Why The Christian Right Should Abandon Austrian Economics
Libertarian economic precepts are not compatible with a Christian society
Intro: It’s All So Tiresome
One issue I have been chomping at the bit to expand upon when it comes to the right is their entire economic milieu being made of precepts that act in complete contradiction to their righteous indignation on social and spiritual topics. If there is no evolution from this incongruent acquaintance to Austrian Economics, then the future of any hopeful post-liberal movement will fall flat.
How can one believe in the sacramental value of the employee’s contribution to his community and country if their assumption is that the ownership of production is in the hands of the capitalist? This isn’t something they advocate for, but rather it is the objective truth. Selfishness is good! Competition and all that!
Or what about their anti-statist fixation — that all the economy’s money supply must be in the hands of private commercial banks (known as free banking) allowed to charge interest rates that put the poor through the wringer?
How can one truly believe in the prescriptive power of Christian tenets if all power and capital must be selfishly left in the hands of a few?
Once again, we have an issue with the right’s inability to properly order its understanding of “is” and “ought.” There is a lack of imagination. Corporations are greedy and destructive to Christian society. The economic, social, and cultural systems in our society, from childhood to adulthood, is designed to make us into consumers. There is no incentive to be a good Christian. There is no incentive to start a family. There is no incentive to be charitable and loving. The incentive is to obtain as many certifications as possible, and become a reliable serf owing fealty to some corporation.
The right’s answer to this is that it would all be solved if we just gave these corporations more reason to be at each other’s throats, more reason to blackball its employees without repercussion, and model our society after high-functioning psychopaths who’d sell their grandma if it allowed their stock price to move up a quarter of a percent.
We will explore the discontinuity of the American right, and why they don’t really offer any arguments for constructing a post-liberal, Christian paradigm. They instead are stuck in worshipping their 19th century economic idols and remaining righteously indignant. They could be making a lot more friends, and improving society, if they just realized - Christian principles and Catholic social teachings can and must be applied to the economy and broader society. Yes, at the behest of rich men’s bottom dollar.
Let’s start with a real misunderstanding. Money.
What’s Money?
Then the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to insnare him in his speech. And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker and teachest the way of God in truth. Neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. Tell us therefore what dost thou think? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the coin of the tribute. And they offered him a penny. And Jesus saith to them: Whose image and inscription is this? They say to him: Caesar's. Then he saith to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God, the things that are God's. And hearing this, they wondered and, leaving him, went their ways.
Matthew 22:15-22
This is one of those many verses that are played down or up depending on who you are talking to. As someone who used to be a pretty passionate libertarian who was also indignant of Keynesians, Marxists, whoever else - I thought that such topics were solved by the many Jewish and Protestant thinkers of the 20th century who acted in reaction to the outdated teachings of the classical economists. Ironically, the truth of their econometric inquiries into the nature of money were solved with just eight verses from the Good Book.
What does Christ mean when he so blatantly tells the Pharisees to give to Caesar what is his, to God what is His? Well so plainly, the Word reveals the truth of money! The only possible way a money can achieve some level of constant value, legitimacy in that value, and regulations to keep it from being devalued is to be propped up by the state. Regardless of the material of what the currency be comprised, the fact it represents the word of a respected state, and has an artificial scarcity that is very close to impossible to expand in a way that is disastrous, the currency is still money. On top of that, you can trust the state. If you can’t, then you don’t have a functioning complex society. If you have to put your trust in robber baron, wild west banks who will charge you insane interest rates and fees to take out a few dollars — you’re not living in a functioning, moral society.
If fiat money was so cheap, the alternatives would emerge. They would be so blatant. The history of man, however, has shown every single money that was worth anything had the stamp of a Caesar on it. No more. No less. Specifically, the stamp of the Caesar, not just any. The US has a special position here being it has the ultimate Caesarian stamp of approval.
