should try to rein in everything that is bad.

Therefore, government should rein in lust.

Moreover, I do not criticize free enterprise as encouraging lust. Rather, cutting pornographic and sexual goods and services out of the market is a pre-condition for having the market range over those things it should range over at all. Free enterprise doesn't encourage lust per se just because pornography has been sold in some societies (such as, alas, ours) anymore than free enterprise encourages slavery per se because human beings have been sold in some societies.

Yeah, kinda like St. James. See his epistle, ch. 5:1-6.

Congratulations, you just managed to do with James what most liberals do with Matt 7.

Free enterprise understood in a laissez faire manner encourages greed just as much as the sexual revolution encourages lust, and just because we've gotten used to greed's presence in society doesn't make it any less so.

"you just managed to do with James what most liberals do with Matt 7."

A major difference being that one occasionally hears sermons on Matt. 7.

A major difference being that one occasionally hears sermons on Matt. 7.

That's irrelevant to the fact that the way you used James 5 is as inaccurate as how mainstream liberals typically use Matt 7.

So says you. I'd argue that 3/4 of American Christians don't even know that that James passage is in the Bible. It's use/misuse would be irrelevant w/r/t people who don't even know it exists. It's hard to misinterpret a passage you don't know is there.

It's use/misuse would be irrelevant w/r/t people who don't even know it exists. It's hard to misinterpret a passage you don't know is there.

Which means precisely what when you're trying to make an argument with someone who is fairly familiar with how the Bible speaks about the rich, especially the rich who behave unjustly toward the poor?

Free enterprise understood in a laissez faire manner encourages greed just as much as the sexual revolution encourages lust, and just because we've gotten used to greed's presence in society doesn't make it any less so.

So you basically just ignored everything I just said on that topic, NM. Wow. Well, I'm not going to repeat it. Hint: A syllogism including the premise, "Government should ban everything that might encourage anything bad" is also not the source of my social conservatism on sexual products and services.

Oh, by the way: The ready availability of good-tasting food "encourages" gluttony. I propose that we ration people's food or make sure it tastes bland to force them to embrace asceticism and not "encourage" gluttony. Lent would be a good time to start.

"Which means precisely what when you're trying to make an argument with someone who is fairly familiar with how the Bible speaks about the rich, especially the rich who behave unjustly toward the poor?"

February's First Things arrived in the mail today. See David Bentley Hart's column on wealth therein. He says it better than I ever could.

More on Lydia's ridiculosity later. She ought to read Hart's column too, btw.

More on Lydia's ridiculosity later.

Hmmm. And here I thought you were casting yourself as a _Nice_ Marmot these days.

See, here's the thing: The difference between something like "greed" and the lust encouraged by pornography and strip joints is that the former is wrong as a matter of degree while the latter is wrong inherently. It is just _wrong_ for a woman to display her body to men to whom she is not married. It is just _wrong_ to take movies of people engaging in sexual acts and to publish them, much less sell them. These things are not wrong because the feelings men are having in viewing them are "too much" or because they are enjoying "too much" sex. If anything, such products have been found to dull sexual response over time. A man experiencing similar feelings towards his wife and honorably enjoying his relationship with his wife is not sinning, even though the feelings and experiences involved in both cases are sexual. The issue then is an absolute one, not a matter of degree.

The desire to obtain money, on the other hand, or food for that matter is not inherently evil, and it is fairly difficult, sometimes even for the person himself, to decide where legitimate desire to provide for himself and his family (or, in parallel, legitimate enjoyment of food) ends and greed or gluttony begins.

This is not so with lust. A man who is engaging in sins of the flesh can tell that he is doing so because he is breaking God's plan for sex by indulging those feelings in the wrong time, place, or manner, or towards the wrong person.

Hence, free enterprise "encourages greed" only in the sense that it is, as I said above, a very efficient way to encourage the creation of wealth. This means that people may come to value wealth "too much" and hence be willing to do wrong things in order to obtain it. But the only solution to this would be deliberately to make the entire country poorer, to make it *for its own sake* more difficult to create wealth, lest people enjoy themselves "too much" or become "too much" attached to the things of this world. This, it should be possible to see, is a destructive approach to material things. And it is, in fact, quite parallel to the idea that some Power should meddle with our food supply and the tastiness thereof lest we be tempted to gluttony.

It is, in other words, the idea that, since we can become "too attached" to the material good things of life, systems of government and economics are bad insofar as they efficiently and abundantly supply even legitimate good things and motivate people to create those material goods, because this is un-ascetic. People might become too attached to these good things and might indulge their enjoyment of them "too much" or desire them "too much."

The parallel with sexual products and services is just *poor*. I don't know how much more clearly I can point this out.

You can call this "ridiculosity" if you like, but actually I think I'm taking your cliches about free enterprise and greed with more seriousness and care that they deserve.

Similarly, people can make an idol of health, be spoiled by good health, and obsess over their health too much. We might therefore say that an excellent health care system "encourages obsession with good health" and that the true ascetical approach would be deliberately to damage the excellence of our health care system, to make us more like third-world countries, so that people would be more humble, grateful, and tough-minded.

Obviously, this would be crazy.

That's what I think about people who blame free enterprise for its virtues of making people materially well-off on the grounds that this "encourages greed." If they think that encouraging prosperity encourages greed--which is the only conclusion one can draw--then it seems that they can only be satisfied by damaging prosperity to make people live more ascetical lives, to (allegedly) help them not to think so much about money and material prosperity.

This probably wouldn't work. The idea that people who are impoverished are humble, good, and not tempted to avarice is a highly sentimental and unrealistic one. But it is also playing God. The Bible is full of injunctions to accept the chastening of the Lord, to accept God's taking away our health, material goods, and well-being as salutary and as a learning experience, to rejoice in adversity. Any notion that human government should deliberately bring adversity on its people for similar character-building purposes, however, ought to be disgusting.

Yet to what else, in terms of public policy, can such critiques of free enterprise for encourage greed lead us? If people have the opportunity to be successful, to make money, to create wealth and obtain wealth, they may become greedy. Therefore, government needs to take away these opportunities! We need to recognize the really destructive nature of critiques of free enterprise which are really criticisms of its success in contributing to the material well-being of mankind.

"The difference between something like 'greed' and the lust encouraged by pornography and strip joints is that the former is wrong as a matter of degree while the latter is wrong inherently."

Nope. Greed is greed just like lust is lust, regardless of degree. Whether I want $50,000 or $5M more than I need it's still greed, just like if I want my neighbor's wife or a whole harem. According to the classical and Christian traditions regarding wealth, if you desire more than you need in an accumulative, acquisitive sense you are guilty of greed. This, of course, does not preclude saving for a rainy day -- the classical authors would describe this as prudence. But if you "want to be a millionaire" you are greedy, as your desire for wealth has gone beyond prudence.

After reading that D.B. Hart First Things piece this morning it struck me more than ever that we have here is at bottom a religious difference. I've mentioned this before but I'll do so again. You, and other defenders of capitalism, have an American Protestant mind-set that is far different than the mind-set of Catholics (and Orthodox) who have cultivated an ascetic one. It simply does not seem to occur to you to ask "How much is enough?" while to some of us this thought arises almost naturally, and we ask it of ourselves often. Protestantism (with rare exceptions) simply doesn't get asceticism; it will almost always reduce it to legalism. And one can certainly live a "simple life" without descending into penury (yet another false dichotomy).

When I say no one needs an Escalade, or a private jet, or $15M a year, your first thought seems to be that I want to either prevent him from having it or take it away. Not so. What I want to do is to encourage a culture in which fewer people will want Escalades, private jets and $15M salaries. Why? Because A) no one needs them, and B) the money can be spent far better elsewhere. Imagine if everyone who has a $75,000 car instead bought a $25,000 car and donated the rest to their church or charity? Pipe dream? Perhaps. But the start is to get people to see that they don't need a $75,000 car. Capitalism has created a culture in which people are like 2 year olds who cannot distinguish between wants and needs. If you see no connection between the crass commercialism and materialism of our society (and yes, that includes commodification of sex) and the rise of an extractive capitalist economy then you're fooling yourself and doing a fair amount of compartmentalizing in order to salvage an ideology.

By the way the ridiculosity of which I spoke was your last illustration about the abundance of food encouraging gluttony. Having good food in abundance does not encourage gluttony. Having an over-abundance of cheap, unhealthy, processed food loaded with fat, salt and sugar does, however. (Not to mention the resultant obesity. Which makes me wonder -- if we're more "successful" when we're richer, shouldn't that mean we're healthier when we're fatter?) As an aside, you might be interested in knowing that the ascetic fathers often relate lust and gluttony.

Having an over-abundance of cheap, unhealthy, processed food loaded with fat, salt and sugar does, however.

Well, there you go. If it's what those darned American Protestant Philistines enjoy, it's pretty much by definition unhealthy. By the way, salt isn't really bad for you. I've just been reading about that lately.

I don't know what this means in terms of the public policies you would endorse. I really don't. But I do think the present Puritanism (there's a word for you), especially among liberals, about "food loaded with fat, salt, and sugar" is misguided and exaggerated. In fact, it's providing a Cause with a capital C for many people who don't have other and more important causes. In a world with Planned Parenthood, I think the existence of McDonald's french fries isn't really something to get het up about.

Now I suppose the next thing you'll tell me is that Planned Parenthood and McDonald's french fries both somehow "flow from" the evils of capitalism.

