I’m often criticized by those who worship gold for including quotes from the Bible and speaking in terms of the Creator when presenting economic ideas. I’m accused of not having reason and using faith in the Bible as the basis of my economic beliefs, when the opposite is true.
I consider myself to be an agnostic. There are things I recognize to be complex beyond conventional logic and understanding of the physical world, such as self-awareness, which leads me to conclude that it is impossible for me to understand everything, and it is being intellectually honest to say I do not know the full truth of the world. I believe it is impossible to know absolute truth. However, I can make reasonable attempts to better understand things about the world, with the awareness I could be completely wrong about something. That is the scientific method.
I am a man of science in the Age of Reason. I use observation and critical thinking skills to determine what is right and wrong, recognizing the risks and limitations of applying such beliefs, and am willing to reject and adjust my own political beliefs if there is sufficient evidence to do so. That is why I fly the flag of Benjamin Franklin, a man of science, to bring about a union from the Left and the Right.
After I stopped reading propaganda from the Austrian School of Economics, started to independently think about economics, and reached my own independent conclusions, I searched to find who else reached the same conclusions. In that search I found the Bible agrees with me. That was quite a surprise to me considering the churches never taught economics, and most people who claim to believe in the Bible do not believe as the Bible says when it comes to economics.
The Bible is fully against taxation of labor and real capital. The Bible is against owning land and believes the land owner should pay rent to the community. The Bible is also against interest-bearing money and the institutions of usury.
I also found many who believed this way throughout history, from Chief Seattle, the Founding Fathers, and J.S. Mill to Thomas Edison, Einstein, Milton Friedman, and Winston Churchill. It was looking like a universal economic theory if infidels, men of science, and the Bible were in agreement.
Thomas Paine was one of those who believed this way. Thomas Paine also had strong criticism of the church. Many believed he was an atheist, but really he was against what churches did or in the case of teaching economics, did not do.
Today, there are many people who claim to be atheist who believe in the economics of the Bible, who believe in the principles of classical liberalism and Georgism. They just happen to reach the same conclusions as independent thinkers.
Henry George himself did not rely on scripture to demonstrate his theories. He observed and just happened to reach the same conclusions. Then, he was able to demonstrate his conclusions in clear language without having to use the words of the Bible or of others who also believed the way he did.
I have my doubts about the Bible, that it is just a book written by men. It might have divine inspiration. It might be ordained by God. It might have gained in popularity just because the men who wrote it were just right about the world. Nonetheless, to find the Bible reached such economic conclusions gives me comfort that I’m in good company considering the popularity of the book. It also gives me hope that if the Bible is divine or ordained by God, that God is perhaps not a tyrant (Lord Acton’s proverb indicates God is corrupt absolutely), and that heaven just might be the promised land of a fair and just political economy, where political economy is not dismal but serves men with a productive and agreeable common sense.
The economics of the Bible is not taught in churches. The economics of the best-selling and self-published American economist, Henry George, is not taught in schools. The economics of classical liberalism and Georgism are not taught on television, nor with any significant funding in other media to even be noticed. The only chance you have to be introduced to this knowledge is to stumble across the rantings of a blog like this or to have discovered it yourself through independent thinking and independent reading. That is why this agnostic writer appears to be on a mission from God, to inform the faithful and infidels alike, that the Bible supports Georgist political economy, whether divine and ordained by God or not, whether a mission of David against Goliath or a Mission Impossible. It is my duty to inform others of my observations, whether from God or not.
Great mission statement.
Here’s mine:
http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/the-goal-of-monetary-reform/
Great blog Keith! Happy to have found it.
you see the same thing i see, and i like how you express the austerity vs. spending debate as a false paradigm where the common ground of the problem is interest, especially the interest we pay in income taxes to the aristocrats who hold treasury bonds. freeing up the trillions in treasury bonds would create a lot of private sector of investment. i don’t think you’d have a lack of financial capital. we’d have an excess of it available.
the only problem i have with what you say is that you bother with the whole zionism conspiracy thing. i see it as an irrelevant distraction that can only hurt your speaking out against economic injustice.
Thanks Keith,
I agree we wouldn’t have a lack of capital. It’s just very pleasant to know we don’t need any of it. The poor don’t have capital: 50% of Americans have zero assets. Even they could start over, if they wanted or knew how.
About the conspiracy thing: I relate to it.
But my main aim is the Money Power and usury. Normally I keep it at that. But Makow is a little more direct and I don’t mind facilitating him. There are also wider issues and I can’t help myself from hinting at them also at times.
Be that as it may: this is a leaderless resistance and I’m happy to meet people who are into this basically all important subject.