When you use your bank deposits or fiat cash to buy a coffee, you are entrusting that the face of Caesar Lincoln will buy you that caffeine. Even then, in the case of the bank deposits on your ATM card, or the credit (essentially bank deposits) on your credit card, the soul of the state’s power ultimately backs that currency. It stands on the shoulders of state-backed commercial banks, the power of microchips, and the federal government of the United States.
The unfortunate fact is that the new right, modern right, dissident right, whatever you want to call them (I think “peripheral right” is actually quite fitting and uncringe) has internalized the economics of its enemy. In taking the economics of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Sowell (not knocking on any of these guys’ characters, btw), they have misinterpreted the place of money. It is a function of the state. It lives and dies with state legitimacy; especially in modernity. They instead see it as this untamed beast; something that is being abused by the state, and must be let free. That if the state would just shove off, their precious economy could be solved by a gold, bitcoin, or monero standard.
It’s almost like they haven’t studied history, and their entire economic historiographical belief system is taken from an array of 20th century economists (and Peter Schiff). They can do their best to apologize for the brief era of free banking, but nothing will play down the entire history of civilized humanity that functioned on an expandable money supply when the time came.
It’s as if their way of thinking is still neocon. Still based upon the same lies sold to them. To keep them from actually revolting against the faults of social liberalism, and focus more on their wallet. That’s what America is about right!? Your wallet!
And they’re willing to acquiesce to these lies than to dialectically advance. Seeing history as some kind of oppression from government (when that tale is convenient) is utterly Whiggist from beginning to end. The fact is money’s function in a complex economy and society is based on the state’s strength and regulation. Not on a bunch of 130 IQ autists coming together and all agreeing, “Yes! Gold is money, and nothing else!”
Why do they agree to a mantra that is clearly used by libertarians as a coping mechanism for why money should be limited? The logical conclusion of believing in hard money as real money is that the state will become a small part of society (never happens in civilized societies), and that if the cards were just right enough, people could live in their Hoppean Liechtenstein anarcho-capitalist fantasy far away from any state oppression. All this cloaked libertarian spiel does is reveal an internalized falsity accepted by the right that is used as a go-to rhetorical mechanism for dispelling any reality of using the state as an actor for good. It says a lot about their learned helplessness. They would rather obey what is essentially armchair philosophy with fancy numbers and formulas.
Those acting in defiance to the current regime do not seriously want to offer alternatives if they’re spiel is built upon a foundation of libertarian lies. All standing by this economic model (idol) does is act as a cozy entity to shift blame onto. “Ah! No need to cover the issue of what to do with the welfare state, the healthcare system, drug epidemic, millions of illegals living in the US, the breakup of the family, or the entire global economic paradigm! It’ll all be solved by the free market, and removing everything the former regime put in place to help this machine function!”
Easier said than done when you don’t have to deal with logistics (or families destroyed by your reckless policies). Fact is, paleolibertarianism (libertarianism disguised as actually having conservative principles) is a cozy rhetorical saferoom, but even though the right speaks a lot about “pipelines” it never seemed to evolve past Thomas Sowell and Murray Rothbard. Socially speaking, its prescriptions range from, “Just let people do what they want!” to “NIMBY.” Both lazy and disastrous answers.
The fact is, the state does have a monopoly on money - just as it does on violence. This is nothing new. In fact, as technology has progressed, we have the ability for money to be controlled to prevent disastrous inflation, and to actually benefit people. Commercial banks are outdated (like they always were). Who needs an economy of usury? What is the benefit to hogging all the capital, and then not having anything to raise the poor from poverty and immorality? The issue of decaying cities, increasing crime, and the disastrous welfare cycle are not just solved by throwing up our hands and expecting the free market to solve it all. We have a duty to those in despair. We have a duty to those who haven’t yet been evangelized to, or those unproperly catechized. We have a duty to those who have been unfairly treated by the system, and whose only culture is one of self-pity and self-preservation.