By the way, you seem almost willfully dense about the differences between what's wrong with sexual products and the problem of greed. The former does not primarily have to do with the concept of "too much," whereas the latter does. Therefore, the former doesn't come on a scale, whereas the latter does. You yourself relate the latter scale to the amount the person needs (though you don't tell us how we're to figure out this magical number). But that's still a scale. The sin of lust isn't about "too much." If a man spends five minutes looking at pornography, he's committed a sexual sin. If the same man spends five minutes thinking desirous thoughts about his wife, he hasn't. This hasn't got to do with having or wanting "more than he needs." It has to do with the wrongful direction of sexual desire. This should be pretty obvious.

What is "extractive capitalism" by the way? A new one on me. A quick googling tells me only that it is a catch phrase that leftists use among themselves and expect to be understood as a word for Something Very Bad but gives me no concise definition. I'm guessing just from that fact alone that it's something I'd defend. :-)

Imagine if everyone who has a $75,000 car instead bought a $25,000 car and donated the rest to their church or charity?

From an economic point of view, the money spent on the $75,000 car goes back into the economy and is thus available in other venues for investment, charity, or whatever. Spending $75,000 on a car is not going out and burning a pile of dollar bills.

I'll certainly grant you that I would not do it, even if I had the money. And I'll even grant you that a person who does so may well have his personal priorities wrong. However, you seem to think that if someone does buy a $75,000 car this is per se "taking the money away" from charity. This is not so. (By the way, what's with the reference to "everyone" who has a $75,000 car. You know a lot of such people? I certainly don't!) It means that that particular person doesn't give that money to charity. But that money goes to the car company and from there is paid out in the form of, inter alia, salaries and dividends to other people who might very well give to charity. The money doesn't _disappear_ because it is spent at one time on an item that you think too big, unneeded, and so forth. That implicit notion that once the money has been spent on something you wouldn't spend it on, it's somehow _gone_ and has just been misspent, period, is one of the many illusions suffered by people who don't think clearly about economics.

"When I say no one needs an Escalade, or a private jet, or $15M a year, your first thought seems to be that I want to either prevent him from having it or take it away. Not so. What I want to do is to encourage a culture in which fewer people will want Escalades, private jets and $15M salaries."

In other words, I want to encourage a culture that is poorer, a culture that has less wealth, a culture that doesn't meet the needs of its citizens as well as a capitalist culture. "Wait a minute, Jeff, I just told you I'm all about needs!" Guess what, NM, so is capitalism -- once you realize that a capitalist market economy works by allowing individuals the leeway to buy and sell what they will (within moral limits) and amass what wealth they deem necessary, then they will attempt to figure out ways in which they can meet the needs of their fellow citizens. That's what entrepreneurs and big business alike are all about -- providing goods and services that folks want to buy. I'm sure you would argue that many of these folks have a false consciousness and don't know what they want, but like the left-wing goofballs who argue the same thing from a political standpoint (i.e. "What's the Matter with Kansas") I don't buy it; or at least I don't buy the idea that we need public policy solutions telling people what they do and do not need. I'll leave it up to their families, pastors/priests/ and neighbors to figure it all out.

NM, it may come as a surprise to you that I'm extremely hawkish about both inflation and debt and have a strong sympathy for hard currency. Some people probably think I'm nuts for that very reason. Many of the things that you probably see as evils of capitalism I see instead as evils of anti-capitalism, particularly of inflationary monetary policy and a debt-happy government and populace. Where you want to talk about asceticism, I want to talk about thrift and about not spending more than you earn. Oddly enough, the net result of the things I would favor might be something _you_ would consider ascetical. A lot fewer people would be buying the things you believe they "don't need" if they couldn't get easy credit, if they had to live within their means and couldn't push down the day of reckoning for their spending splurges, as our government itself is ruinously trying to do. I consider these policies dreadful for economic reasons and also because I believe they foster outright lies--e.g., that something comes from nothing and that there is such a thing as a free lunch. Really hawkish Austrian economics places a hard, reality-based limit on the extent to which people can engage in wild spending. This, however, also applies to spending for "good causes" and entitlements to the poor. Th too, should not be paid for by borrowing Peter to pay Paul or by printing money. So the proposal of a hawkish approach often makes anti-capitalists no more happy than our present economic set-up which tries to deny the limitations of reality, both for consumer spending on big cars and for government spending on "good causes."

Now here's a discussion of greed I can get on board with.

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/021696.html

You will notice the connection among the three prongs: greed, the power hunger and ineptitude of statists, and the expectation of unlimited money supplies through unrestrained debt--in other words, the denial of the no free lunch principle.

When I say no one needs an Escalade, or a private jet, or $15M a year, your first thought seems to be that I want to either prevent him from having it or take it away. Not so. What I want to do is to encourage a culture in which fewer people will want Escalades, private jets and $15M salaries. Why? Because A) no one needs them, and B) the money can be spent far better elsewhere. Imagine if everyone who has a $75,000 car instead bought a $25,000 car and donated the rest to their church or charity? Pipe dream? Perhaps. But the start is to get people to see that they don't need a $75,000 car. Capitalism has created a culture in which people are like 2 year olds who cannot distinguish between wants and needs.

That's all well and good, but then a $20k car doesn't generate the sort of profits that allow a car company to have a good profit margin which are necessary for paying for any of these extravagances in the first place. In a society in which $20k-$25k cars were the norm, it's unlikely that the sort of products that would be normally sold would be sufficient to generate the wealth you would like to see given to charity. Society would simply be poorer because most products created would be rather spartan and there would be any high profit products.

This is especially problematic when you consider that the only viable EV car on the road right now is the Tesla Roadster which has a price tag of $100k. Tesla chose to make a $100k Porsche knock off precisely because the most viable route to get the profits they need to scale down the technology is to focus on creating a classy sports car for the rich. This process has been seen in other industries where you have to have a well-funded customer or customers to buy into a technology to bring it down to the proles.

And that's not even taking into account the portion of the car companies' intake that is going into the black hole of government regulations and requirements. The same is true of other industries. While lefties excoriate energy companies for price gouging, they're being fined by the Obama admin. for not using biodegradable fuels or some such nonsense that *aren't even available for their purchase.* Yet the EPA continues to defend the fines. Insanity? You bet. So some of that money for products that people "don't need" is probably going to pay for the lost profits from compliance with wickedly stupid government regs.

Yet the EPA continues to defend the fines

Various courts have ruled that being placed on a sex offender registry for a crime you committed before the law was enacted is not an ex post facto law and that it is not a punishment per se when finding that someone exonerated does not have a legal footing to force the state police to remove their name from the list. This behavior is what people like Al call "nuance," but is in fact nothing more than what most people would call a species of insanity and stupidity that requires an IQ at least one standard deviation above the norm to be susceptible to getting. These things are examples of why I say that there are forms of stupid that you can't even accomplish without being smart enough to think them up.

** given that government employees are increasingly highly educated among other things, it stands to reason that part of the reason this level of stupidity is now rampant is that we gave our best and brightest the reins of power. The greatest argument against a meritocracy is that the above average intelligent are, in fact, more susceptible to stupid behavior than normal people.

"you seem to think that if someone does buy a $75,000 car this is per se 'taking the money away' from charity"

St. Basil said that if you have two coats while your neighbor has none, you are a thief. Rhetoric? Perhaps, but the point is clear. St. Jerome said, when you see luxury you can be sure that somewhere behind it is robbery. Maybe you're happy to call the Fathers of the Church Marxists, but I won't.

"By the way, salt isn't really bad for you. I've just been reading about that lately."

Hmmm, my PCP hasn't got that memo yet. He must still be living in the Dark Ages, thinking it has a relationship to high blood pressure!

"In a world with Planned Parenthood, I think the existence of McDonald's french fries isn't really something to get het up about."

Which would be true if the existence of the two wasn't connected. Materialism is materialism, whether it relates to sex or food.

"you seem almost willfully dense about the differences between what's wrong with sexual products and the problem of greed"

No, I understand perfectly. You believe that a little greed is okay and I don't.

Extractive economics is the critique of any economic activity that functions like mining. Its primary focus is on gaining whatever wealth there is in a given situation, with little or no concern for the other effects or ramifications of the extraction. Negative externalities are ignored or downplayed, in other words.

I believe that currently existing capitalism (CEC) is exploitative, coercive, extractive, acquisitive, reductive, and manipulative. Some will argue that while some of these descriptions may be accurate, they have to do with either "crony" capitalism or with the fact that the state has involved itself with the market. What I would ask is, were these characteristics any less evident or operational during the time of the least state regulation of business, i.e. the Gilded Age? Is cronyism more of a problem now than it was then? If not, then all of the problems of CEC cannot be blamed solely on cronyism and/or state interference, and there must be a moral issue with industrial capitalism itself.

Part of the error on the part of libertarians and their fellow-traveler neos can be pinned on the loss of the understanding of economics as a humane science. We moderns have tended to replace economics as understood classically with what Aristotle called chrematistics, the "science" of wealth creation. The humane element has become so separated from the scientific or mathematical element that it is not seen as part of economics at all. When anyone, whether from the Left or Right, attempts to point this out howls emanate from the neos and libertarians because they cannot see the forest of oikonomia for the chrematistic trees.

My recommendation is that conservatives return to the Aristotelian/Scholastic understanding of economics as a humane science, of which chrematistics is only one facet. With that end in mind I'd list these works from folks across the political spectrum who wish to promote such a vision. I know that the inclusion of Wendell Berry will produce titters from the gallery. I'll say only that the new book from ISI, The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, contains essays all written by folks who describe themselves as conservatives, four of whom teach at Hillsdale College (can't get much more conservative than that...)

Wilhelm Roepke -- "A Humane Economy"
John Medaille -- "The Vocation of Business" and "Towards a Truly Free Market"
John Mueller -- "Redeeming Economics"
William McDaniel -- "God and Money"
Edward Hadas -- "Human Goods, Economic Evils"
William T. Cavanaugh -- "Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire"
Wendell Berry -- "What Matters? Economics For a Renewed Commonwealth"
Albino Barrera -- "Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics"

Note that none of the authors mentioned is anti-market, and that four of the books were published by the conservative publisher ISI.

C'mon Singer, as a Catholic you ought to know better than that. Get hold of Barrera's book on the social encyclicals. Too much Acton Institute kool-aid, methinks!

Maybe you're happy to call the Fathers of the Church Marxists, but I won't.

NM, if they meant it literally, they were mistaken. Besides, I gave you a _reason_ for what I was saying, which you have ignored. Like it or not, it just is *false* that the money disappears into the ewigkeit and is definitely never going to go to charity. It just isn't going to go to charity from this person in this round of expenditure. And it will doubtless be divided up among many people who will use it for many things, which might include charity in some cases and not in others. Or it might be accumulated together with other money and given as part of an even larger lump to charity. Them's facts. Take 'em or leave 'em. The money goes into the economy. If St. Basil thinks the money is destroyed by being, as NM views it, misspent, St. Basil is wrong. But he's in heaven, so probably he doesn't think that. Hopefully he has better things to think about anyway.

By the way, you should tell the Romans that gluttony isn't a temptation from good food. Somehow they (and the Victorians for that matter) managed to engage in a lot of gluttony with an abundance of good food. Just get a lot of meat and wine and you, too, can have a Roman gorge. Not a Hostess twinkie in sight. To relate this in some unique way to "processed foods" is plain silly and faddish. Ever read a description of a Victorian Christmas meal? Roast turkey, boiled turkey, roast beef, etc., etc. Yes, I believe the plum pudding did contain sugar (gasp!) but they'd managed a lot of gluttony even before getting to it. It's a wonder, quite seriously, they weren't all sick the next day from overeating.

I was right the first time in my analogy: The free market tempts people to greed in _very much_ the same way that abundant, enjoyable, tasty food tempts people to gluttony. Which means that the only way to _try_ to correct this "problem" is to make everyone so badly off that we don't have these opportunities to tempt us. Unfortunately, some people are trying to do just that.

I notice that you ignored my olive branch on the overlap between thrift and debt avoidance, on the one hand, and the prevention of what you would consider "too much spending," on the other. Oh, well.

St. Basil said that if you have two coats while your neighbor has none, you are a thief. Rhetoric? Perhaps, but the point is clear. St. Jerome said, when you see luxury you can be sure that somewhere behind it is robbery. Maybe you're happy to call the Fathers of the Church Marxists, but I won't.

The nobility of their era are also very different from many of the rich of our day in that few of them could actually say they earned their wealth through production of goods and services. More often than not, they were effective at using the state or military campaigns to extract wealth from the weak. You do the saints a disservice by not making that distinction.

I believe that currently existing capitalism (CEC) is exploitative, coercive, extractive, acquisitive, reductive, and manipulative. Some will argue that while some of these descriptions may be accurate, they have to do with either "crony" capitalism or with the fact that the state has involved itself with the market. What I would ask is, were these characteristics any less evident or operational during the time of the least state regulation of business, i.e. the Gilded Age? Is cronyism more of a problem now than it was then? If not, then all of the problems of CEC cannot be blamed solely on cronyism and/or state interference, and there must be a moral issue with industrial capitalism itself.

I don't think that last follows, NM. The fact that industrial capitalism hasn't managed to restrain certain forms of greed certainly means that it has some limitations. Those limitations would imply defects if it _ought_ to be expected to be able to restrain those forms of greed. That is not yet established. If the other forms of free enterprise, for example, were to successfully restrain these types of greed but then fall afoul of OTHER problems equally damaging to the common good, then one cannot say that the "proper" system is capable of restraining all these problems and thus failing to restrain them is a specific defect. Given human nature and its fallen state, it is difficult to be certain that a proper system really is capable of restraining some defects without falling astray of giving rein to others.

Like it or not, it just is *false* that the money disappears into the ewigkeit and is definitely never going to go to charity. It just isn't going to go to charity from this person in this round of expenditure.

Lydia, I agree that the money doesn't just disappear, and that a later iteration some of it may go to better causes. But I don't think that such an analysis of the trail of money is morally significant. The person who buys the car makes the choice out of primary intentions more than out of secondary ones, and the primary intention cannot make the act moral only by reason of the secondary ones, the primary intention must be moral of its own self.

To explain that, I think maybe I need to back up a bit. One of the classic Christian explanations of moral standards in dealing with your wealth is tri-partite. You have (a) goods necessary for life itself, (b) goods necessary for your state in life, and (c) goods suitable to your state in life but not necessary to it. Beyond these three, what you hold is considered simply "surplus." Obviously, each category can be viewed in strictest, narrowest terms, or in broader senses: goods necessary to life itself certainly include food, clothing, shelter, and some medicines. But they can also include a horse (if you are a trapper in the frontier), and many other things like that. Goods necessary for your station in life are, for example, a suit if you are a businessman, a hard hat for a construction worker, and a computer for an accountant. Goods suitable for your station in life covers a vast array of things that are "normal", like a car, a TV, a dining room table, that (in our day given what has descended from the eradication of what had, once, been a clear distinction of properly speaking "lower classes" from the middle and upper classes by something other than sheer pay check) a large percentage of people have access to in some form or other.

My understanding of this distinction, in application to discerning about charity, is that, first, while a man was not obligated to pass up every single one of all those things that fell in (c), he was obligated not to seek to obtain the entirety of that whole class, also. He should expect to pass up many goods that properly fall within "it is reasonable for me to have this in my state in life" simply because there are far too many such goods for any one person to have. Hence, a person cannot be morally rectified in seeking to own X if his sole "justification" for it is that this is an item that is suitable for my station in life. He needs to balance those goods with those of his neighbors, and in practice every man must be prepared to pass up some such goods in order to seek the welfare of his neighbor. But such an obligation is an obligation of charity, not of justice.

On the other hand, (it seems to me) that the Fathers speak differently of what is, properly, surplus goods. There, if I recall correctly (and I have no specific quote in mind, so I might have it wrong) your withholding your _surplus_ goods from benefiting others is, simply, a failure in justice of some sort. Nevertheless, its being a failure in justice does not, OF ITSELF, imply that this is a matter that properly belongs to the state to rectify. Some forms of justice are not the proper venue of the state. This is a venue in which the state cannot tread without some problems in principle.

For example, if a farmer's harvest of a bumper crop exceeds all expectation, and he says to himself "I will knock down this barn and build 3 bigger barns to hold all the grain", the state cannot presume that this implies a greedy withholding of surplus from his fellow man. What if he stores this grain knowing (because God told him in a dream) that there will be a failure of next year's crop, and he is storing this for future need - both his own and his neighbor's? (Valid ownership of goods implies the right to decide where to make the best use of it, including which charitable enterprise to put it into. For the state to tax it merely on account of its being surplus eradicates this right and duty of charity.)

Or, to be more general about it: generally, free market capital investing means investing an amount of your surplus. This cannot occur if you do not first HAVE some surplus to invest. If it were a general principle that ALL surplus must be given for charitable purposes, then there could never be any investment of surplus for development of new production. Which the Church adamantly rejects. A rich man investing his surplus in a new means of producing new wealth is, in fact, using his wealth with a view to his neighbor's good; or at least, it can be generically - nothing in principle prevents it from being so.

But the case is otherwise for a man who spends some of his surplus on a $75,000 car that is not within his "goods suitable for his station in life." This is not an investment who principal purpose is to generate NEW wealth with new creative activity, it is merely an exchange of his wealth for the car dealer's wealth. The primary motivation for purchasing the car (in excess of anything belonging to his station in life) isn't to help out the dealership, which helps out the car manufacturer, which helps out a bunch of employees. If that were his primary purpose, there would be LOTS and LOTS of more direct ways of improving the condition of workers, in particular by investing the money properly so called. The real reason he has for buying the car, then, is some primary end (like greed, vanity, whatever) that is not fully compatible the regard he ought to have for his neighbor, and no secondary hopes to keep some GM workers at the plant determines the moral status of his choice in contradiction to his primary intention.

(That being said, there are in fact people for whom a $75,000 car is within the class of things suitable for their station in life. NM is wrong to put all such purchases as being beyond reasonable use of wealth. There, I think I have made both NM and Lydia irritated with me :-). )

My first reason for bringing up the fact that the money doesn't disappear is the claim that the money is being "taken away from" charity.

Now, Tony, you may just disagree with me here, but in my opinion we usually shouldn't use a phrase like "taken away from" unless we're really talking about taking something away. Unless, perhaps, we expect what we are saying to be understood as deliberate hyperbole, along the lines of, "That man deserves to be hung" where we really just mean, "That man is a scoundrel."

My understanding is that NM is arguing that we ought _not_ to interpret statements to the effect that not giving such-and-such excess to charity is theft hyperbolically. In fact he seemed to be directly rejecting that.