If your answer to these flagrant moral crimes is to kick these people (most Americans) to the side, then you don’t want to live in a proper society. This is the equivalent of a toddler crossing its arms and yelling, “No!” when it doesn’t want to clean up its toys. Capital is not to hold onto, but to share. If a factory worker gets paid $15/hr, has no ability to bargain for better working conditions, has to face potential health deficits that could be avoided, and simply can’t raise his family, then the answer is to give him $30/hr, safer working conditions, and provide him healthcare when needed (though society could do better to ban foods and beverages that contribute to ill health). Less money goes to the top dogs, but what do you have? A society of well-paid, proud men who can raise a family and own a home.
This is how literally any functioning Christian society would operate.
The Value Of Labor
All the days of his life he eateth in darkness, and in many cares, and in misery, and sorrow. This therefore hath seemed good to me, that a man should eat and drink, and enjoy the fruit of his labour, wherewith he hath laboured under the sun, all the days of his life, which God hath given him: and this is his portion. And every man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to enjoy his portion, and to rejoice of his labour: this is the gift of God. For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God entertaineth his heart with delight.
Ecclesiastes 5:16-19
Does every man, woman, and child’s future have to be sold to China before the right realizes that labor is the source of value? Why is this something that is up for debate? Your nation is being strip mined by secular capitalists who don’t have any care for the longevity or quality of your state, and your only answer is to leave it up to the market. This sounds like an internalization of the most deep-seated of liberalisms. I’m sorry, but man is not an organism that functions independently. He is not an entity that shifts and shapes his own future depending on what he wants. He is foremost a servant of the Lord, and a friend to Christ. Anything else, he is acting in rebellion. Value is not determined by the market, but is something spiritual.
So why is it the precepts of the capitalist dogma are front and center before anything else? It is that Christianity has been redefined for many. It is a personal business venture for an individual to “have a personal relationship.” Their relationship with their Creator has nothing to do with the structure of society. Therefore, the results of society are due to not the state and media being flagrantly immoral, but that the state ought to have less of a presence in society. The modern Christian American, for the most part, is ecclesiastically atomized. Their owed duty to help the poor and be a neighbor is overshadowed by their overwhelming belief that man is an individual who must be left alone to figure his own way out of the darkness.
The issue with this line of thinking is that nothing ever improves from square one. The pioneer mindset is not a real milieu to spawn order and morality from. The rightist has come to the conclusion that the business of others be kept to themselves, as the efficiency of the market will configure the most righteous outcomes. Except that is never the case. The government will grow from the soil it has been sowed. Therefore, the symptoms within society will stem from the agency given to them. The government has prioritized society to benefit its state corporations, and will do everything in its power to maintain that level of efficiency. That is what it is created to do. No society will maximize freedom for the sake of it as it is completely antithetical to order. Thus, a secular society will prioritize everything inoffensive to the consumer, and everything beneficial to the corporation that maximizes pleasure and order.
Even in the situation of the devolvement of the federal government, and the instatement of confederal or independent societies within the geography of the current United states, the logical end of this experiment is the same as it was before. It would be about efficiency of whatever independent state rose to prominence through its ability to use coercion and power to its benefit. There is no libertarian mechanism - no freedom-oriented, orderly system - that will burst out of the milieu of liberalism. There must be a state-sanctioned system that economically benefits as many people as possible so as to maintain Christian precepts, and not secularist, liberal ones.
This is why the system mustn’t be built on a free-for-all. It must bear fruit for those, either cursed or blessed to be betrothed this undefinable united nation made for you and me. The economy won’t be something reckoning back to a bygone era of robber barons and free banking. This is a fallacy - one of promising the future be something of an idealistic past. Rather, the way forward is to ensure that those who are in poverty are lifted out of it through welfare systems that don’t feed their desires, but push them to live Christian lives. What is the current rightist solution? Figure it out on your own or get the hell out? Honestly, how is this a Christian answer? The issue of unemployment, drug addiction, depression, and several down-trodden peoples within this country won’t be resolved by the smirk of some cynical statesmen as he tells them, “Figure it out yourself!”