Now, I could perhaps see a _little_ more an attempt to take such statements literally if in spending the money on the 75k car you really were making the money disappear. Then the expenditure would be a very serious, permanent thing, would really be making the money _go there_ in some final and permanent way; one could maybe see a *little better* pressing on the metaphor of "taking it away from" some other possible expenditure.

Since, however, the money doesn't literally disappear, even that argument for taking literally a statement about "taking the money away from charity" is not available to NM.

Moreover, I think that very often people who take NM's approach simply refuse to take into account the salutary economic effects even of what they consider "excessive" spending. The person who buys the yacht or the 75K car is, whether he intends to or not, doing something valuable to the auto manufacturer and his employees as well as acquiring an item that has value and usefulness for himself. Hence, as a matter of the common good, regardless of his intention, his spending the money on something that makes NM shake his head and tut-tut should not be seen merely as a loss. That point is surely relevant from the perspective of public policy. If every expenditure really made money disappear forever, be taken away from every other possible use, then the case that one is doing harm by buying things that one doesn't need would be stronger: Why, you burned that pile of money when you didn't really need the thing for which you burned it! Money would at that point be a thing to be rationed, like water in the desert--once gone, gone forever. But once one realizes that the money isn't just burned up in some kind of spending holocaust, one can take a more tolerant view.

More generally, Tony, I would hope that you and I would agree in finding distasteful the whole enterprise of going about picking things and saying, "That's surplus!" "For someone to buy that is theft from the poor!" and the like. I get the impression that you share at least _some_, if not all, of my immediate reaction that attempts to make such decisions about other people are hubristic and busy-body-ish.

And let's face it: If it really were as easy as that for Person A to make a list of goods and services, not bad in themselves, but "excessive," that Person B might spend his money on, so that A could so easily list paradigm cases of "stealing from the poor" on B's part, would this not strengthen the case for government intervention? If failure in the "duty of charity" is really a failure of _justice_, is that not the sort of thing the government exists to remedy? As I understand your arguments against this, they are 1) that this would remove the opportunity for exercising the duty of charity for the state to take it and b) that the person should have the opportunity to decide to which charity to give it. Those are good goals, but, again, if he is failing in justice, there could be ways of working around it. For example, he could be given a warning after a first "failure of justice" (because he bought a 75k car for a reason the Charity Inspectors thought insufficiently urgent, for example) and after that be fined if he offended again. Or he could be given a certain time limit in which to give his surplus to a charity of his choice, after which it would be taken.

I really do think the "justice" position has some problems. Being a happy Protestant (NM will make great hay out of this one, for sure), I am untroubled by the fact that it was apparently the position of some church fathers. Oh, well, sez I.

As I understand the breakdown you've just given, Tony, it also has no room for many of the great achievements of the human spirit, which need to be paid for with "surplus." What about large-scale works of art or architecture? Suppose someone took his surplus and endowed, I dunno, a school for cultivating the haut ecole of dressage. None of these things are going to be proper to any given person's station in life. They will all require large sums of money from someone's (or maybe a lot of people's) surplus. Even a yacht is a thing of beauty, and yacht racing is a sport that has given a lot of pleasure. Eric Liddell says (in a movie, anyway, whether or not he said it in real life), "God made me fast, and when I run, I can feel his pleasure."

It seems to me that the best way for people to explore many of those various ways of feeling the pleasure of God in human achievement (especially the expensive ones!) is to use surplus money to endow or pursue such of those things as capture their attention and love.

The severe tiered view of money that you lay out as the "classical Christian" view simply gives no scope that I can see to the millionaire who uses his surplus to set up, endow, create, or whatever, something beautiful or wonderful in itself because he has seen the value of it. After all, could not this have been sold instead, and the value thereof given to the poor? Now, where could I have heard that before...? Oh, yeah. ;-)

I would hope that you and I would agree in finding distasteful the whole enterprise of going about picking things and saying, "That's surplus!" "For someone to buy that is theft from the poor!"

Absolutely. That's why I indicated that nobody else has the capacity to judge where a man is to spend his money, even his surplus. First because it is inherently a prudential call as to just where is the line lands between "things suitable to my station in life", and surplus simply; secondly because by and large your decisions about how to take concern for the good of your neighbor are not readily subject to someone else's evaluation. That's why PRIVATE property means, among other things, it really is your decision about how to use that money. That's why I don't go along with the use of the term "stealing" in this situation. Even if your choice is an evil choice and is in defiance of your moral obligation to use your surplus for the welfare of your neighbor, it really is your choice. A moral failure here is not a case of taking away money that belongs to any other specific person, it can't be until you allocate it to them. If the money already belonged to someone else, then it wouldn't be your role to choose where to put it. But since there are always more than one way to help neighbors, that's not valid.

If failure in the "duty of charity" is really a failure of _justice_, is that not the sort of thing the government exists to remedy?

That's just it, I said that this is NOT the sort of thing that falls into the government's role. Since the money belongs to the man with surplus, it belongs to him to decide where to put it. He has to answer to God, not to the government.

As I understand the breakdown you've just given, Tony, it also has no room for many of the great achievements of the human spirit, which need to be paid for with "surplus." What about large-scale works of art or architecture? Suppose someone took his surplus and endowed, I dunno, a school for cultivating the haut ecole of dressage. None of these things are going to be proper to any given person's station in life.

Both Aristotle and St. Thomas speak of the virtue of magnanimity, which is the virtue involved in which a rich man builds or supports a large endeavor for the sake of some public good: A park, a cathedral, a statue of David, a school, etc. This virtue cannot exist unless there is large wealth with which decide to support some large undertaking. I think that it is a given that starting or being a major donor behind a school is by its very terms an act taking concern for your neighbor. A man doesn't build a school for dressage in order to benefit himself _primarily_, that would be silly: it's a school in order to pass on the knowledge and ability to others. Supporting the arts generally fits in that category. Admittedly, supporting lesser arts that improve fewer people in more limited ways should generally receive less attention, but the principle is there - the action is primarily on account of others' welfare.

And that's a good reason why it should be in private hands: the government can reasonably have direct concern for only a limited category of public goods and private goods. A private individual can take concern for a wider range of goods. Government really has little reason to decide to open or pay for a dressage school, but private people can decide to do that sort of thing.

Lydia, I fully agree with you on thrift and debt-avoidance.

"The fact that industrial capitalism hasn't managed to restrain certain forms of greed certainly means that it has some limitations. Those limitations would imply defects if it _ought_ to be expected to be able to restrain those forms of greed. That is not yet established. If the other forms of free enterprise, for example, were to successfully restrain these types of greed but then fall afoul of OTHER problems equally damaging to the common good, then one cannot say that the 'proper' system is capable of restraining all these problems and thus failing to restrain them is a specific defect. Given human nature and its fallen state, it is difficult to be certain that a proper system really is capable of restraining some defects without falling astray of giving rein to others."

I agree with you, Tony, although I'd say that industrial capitalism encourages greed rather than simply fails to restrain it.

"I think that very often people who take NM's approach simply refuse to take into account the salutary economic effects even of what they consider 'excessive' spending."

Actually I do take them into account, but I do not see them as a vindication of the system. After all, even slavery had some "salutary economic effects."

"The severe tiered view of money that you lay out as the 'classical Christian' view simply gives no scope that I can see to the millionaire who uses his surplus to set up, endow, create, or whatever, something beautiful or wonderful in itself because he has seen the value of it."

But see, the thing is that according to the classical/Christian view it is wrong to seek to be "a millionaire" in the first place, regardless of your intentions. If one inherits wealth, or "lucks" into it in some way, that's one thing. But the tradition seems to say that if you actively seek it you are guilty of greed.

the action is primarily on account of others' welfare.

Well, possibly, but I can readily envisage a situation where it is motivated by love of the thing--the beauty of the art, the sport, or the expedition or adventure. Something like that. A desire to associate oneself with or in some sense to possess or enjoy that beauty in a special way, to have a hand in it. (A rich man might commission a great work of art which will then belong to himself.) It's love of something outside the rich man himself, but need not be and maybe often is not motivated by benevolence towards mankind. That still seems to me as though it can be legitimate.

It's love of something outside the rich man himself, but need not be and maybe often is not motivated by benevolence towards mankind. That still seems to me as though it can be legitimate.

Maybe, but I think the case needs to be made more firmly before I go along with it. If the good that he were buying were something that is purely a matter of consumption, so that nobody but he himself were going to enjoy it, and (by hypothesis) this is a good that is simply surplus, it seems difficult to me to say that when he reaches the pearly gates, God isn't going to look askance at this and tell him this was a problem. I am fine with saying it is legitimate before the law because I don't think the law generally has a voice in the matter, but that doesn't answer the moral issue.

Oh, and by the way, about "adventure": I have pretty strong feelings about that. This often is really and truly a thorough consumption of goods that are wholly and absolutely "surplus". And I think that this probably represents a truly disgraceful way to use one's surplus. For example, spend $20,000 to outfit yourself and hire a helicopter to air lift you to the top of an inaccessible mountain so you can spend a day of extreme skiing alone with perfect powder and nobody to bother you. With a separate drop mid-way down of a camp stove and food and supplies - which will then be abandoned after lunch. YES, I think that the law should leave this alone. NO, I don't think a Christian can justify this. It's just selfish.

I suspect that a rich man buying an expensive painting to hang in his own home for his lifetime participates in some respect with the same reprehensible selfishness, but there is more room for some justification: the artwork doesn't get consumed, so it remains for others to enjoy. Presumably your family enjoys it, and guests and visitors. And after you die, it can be given wider display. But I think that all of those possible justifications can be swallowed up and do no good at all in some cases: If you spend incredible sums of money (like $10,000,000) on a Van Gogh, that kind of sum I believe is "necessary" ONLY on account of other people irrationally treating art as "things to be collected" (usually for boasting rights) instead of beauty to be enjoyed, and that's the only way something achieves such prices. And that treatment is inherently materialistic. To the extent you cooperate with that irrational behavior and simply follow along, you are feeding the materialistic frenzy instead of buying art for a good reason. I have no problem with supporting art, even on a scale of magnificence. But no artist who is really worthy of support will tell someone "I will paint that beautiful painting you want, but only for a $10,000,000 profit margin". That huge price never really goes to the artist, and he probably wants to produce the beauty regardless of price anyway. If you want to spend $10M on art, build a beautiful church somewhere, or a school of art and support 20 artists for a goodly number of years.

But see, the thing is that according to the classical/Christian view it is wrong to seek to be "a millionaire" in the first place, regardless of your intentions. If one inherits wealth, or "lucks" into it in some way, that's one thing. But the tradition seems to say that if you actively seek it you are guilty of greed.

Well, NM, if the tradition really says that, boom, that's wrong regardless of your intentions, then I disagree with the tradition. I'm willing to agree that it's wrong (but not something the government should try to do something about) to pursue accumulation of money as an end in itself. But for some other good end, that's a whole different matter.

It would be interesting to see the treatment a really good novelist could give to the following plot: A man of modest means and great talent, drive, and energy conceives a passion for some area of art or human endeavor. He sets out to make a fortune in activities related to that area in the hopes of realizing some great dream related to that area--endowing something, starting a school for it, building something great in that area, etc. Make it very believable and the value of what he's interested in very believable. Then the crisis comes when the only way that he can continue to pursue his grand dream is by somehow betraying the very enterprise he loves in some small but significant way--say, pretending that someone is good at it when he isn't in order to secure that person's patronage or influence, overlooking or even engaging in plagiarism, or something like that. Since the love of the endeavor is the protagonist's raison d'etre and the thing that stands between his pursuit of wealth and avaricious accumulation for its own sake, the temptation is to betray the discipline in this small way for, allegedly, the greater good of the discipline. But that would mean a loss of his integrity in the area most important to him. Could make a good story.

But see, the thing is that according to the classical/Christian view it is wrong to seek to be "a millionaire" in the first place, regardless of your intentions. If one inherits wealth, or "lucks" into it in some way, that's one thing. But the tradition seems to say that if you actively seek it you are guilty of greed.

I am having trouble seeing that, NM. If the reason you are seeking it to begin with is PRECISELY to undertake something that requires significant start-up capital and is worthwhile of itself, then there is nothing wrong with seeking to be a millionaire. There is nothing about sheer AMOUNTS that morality sets off as right or wrong. It has to do with objectives and intentions (all assuming, of course, that the thing you hope to do with the money isn't already intrinsically evil). Seeking a $Million in order to sit back and live the life of recreation for the next 50 years is greed. Seeking a $Million in order to do something else worthwhile isn't. (It may not be God's plan for you, but that's a different story. In some cases it IS God's plan.)

Also, I don't see how one can separate out the different cases, of earning the million, or inheriting it, as essentially different: once you have it, you have to do something about that. If seeking to have a million is wrong _always_, then it must be the case that having a million for more than the few moments it takes to give it away is also wrong. But we don't think that's true. Someone like a Katherine Drexel can spend years and years supporting good works with the money, spending (some of) it, but not eradicating the fact that she still has millions to dispose of.

Tony, see Skidelsky's piece 'The Emancipation of Avarice' from First Things in May of last year. After I read it I went back to some of his sources, and it seems that what he relates in that article is correct about the classical/Christian approach to wealth-seeking.

The Skidelsky's (father and son) have a book coming out later this year titled How Much is Enough?,which I believe will go into this in greater detail.

I am sorry, NM, but I don't see in the article one single shred of a suggestion that a specific intention to work and earn and save a large account of $1M in order to initiate some difficult (but socially worthwhile) enterprise is anything other than simply good energy, foresight, and a worthy plan of action. Nothing in the article speaks AT ALL about there being any kind of an moral upper limit for savings by way of sheer AMOUNT. Everything cited from earlier sources refers to motives of grasping and gathering money (and wealth). Avarice is a vice because it distorts human goods, the lesser for the greater, (or, most especially, the means for the end). Treating money as an end is distorted. Treating _saving_money_ as a means to accumulate the necessary for a new business is treating money as a means. If the business is itself well sited in terms of human endeavor and goods, saving for it is just thrift, which Leo XIII lauds in Rerum Novarum.

Back in the good ol' days, a million was real money. But these days a person can have a completely realistic 401k account worth a million, as his savings for retirement. That's probably what my retirement savings (including my employer's pension assets for my pension) will amount to when I retire at age 70 or so. And that won't buy some ungodly high annual amount. But some people have been using their 401k nest egg to invest in a business opportunity. Why not - it has to be invested in something. They decide to put a big chunk of it into a small business where they know the owner (or ARE the owner) and look forward to reasonable returns like 10% per year for several years once it is off the ground, or 7% APR cumulative.

I doubt that this kind of thing can be morally OK for a retirement vehicle and not morally OK as a direct intention from the get-go as a the purpose of earnings and savings to build up an investable chunk of change. I can't even imagine a way that would work.

The main disapproval in the article is the Enlightenment theory (like that of the invisible hand) that you can pursue self-interest without regard to immediate concerns of the social good, because (magically) everyone's pursuit of self-interest works out to being socially beneficial. Since I advocating nothing remotely like that, the article isn't really speaking to this point, as far as I can see.

I have read Aristotle on the point, and Augustine, and St. Thomas. I simply don't recall a pointed comment by any of them that sheer amount of savings can constitute a moral error, absent the additional considerations of the object of such savings, and while large amounts of wealth are automatically a source of moral danger, that type of danger is reasonable for some people for some purposes. The Church has never condemned sheer ownership of wealth, it is always a matter of whether you subordinate the wealth to a truly human order of goods.

Tony, I agree with you, and was using the "millionaire" as a symbol for wealth. I realize that a million isn't what it used to be, and I wasn't using it in a strict numerical way. My whole point is what you say here:

"The main disapproval in the article is the Enlightenment theory (like that of the invisible hand) that you can pursue self-interest without regard to immediate concerns of the social good, because (magically) everyone's pursuit of self-interest works out to being socially beneficial. Since I advocating nothing remotely like that, the article isn't really speaking to this point, as far as I can see."

I know that you do not advocate that, but my point is that many so-called conservatives do in fact advocate it or some "lighter" version of it, and will defend it vociferously. Many won't even consider that it may be wrong, and when people like Dreher or Berry or Medaille try to encourage them otherwise they are condemned as "liberals" and castigated and/or ignored.

In addition, it remains that even if wealth-seeking in order to do good is (arguably,imo) not inherently wrong, there is, as the NT makes rather clear, an inherent moral danger in wealth per se, and not just in the inordinate pursuit of it or in hoarding.

In addition, it remains that even if wealth-seeking in order to do good is (arguably,imo) not inherently wrong, there is, as the NT makes rather clear, an inherent moral danger in wealth per se, and not just in the inordinate pursuit of it or in hoarding.

There is an inherent moral danger in not having some wealth either. Few things tend to bring out bad behavior toward their fellow man in people than feeling like one is a have-not. For every woman who throws her two brass pennies into the collection plate, there are five men and women who indulge in behavior ranging from coveting their neighbor's property on the banal side of things to armed robbery on the worse end.

Oh, and by the way, this has nothing to do with my concern about the actions of individuals. That a given CEO or sports figure makes millions is not the issue. The issue to me is corporate power and its effect both on government and on the lives of citizens. I don't want to be in thrall to Monsanto any more than I want to be in thrall to D.C. And in many cases these lines are being blurred, as Paul indicates.

"There is an inherent moral danger in not having some wealth either"

Very true, but you don't find the Bible warning about that danger so much.

Very true, but you don't find the Bible warning about that danger so much.

You find the Bible warning primarily about two things with regard to wealth:

1) The wealthy hurting the poor.
2) The wealthy becoming trapped by their wealth.

The Bible does not speak ill at all of a man who wants to become extravagantly wealthy so he can do great things for himself, his family and society with that new wealth (provided he acquires it through honest industry).

you don't find the Bible warning about that danger so much.

I consider that the Bible's frequent warnings against envy and the existence of a commandment against covetousness are very much related to that danger. Like the old joke about the Russian peasant who wanted Ivan's goat to die. The Bible takes a dim view of that sort of thing, of hatred of one's fellow man's good fortune and envy thereof, and says so frequently. That is very much the kind of attitude to which the poor are tempted, in our own day and age especially.

Neither does it recommend it; what it does do is consistently and universally warn against the lure of riches.

Right, Lydia. The preaching against greed, envy and covetousness applies to all.

But I think you must admit that the warnings against the lure (and allure) of wealth goes somewhat beyond those general universal prohibitions.

"man who wants to become extravagantly wealthy so he can do great things for himself, his family and society with that new wealth (provided he acquires it through honest i
industry)."

This is precisely "wealthy becoming trapped by their wealth"

Exactly how much wealth one needs to be loving one's neighbours? Underline "extravagantly wealthy". Precisely what "great things" for one's family require "extravagant wealth"?. Trips to Moon?

Didn't Jesus gave precisely this example? of the farmer wanting to build a new barn?