We have a duty to be righteous as Christians. If we won’t do it, nobody else will.
Land (And Pagan Conceptions Of Realpolitik)
Charge the rich of this world not to be highminded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, (who giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy,) To do good, to be rich in good works, to give easily, to communicate to others, To lay up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the true life.
1 Timothy 6:17-19
Regardless of the scale, a Christian society should prioritize charity, almsgiving, and love of one’s neighbor. Society cannot be modeled off of a game of king of the hill. As we have seen throughout history, society managed well when the responsibility of the peasants to the king of paying taxes and not being buggers, and the responsibility of the king to ensure the communally owned lands (commons) were left alone.
What many a rightist desire is a properly functioning society. But how does society function with an inherent mode of oppression and prejudice? Doesn’t seem very kingly. That fact of the matter is many are just too cynical to take on the responsibility of society prioritizing sharing because we haven’t been brought up with Christian morals. At best, we’re brought up with inconsequential morality, but the forbearing moral priority is ignorance to those we must help, and castigation of those who are in power. The right is misanthropic at its core. They’re in such disbelief of how a good society can only exist with good men that they are incredulous to any solution, and castigatory of any edict that puts the onus on them to be good.
Now that they have expelled the tired concept of, “Leave me alone!”, they are going full pagan - even if they aren’t cognizant of it. They have fixated on who their enemy is, and how they must, with a stroke of Machiavellian genius, tear through the elite’s power core and harness their energy for the betterment of their people. A people undefined (well, normally “white” people, but I’ve already covered that).
Their lack of answers, and knee-jerk hatred leads to scapegoats they can shift blame onto. It is much like the human sacrifices of pagan tribes who would put all the blame onto one person, and in sacrifice, upend the curses and demons haunting the tribe. However, this is never the case, and the purity spiraling will become disastrous at any point the situation becomes dire.
The answer is quite plain to see, for if you give back to society, and trust is restored, ethnos and culture take a backseat to the Logos. We are made equal under Christ. All are to be forgiven seventy times seven times (Matthew 18:22) as they are reformable in a society where disputes solved by Christ’s coming are resolved. The only reason they wouldn’t be is the society in question no longer kneels to Christ as it should. The way forward is not greed and castigation, but charity and forgiveness. It is evangelization. It is good optics (without conceding to the evils of the enemy). It is a pagan misconception that somehow we are still indebted to a “race.” It is a heretical misconception to believe that some races are lesser and not able to obtain salvation.
This all being said, the motivator here acting in good faith as a Christian is to not engage the enemy as if you are after the same ends of corporate malfeasance, and governmental misanthropy, but better yet you are agreeing with all of the good things you want to achieve in common. It’s just you will do it better because you are acting for the salvation of all mankind - giving opportunities to everyone, and not castigating those by race, because race is irrelevant to the potential functionality of a nation. Ethnos is behind language and Logos. It is the nation’s duty to help those in need, and not to castigate or shift blame onto them. We all speak of the current priest and merchant classes, well act as if you want to offer better priests and merchants!
The biggest sense of indignation and greed that has manifested in the projection of the right is their conception of property and land. Simply, it harkens back to when King Henry VIII stole all the land from the Catholic Church and handed it all over to his buddies. As the invention of the middle class and the destruction of the commons, concepts of land as property, and property as exclusive and private, began to take hold on European consciousness. By the time America came around, as a materialization of that “Every man a king” spirit, the telos became the increase of wealth for the individual at the expense of whoever or whatever the cost. And as spoken about here, we can come to the conclusion the end of the commons was a domino effect that led to the transition of the power of land to capital. Land became all but a way for speculators and usurers to take advantage of the poor, rather than leave them to their simple lives.
The last thing any serious cultural and political movement can do is treat those that they, if gained power, have a duty to protect and raise up - treat them like dirt and told to figure it out on their own. Sounds like a cope. Sounds like the same mistakes this nation has made over and over and expected people to just acquiesce. When they didn’t, they were sedated and put on welfare.