Also a neglected point in Lazarus and Dives is that the rich man did give alms and food to Lazarus but he did not do so in the spirit of love.

The "extravagant wealth" of the West is leading to social collapse. It is directly implicated and all these "extravagantly wealthy" are filling the world with the lies of advertisements.

"of hatred of one's fellow man's good fortune and envy thereof, and says so frequently. That is very much the kind of attitude to which the poor are tempted, in our own day and age especially."

So the rich are not particularly envious?.

What is the point of camel and the eye of needle parable?.

Per Chesterton the point of the Christianity was that the rich are not trustworthy. Here it essentially differs from all pagan religions that ascribe merit to the rich. As a Hindu would say, he is a rich man because of his good merits in a previous life.

The preaching against greed, envy and covetousness applies to all.

Yes, it does, but the poor, working class and lower middle class frequently (in my experience) exhibit envy and covetousness in far greater amounts than the upper middle and upper classes. All of society has problems with greed, but I don't think envy and covetousness are as evenly distributed as greed.

But I think you must admit that the warnings against the lure (and allure) of wealth goes somewhat beyond those general universal prohibitions.

They don't. Greed, envy and covetousness are all intertwined. There is no difference between a greedy rich man who has realized the greed in his heart and a hard-hearted worker who spitefully envious him and covets his wealth. They're simply two sides of the same coin.

What is the point of camel and the eye of needle parable?.

That rich men often cannot give up their wealth when their wealth has, as Paul might put it, mastered them. At the same time, you have men like our founding fathers who not only risked their wealth, but their lives and their very families to support a cause which was for the betterment of their people.

It doesn't seem to occur to you, Gian, that your quality of life would simply implode were it not for the generation of surplus wealth. If auto workers made primarily what they needed with a minimum of surplus, you'd have to work most of your adult life to get that same quality of transportation. You would probably never be able to own a house. Most of what you have is made possible indirectly because millions of productive workers and business owners produce far more wealth than they could ever reasonably consume for themselves or their families (extended included).

You and Nice Marmot seem to be quite ignorant of economics in that respect. The man who doesn't work for nice things will only typically work for what keeps him and his family comfortable. That doesn't mean he'll have the delta to give to charity, it means he'll never produce the wealth in the first place. That was my point about the $75k car vs the $20k car. The man who would work to be able to reasonably buy the $75k car (as in not go deeply into debt, but have the means to acquire it without much trouble) would simply work less.

"It doesn't seem to occur to you, Gian, that your quality of life would simply implode were it not for the generation of surplus wealth."

There is a difference between surplus wealth and extravagant wealth, as thinkers going as far back to Aristotle have noted.

"You and Nice Marmot seem to be quite ignorant of economics in that respect"

Actually, I think it's simply that I disagree with you on the nature of economics, more than it is a lack of understanding. You are reducing one aspect of economics, wealth production, to the whole thing. It's as if the gist of a household was found primarily in the budget and the checkbook.

"That rich men often cannot give up their wealth when their wealth has, as Paul might put it, mastered them."

True, but the nature of the warnings indicates that there is an inherent danger in wealth that is not present in the lack thereof. Wealth by its very nature has the inherent potential to become a master. O/w the warnings about it make no sense. It is like the warnings about "wine and strong drink" in that regard.

There is a difference between surplus wealth and extravagant wealth, as thinkers going as far back to Aristotle have noted.

That still doesn't address my rebuttal of your car example. You have a very aggressive definition of extravagance, and I am warning you that if you don't elevate it to historic levels such as what the nobility used to enjoy, you are going to have truly disastrous ramifications for surplus wealth generation if that were to take hold.

"That still doesn't address my rebuttal of your car example. You have a very aggressive definition of extravagance"

Mike, I'm talking about the average person, not the elites. I'll grant that it's possible that an executive or some medical specialist may "need" a $75,000 vehicle. But how many Escalades, Hummers, Porsches, etc. are owned by people in such circs? I can tell you from experience that the vast majority of people that I know who have extravagant vehicles "need" them about as much as they need an electric toilet paper dispenser or a heated umbrella stand. In most cases it is an example of conspicuous consumption and not need. And I hope you're not arguing that THAT is necessary for a healthy economy.

And I hope you're not arguing that THAT is necessary for a healthy economy.

I am not arguing with you that people should be going out and buying luxury vehicles they don't need. I am pointing out to you that an economy where people buy only functional vehicles in the low end range will not produce the level of wealth you think because the buyers won't be motivated to work hard enough to afford the product in the first place. That means less surplus wealth, which means society as an aggregate will be poorer, not just more frugal.

I can tell you from experience that the vast majority of people that I know who have extravagant vehicles "need" them about as much as they need an electric toilet paper dispenser or a heated umbrella stand

I can also tell you that high end goods tend to come with far more care toward the buyer than lower end ones do. For example, people who buy Acuras get better support than people who buy Hondas. If you buy a high end MacBook Pro with AppleCare, Apple will all but literally move heaven and earth to get you back up and running in about two days like nothing happened if something bad happens to your hardware. When I had to get service on my MacBook Pro, the hardware was fixed and back in my hands in less time than you would spend negotiating a service transaction for a $500 HP laptop.

So I think you do underestimate why people buy some of these things. I would also trust my family to an Escalade far more than any stock GMC SUV.

A valid example of extravagance:

http://jalopnik.com/5887011/these-are-the-insanely-expensive-cars-that-gwu-students-drive

When you send your child off to a $40-$55k/year private university with a car worth between $150 and $500k.

"It doesn't seem to occur to you, Gian, that your quality of life would simply implode were it not for the generation of surplus wealth."

The "quality of life" is frankly a dubious and ambiguous concept. What you mean is "material comforts". Hunter-gatherers may have had a better quality of life on another scale than modern Americans. Perhaps a life of roaming, hunting, making war is more satisfying than a lifetime of office work in a cubicle,

Don't Swedes have higher suicide rate than tropical Africans and Indians? What does that mean?

And what has this higher "quality of life" given us?
Children can't go out and play in the streets for the fear of speeding big cars. That's "quality of life".

"... the differences between what's wrong with sexual products and the problem of greed. The former does not primarily have to do with the concept of "too much," whereas the latter does. Therefore, the former doesn't come on a scale, whereas the latter does.

. The sin of lust isn't about "too much." If a man spends five minutes looking at pornography, he's committed a sexual sin. If the same man spends five minutes thinking desirous thoughts about his wife, he hasn't. This hasn't got to do with having or wanting "more than he needs." It has to do with the wrongful direction of sexual desire."
Lydia
------------------------------------------------

Can't a man desire his wife too much? Over-indulgence in desire and its physical expression can hardly be chaste.

Perhaps a life of roaming, hunting, making war is more satisfying than a lifetime of office work in a cubicle,

Rousseau just wiped a tear of joy from his cheek.

Children can't go out and play in the streets for the fear of speeding big cars. That's "quality of life".

And in the savannah, children cannot go out and play far beyond the tribe for fear of being eaten alive by predators.

Can't a man desire his wife too much?

If he desires her to the point of excluding other things in his life, sure. I don't know any married men that have ever done that.

Over-indulgence in desire and its physical expression can hardly be chaste.

Chastity in marriage is a Catholic value and one that the Bible itself doesn't actually support.

**YMMV on that last point about chastity. I am not saying it is an unacceptable lifestyle, just that the Bible doesn't lend any clear support to the view. It is an extrabiblical doctrine.

Can't a man desire his wife too much?

Only in such weird pathological cases that I find them implausible and, like Mike T, have not ever known of any such case. Under ordinary circs, no.

Over-indulgence in desire and its physical expression can hardly be chaste.

That strikes me as a view I'm highly likely to disagree with, so long as the actual actions committed are not wrong and so long as we are talking about marriage. Certainly, married couples _can_ commit wrong sexual actions (but we're not going to get into a specific discussion of those). But as a matter of quantity, no, I'm not going to concede that a married couple should be saying, "Hey, we shouldn't be really doing too much of this or enjoying it too much or we're not chaste."

Again, in weird pathological cases where they aren't functioning properly in other spheres of life--husband can't bring himself to go to work, mother won't take care of her children, or something strange like that--then sure. There's a problem. But as a general rule, no.

Desire that is seemly in newly weds would be unseemly in late middle-aged. This is common understanding of mankind.

And how can a man fix his attention to Heaven when he is attached to his wife=?. Didn't Jesus himself say so? No man can come to me if he does not hate his wife.

There are rules as well. No entertaining desire during Lent for one.

There is a Hindu story about a saint-poet Tulsidas who desired his wife so much that he visited her stealthily when she was away at her parents. He climbed her window using a snake he mistook for a rope. His wife rebuked him saying if Tulsi loved God with this much fervor, he would have been saved. Tulsi then left his wife and became a saint.

"It is an extrabiblical doctrine."

Bible is a storybook There are just no doctrines in it.

Thanks, Gian, you make me even gladder that I'm a Protestant. I have, really, no sympathy with what you are saying at all, especially not as a general rule. If there are highly unusual cases in which men are literally called to leave their wives for Christian work, those are not the norm. On the contrary, St. Paul presents the possibility of fullest devotion to the work of God as a reason not to marry in the first place, thereby accepting that devotion to one's wife is normal and expected in a married man. And who the dickens are you to go around telling people how much desire is "seemly" in middle age? Good grief. On the one hand, I totally reject the pornifying of Christian marriage and approaches to Christian marriage that we see nowadays. It's gotten very bad, with pastors and their wives writing questionable and exhibitionist sex manuals and the like. But your approach is something that, in my opinion, sensible people should reject as well. It's less destructive but also, well frankly, absurd. Traditional or not.