Property should be focused on bringing the light of God in a community. If it must be at the expense of the owner’s selfishness then sobeit. The state of the modern urban center and town in this country is a prime example of misuse of land at the expense of the good of the community and spiritual growth of people. Usurious businesses everywhere — in cities that are not planned for the sake of the community but for the ease of growing more service and office jobs. This growing until the infrastructure is in unmanageable decline. All society has become disposable, and this is the exact outcome of a society that has an inverted sense of the here and now. It treats the present as something to cast away for the next bit of dopamine. It is a vacuum of meaning. At some point, the amount of unmaintainable infrastructure will turn society into a bunch of technicians rather than creators. Skills will be about fixing what is always broken, and never being able to allow society to focus on models that function better for the whole in glory to God. Imagine the stroads, suburbs, and anti-human city layouts that aren’t reformed to something friendly to the human person, but rather perpetually maintained until there is no one left to keep them around.
What is the right’s answer? The only answer I’ve gotten from right-wing media, whether the peripheral right or mainstream right, is beating the dead free market horse, or blabbering about government incompetence. They all seem to universally shoot down anything the left has to offer - which are generally answers which the right lacks.
A Serious Movement For The Future
It will look like one that knows how to guide the monstrously large Leviathan of a government that has been turned into a maze of bureaucracy to a government that does not impede the lifting up of the poor through via college debt, credit card debt, the management of land, rural and urban, for the betterment of the community. This movement will realize education must have a religious milieu with the focus of learning to guide the child towards the skill they’re born to master. It will be one that focuses on mending racial divides through evangelization.
The rot of society can be put plain and simple: There is a disregard for the quality of Americans’ spiritual life, and in a fight to regain identity and hasten to solve all the problems, most people are tripping over themselves trying to answer everything within their human spirit, and not the Holy one. In defiance to the basic teachings Christ brought to us, it makes one wonder if we actually started applying this in the stead of sold-out conservative movements, the movement towards Good would be a piece of cake.
Some these that would be good for elaboration:
Skill exchanges in place of schools.
Welfare (In this case, actual charity) that works based off of incentives and stringent regulation.
Prioritizing a living wage for working America to encourage the creation of families.
Inhibit the growth of usurious business models and interest rates that wreck people’s lives and provide no way for people to be made whole.
Repairing race relations by evangelizing; shifting the blame off of race but onto the disappearance of Logos from our societal heart.
The LGBT issue be resolved through considerate dialogue. Once again, the degenerate development in society is not something to damn and disregard but to actively engage with love and charity. There is another way (Christ).
Treating land not as something to strip of its resources and earning potential, or a place that no one is allowed to trod upon except thyself. Rather, treat it as the owed fealty to your community, as it is the Lord’s. You never really own anything. It is God’s property to either use for good or not. We are ordered to be like Christ — to give everything up for the other.
There’s a lot I haven’t covered here like digging further into what property should be, how skill exchanges may work, digging further into the mending of race relations, and probably more to talk about in relation to economic theory (mostly a waste of time). There’s much to cover, but even though this was longer than usual, I hope it can act as a starting point for how the Christians of the right might start rejiggering their priorities towards the Logos. The answer is not to make idols of capital and the precepts of the magician economists they idolize. You either realize the duty to be good, or fall away into your own selfish interpretation of what must be done.
“The foremost duty, therefore, of the rulers of the State should be to make sure that the laws and institutions, the general character and administration of the commonwealth, shall be such as of themselves to realize public well-being and private prosperity. This is the proper scope of wise statesmanship and is the work of the rulers.”
Pope Leo XIII, an excerpt from Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891)
Austrian Economics is a diversion. It is useless with the exception of some of their entrepreneurial work, only leads us away from any meaningful ability for anyone to assign value.
Competing currencies, foreign currencies, and barter are all historically normal. I would be embarrassed to have made this post.
And I say this as someone who supports a Catholic corporatist economy.