And, yes, the Bible contains a whole boatload of doctrine.

Doug French (studied Austrian Economics) has a great post at Townhall.com titled "The Clear Language of the Austrian School"

It cuts through all the Keynesian bs and gives you a clear reason why it works to the chagrin of the big government and liberal academia types.

This is a "must read" for al and his like minded buddies.

It's less destructive but also, well frankly, absurd.

To the contrary, it's highly destructive since married women approaching or in middle tend to have their sex drives increase and a husband who won't respond to that because it's "unseemly" is in for trouble.

"Can you give a quotation in which Mises says, 'Any absolute Good is impossible'?"

Sorry this took so long -- Human Action took forever to arrive via ILL.

This is discussed on pages 69-71 of HA: "The language of living and acting men can form comparatives and superlatives in comparing degrees. But absoluteness is not a degree; it is a limiting notion. The absolute is indeterminable, unthinkable, and ineffable. It is a chimerical conception. There are no such things as perfect happiness, perfect men, eternal bliss." (pp. 70)

"[Praxeology and economics] are fully aware of the fact that the ultimate ends of human action are not open to examination from any absolute standard. Ultimate ends are ultimately given, they are purely subjective, they differ with various people and with the same people at various moments in their lives. Praxeology and economics deal with the means for the attainment of ends chosen by acting individuals. They do not express any opinion with regard to such problems as whether or not sybaritism is better than asceticism. They apply to the means only one yardstick, viz., whether or not they are suitable to attain the ends at which the acting individuals aim. The notions of abnormality and perversity therefore have no place in economics." (pp. 95)

"Any examination of ultimate ends turns out to be purely subjective and therefore arbitrary. Value is the importance that acting man attaches to ultimate ends. Only to ultimate ends is primary and original value assigned. Means are valued derivatively according to their serviceableness in contributing to the attainment of ultimate ends. Their valuation is derived from the valuation of the respective ends. They are important for man only as they make it possible for him to attain some ends. Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment." (pp. 96)

"The act of choosing is always a decision among various opportunities open to the choosing individual. Man never chooses beween virtue and vice, but only between two modes of action which we call from an adopted point of view virtuous or vicious." (pp. 45)

It should be plain that such notions fly in the face of Christian moral teaching. The only way that one can get around this irreconciability between Mises and Christianity is to view the former's "nuts-and-bolts" economics (iow, his chrematistics, his number-crunching) as separable from the underlying philosophy. One has a problem here, however, since in the classical/Christian understanding economics is a humane science, not a mathematical or "hard science" endeavor. One cannot simply compartmentalize the nuts-and-bolts as a stand-alone thing in itself. It would be like appraising the family budget using the checkbook and the bank statements alone, without consideration of what the money is spent on and why -- i.e., the human reasons for the transactions.

Oh, and read this the other day in regard to thrift:

"Thrift is an old-fashioned virtue that [Wendell] Berry encourages us to dust off...[But]it is not clear that our economy could sustain itself if the idea of thrift caught on. After all, growth is the criterion by which we measure the health of our economy. What if people began to live lives characterized by thrift?...The growth economy would suffer a serious shock. But doesn't this lead us to a troubling conclusion? The virtue of thrift (that is, attempting to favor saving and preserving over wasting) is contrary to an economy whose primary measure of health is growth. If our present economy depends on the absence of virtue, as Keynes suggested, then perhaps we need to take a serious look at the assumptions underlying our economic system. This is precisely what Berry asks us to do."

Mark T. Mitchell, The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, pp. 184-185

I can't help noting just as a humorous side note that in the other thread saving, when it is saving cash, has just been dismissed as stupid and deserving of real-world punishment in the way of currency devaluation. Currency "ought" to be kept in circulation at a particular velocity. I guess the only way to make this compatible with what Berry says is if one always saved in some commodity other than money, whatever that might be. Spices? String? A herd of beef cattle? If one buys equities, does that still count as thrift?

All of which is to say, I have some sympathy with the Mitchell quote. I'm just not sure that different critiques of a somewhat hardline Austrian approach (one, that it allegedly discourages thrift, the other, that it encourages people to save in a way deemed injurious and wrong-headed by monetarists) are compatible on this score.

Of course several of those quotations from von Mises--good digging--are completely wrong.

Yes, I am going to say that I fail to see how this even could be intrinsic to the nuts and bolts of a free enterprise system per se. Again, the government can and should outlaw the sale of goods and services that simply should not be on the market at all. Debating those will require, for the debate to have any force, a belief in objective truth in ethical matters, whether one refers to this as "absolute value of things" or whatever or not. It will be most convincing to argue that the sale of slaves should be outlawed if one argues that human beings are not at all the kind of things to be sold and that the slave trade is inherently immoral. This in no way tells us whether the government should charge a tariff on innocent widgets or how free our economy should be in the purchase and sale of bread and wine. Again, a free economy won't work well if men don't believe that lying is wrong, really wrong. But this does not tell us exactly how contract law can best be written. To a very large extent, economics is a practical, prudential, and empirical discipline and hence is about means-end rationality, like it or not.

"To a very large extent, economics is a practical, prudential, and empirical discipline and hence is about means-end rationality, like it or not."

I do not believe, however, that this justifies a looking at "means-end rationality" in a sort of compartmentalized isolation from the rest of what older thinkers would have called oikonomia. Nuts and bolts are important, but one cannot reduce the entire endeavor to them, or separate them out without paying attention to the teleology of economics in the broader sense. It seems to me that is what Austrian economics must eventually lead to if its understanding of human action is correct.

As far as thrift goes, I think that WB and other thinkers of an agrarian stripe would advise that we can begin saving by first of all being careful about wastefulness. It is a type of thrift which might spend a few more dollars on a better product that will last longer than on a cheaper one which is basically disposable. It is thrifty to get more bang for one's buck, but that bang doesn't necessarily have to be related to quantity.

And of course the most important thing one should own, if he's in a position to do so is real property -- land. See Weaver's chapter on private property in Ideas Have Consequences for the importance of real property for the conservative vision.

"The models of neoclassical economics collapse any distinction between needs and wants into demand, and construe human rationality as the most efficient instrumental means to satisfy the desires of definitionally maximizing individuals."

~~~Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation, pp. 17

Came across that quote this morning while reading the book. In a nutshell it explains why Mises' false understanding of human action subverts his economics. If his theory of action is true then there is no real distinction between needs and wants. The choice, economically speaking, to buy a loaf of bread for one's lunch is at root no different than the choice to buy a $500 purse or a $5000 wristwatch. Given Mises' understanding economic choice reduces to preference, because ultimately there is no difference between a want and a need.

If this is the case then there is no moral component to human action when related to acquisitiveness. As Gregory states, needs and wants are collapsed into "demand." The economic demand for bread is foundationally no different than the demand for luxury timepieces. Economics is thus shorn of its traditional moral facet, and it becomes impossible, even incoherent, to say that a person might want "too much." A person wants what he wants, and barring his intrusion into someone else's sphere of rights, he should be allowed to have it.

Of course this is no different from the social liberal's approach to sex. The "acquisition" of sex has no moral component other than the idea of consent, i.e., the avoidance of intrusion into the rights of others. This familial similarity is due to both having the same patrimony -- the modern exaltation of the autonomous human will.

Question, NM: Under what circumstances would it be important and wise as a matter of *economic policy* (that is, at the level of some governmental entity) to make much of the distinction between "mere wants" and "real needs"?

Supposing there to be such a distinction--and I agree with you that the distinction is valid--is it

a) so easy to make that distinction and

b) so important to economic policy to make that distinction at the level of policy

that people other than the person himself and those who have to deal with him privately _need_ to make that distinction for him?

Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that it's a very bad idea for government to be trying to, say, make really _needed_ items affordable or make "mere wants" hard to acquire.

I think you see where I'm going here. I'm inclined to think that the distinction between needs and wants isn't something that some policy-maker should be making on my behalf anyway. So if policy-makers conduct their economic decision-making without trying to make that distinction, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing.

In fact, ironically, that sort of gerrymandering can actually be so economically stupid and based on such misguided and blind principles that it accidentally makes really needed items harder to acquire by artificially created shortages.

I'd be opposed to most "top-down" policy proposals related to such decisions, other than those that might favor the small and local over the big and distant. If the government is going to grease the skids for someone (and it seems that there's no escaping that) it should be someone whose skids actually need the grease.

Other than that however, what I'd prefer to see is a bottom-up effort among conservatives to foster ideas and practices which counter consumerism, materialism, and acquisitiveness. In other words such notions as thrift, self-restraint, and a healthy self-reliance should be part and parcel of the conservative message, as opposed to those ideas which often cause us to be perceived as evangelists of acquisition, consumption and self-aggrandizement.

Insane Man Found in Washington D.C. -- Gives 2012 Jefferson Lecture.

http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-lecture

Hey Rob - he's still insane (and the award is from the Obama Administration).

Rob?

It is not given by the administration, but by the NEH. And check out that list of past presenters: it includes other such notable liberals/crazies as Walker Percy, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Tom Wolfe, Jaroslav Pelikan and Leon Kass!

"he's still insane"

"A time will come when the whole world will go mad. And to anyone who is sane they will say: 'You are mad, for you are not like us.'"
St. Anthony the Great

Yeah, that Obama Administration line was weaksauce, Jeff.

NM, I don't think Walker Percy and Jaroslav Pelikan were _presenting_ the award. After all, they're dead. They were past recipients. Does the fact that past recipients of the award were great and worthy writers mean that the present recipient is? I don't see why their names should be used in that way to bestow glory on all later recipients.

Paul, is that just a line? Is the present makeup of the NEH awards committee entirely unrelated to the present administration? I don't actually know, myself, and I don't intend to take the time to research the question, "How is the NEH committee that chooses the one who gives the Jefferson lecture composed?" I know that when Reagan was President we looked for him to appoint people to the National Endowment of Whatever in various areas. I usually assume that the present administration _is_ connected in some way with the present makeup of the NEA, NEH, etc. If you know this not to be true, I'll be happy to be educated. If not, I see no reason not to see a connection between the Obama administration and the NEH and, indirectly, with the NEH's decisions to make awards and give honors.

There's a highly enjoyable post with links to, you know, actual facts about the topics on which Mr. Berry prefers to use rhetoric. It's here:

http://imnotherzog.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/wendell-berry-is-still-insane/

I recommend the post. If people would like to discuss it, though, please post your comments there. That way the post author can have the fun of answering them on his own thread instead of my having to do so here.

Paul,

Stop on over to the blog post Lydia references -- there is a delightful link to an article about the current Chairman of the NEH who was indeed appointed by Obama. Perhaps I should have said, like the post at "ImNotHerzog" said, that the award was given by a vapid Obama bureaucrat. But you get the meaning.

Nice Marmot,

I just assumed you were Rob G. Sorry for the confusion. Please stop by the post Lydia references and comment over there -- dissent is welcome ;-)

Lydia, I meant "presenter" in the sense of presenter of the lecture: the lecturer/recipient iow.

A simple check on Wikipedia (see the list of recipients) will show that there does not appear to be a correlation between the recipient's political philosophy and the political party of the administration in power at the time. Liberals have been recipients under GOP administrations and conservatives under Democratic administrations. For instance, the liberal Sidney Hook shows up in 1984 (Reagan admin.), while the conservative Edward Shils receives it under Carter in 1979.

Mr. Singer's line was indeed weaksauce, as is usual among "conservative" critics of Berry, who tend to have either never read him, or have read him only cursorily. For an alternative and antidote to this superficiality, see the recent collection The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry published by (conservative) ISI Books.

Thanks for the invitation, Mr. Singer, but I'm actually trying to cut down on, rather than increase, my online controversializing.

NM, if the Carter administration is the most recent example you can find of a non-liberal making the speech under a Democrat administration, perhaps you need to update your ideas of Democrat administrations. And if the head of the NEH is indeed an Obama admin. appointee, and if he had anything to do with the matter, I think we need have no doubt that there is a causal connection between the ideology of the speaker and the ideology of the administration.

I too worry about the “dangers of corporate power” — which is why I tend to support free-market policies. Being in favor of market freedoms is often being opposed to big corporations who want to use the government to enforce their monopoly power or regulatory advantage or keep subsidies flowing. - Jeff Singer

You realize that Berry's speech was aimed primarily at corporate power, right? He was perhaps too dismissive of technological advancements, but his main critique is about the loss of control of property from the individual to corporate rapaciousness. Are you going to say your own worries are insane?

Lydia, all you need to do is go to Wikipedia and look at the list. The choices run the gamut no matter who's in the White House. Some of the choices aren't even "political" at all. Note that the Jefferson Lecture is a humanities lecture, not a political one, hence the appearance thereon of various poets, critics, fiction writers and historians.

"his main critique is about the loss of control of property from the individual to corporate rapaciousness. Are you going to say your own worries are insane?"

I hear you, Step 2, but you have to remember that to some of these people there is no such thing as "corporate rapaciousness." If the state would just leave the corporations alone, blah, blah, blah. Mr. Singer's "worries" touch on those of Berry's in a merely tangential manner, and it is in the areas where they don't touch that the libertarian-leaning WSJ types will find Berry's ideas crazy. Critique of corporate capitalism is incorrectly equated with a rejection of free markets per se, and is therefore verboten.

Also, there seems to be no difference in their thinking between corporate ownership and individual ownership. Private property is private property, and is an absolute right, no matter who owns it.

Also, there seems to be no difference in their thinking between corporate ownership and individual ownership. Private property is private property, and is an absolute right, no matter who owns it.

NM, I suggest that you take a look at the informative thread on my recent post concerning the Obama admin's proposed (now withdrawn) regulations on kids' working on their parents' farm. I found it extremely enlightening vis a vis the very sort of thing you are saying here. Guess what? A lot of what normal people (presumably including you) would think of as "family-owned farms" are, shocka!, corporations! They are either registered as LLCs or as some other type of corporation. Jeff Culbreath listed several of them. The Obama admin. made use there (as it has in other areas, such as in freedom of speech, as Tony is talking about in his recent post) of people's stereotypes of "corporation ownership" to attack the family farm! Yes, private property. Private property for which the owners--who are real, ordinary, individual people, not faceless (much less rapacious and evil) plutocrats--have found it useful to register the ownership in the name of a corporate legal entity.

Corporations are just a particular type of legal entity. They actually don't automatically have all of these properties that stereotypers like you want to give them. So y'know what: This distinction between corporate ownership and individual ownership about which people like you want to make such a big song and dance really _isn't_ that sharp and important of a distinction. Not in itself it isn't.

NM,

To add to what Lydia said, take Monsanto's abuses as an example. Nothing about their "corporateness" enables their abuses. Rather, it's patent law combined with contract law. All of their shenanigans with seeds is made possible by combining those two together. It would be entirely possible for a single scientist to make a similar seed product and use contract law to bind farmers in the same way.

Step 2,

You say, "You realize that Berry's speech was aimed primarily at corporate power, right?"

No. It. Wasn't. Please go to the "ImNotHerzog" post where you will find large sections of Berry's speech quoted to provide plenty of context. His speech was not about the dangers of corporate power. Berry thinks the entire profit system and industrialism itself are to blame for the "problems" he sees in his hallucinations at night. I won't countenance this nonsense anymore.

The line about the Obama Administration awarding the Jefferson Lecture? To be honest, I just wanted to direct everyone to Andy Ferguson's delightful take-down of Jim Leach (who was a former Republican is should be noted -- which just goes to show you that principled conservatives and Republicans aren't always the same creature!)

His speech was not about the dangers of corporate power.

His speech began with the story of a monopoly agribusiness nearly destroying his family's farm and the rest of his speech flowed from that premise. I don't know how much clearer he could be.

Berry thinks the entire profit system and industrialism itself are to blame for the "problems" he sees in his hallucinations at night.

No, he thinks the abstraction of everything into markets and statistics are to blame for very real problems, including the culture war aspects of familial affection and obligations you say you care about. Since he is an agrarian conservative and thus alien to everything you can imagine, I’ll go with some example more relevant (to you): 1). Wall Street nearly destroying itself and the global economy for a few points of interest on utterly toxic financial derivatives. 2). A desperate race to secure unsustainable energy supplies that indirectly contributed to the BP oil disaster and in geopolitical parlance, made Iraq a “strategically necessary” war. 3). Giving global trade a nearly sacramental status, to the detriment of entire segments of our national economy and landscape, while simultaneously giving countries with egregious human rights abuses a powerful economic lifeline.

The Obama admin. made use there (as it has in other areas, such as in freedom of speech, as Tony is talking about in his recent post) of people's stereotypes of "corporation ownership" to attack the family farm!

I don't know how safety regulations count as an "attack" on the family farm. I could just as easily say that it takes a certain callousness to treat the injuries and death of teen farm workers (including members of the farmer's family) as collateral damage from inadequate training and dangerous work conditions. It's mighty strange how liberals have shifted from being Nanny State busybodies to full tyrants who despise liberty, simply because it concerns work at a farm and not an industrial plant, a mine, or a service job.

Private property for which the owners--who are real, ordinary, individual people, not faceless (much less rapacious and evil) plutocrats--have found it useful to register the ownership in the name of a corporate legal entity.

Part of being a corporate legal entity is that it exists, as a matter of legal fact, as an artificial person created by the State. If the owners of a business find the privileges of incorporation to be "worth it", that should indicate they understand that they are necessarily constrained by it as well. It is, or rather it is supposed to be a trade-off.

When I talk about corporations, I'm talking about big ones. My father owned a small business and I've got no problems with them. Neither does Berry. The main problem is with scale, not the nature of the entity.

"he thinks the abstraction of everything into markets and statistics are to blame for very real problems, including the culture war aspects of familial affection"

Bingo. An observation, by the way, made by any number of conservatives over the past seven or eight decades.

Read Singer's piece on his blog. I have a feeling that if I started throwing that sort of spleen around on this site I'd be banned right quick. But hey, to each his own.

Singer needs to read the social justice encyclicals. Maybe we'll get condescending, vilifying open letters to the popes too.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/wendell-berry-modern-agrarian/

(Of course these aren't real conservatives, they're "paleo-liberals," but try to forget that for a millisecond while you read.)

Oh, and those who pooh-pooh agrarian environmental concerns may want to consult Roger Scruton's recent book on conservatism and conservation. He's somewhat more sanguine about the prospects of market solutions to environmental problems than I am, but at least he recognizes that there are problems. He's seen them himself in England. He even references Berry approvingly (gasp!) on several occasions.

Of course, due to this intellectual faux-pas we'll be told that he isn't a real conservative either. And so it goes.

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