One Ring to Rule Them All

I regard progressivism as basically a movement on behalf of Big Government in all walks of the economy and society…

-          Murray Rothbard

I have written here about how Christianity can play its part in moving toward a society better grounded in liberty.  To summarize: civil law should be aimed against violations of person and property – basically violations of the non-aggression principle (recognizing that’s application of this principle gets a bit tough at the edges); it is the role of other institutions – and, I argue, Christianity in the form of churches – to properly teach moral instruction.

Here, I will examine what I consider as the wrong means for Christians to achieve these ends – and a means by which much of the destruction of liberty that we have seen since the turn of the last century gained its force.  Christians offered Sauron the ring and then thought they could then control him.

World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals, by Murray Rothbard

This essay can also be found as Chapter 13 in The Progressive Era, written by Murray Rothbard and edited by Patrick Newman.  I will focus on one specific aspect of the essay, and that focus is best described as follows:

Also animating both groups of progressives was a postmillennial pietist Protestantism that had conquered "Yankee" areas of northern Protestantism by the 1830s and had impelled the pietists to use local, state, and finally federal governments to stamp out "sin," to make America and eventually the world holy, and thereby to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.

By “both groups,” Rothbard is writing of “a fusion or coalition between various groups of big businessmen, led by the House of Morgan, and rising groups of technocratic and statist intellectuals.”  These intellectuals include not just academicians, but “also all manner of opinion-molders in society — writers, journalists, preachers, scientists, activists of all sort — what Hayek calls ‘secondhand dealers in ideas.’”

For those unfamiliar with postmillennialism:

In Christian end-times theology (eschatology), postmillennialism…is an interpretation of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation which sees Christ's second coming as occurring after the "Millennium", a Golden Age in which Christian ethics prosper.

So, my focus will be on the role of these “postmillennial pietist Protestants” in using state power to advance their social agenda.  This would then hasten the Second Coming, as a thousand years of purity was required before Jesus would return.

It was this desire to harness state power as the means by which human beings can be made pure for Christ (I am gagging as I write these words) that made it possible for others to then use the state to usurp the traditional role of Christianity in society: that of being the moral teacher, that of helping the poor and disadvantaged, that of holding civil authority accountable.  And guess what?  While these others appreciated using the state as the means, they most certainly didn’t see Christian morality as the end.

With that, let’s look at Rothbard:

…I am convinced that the war [World War I] came to the United States as the "fulfillment," the culmination, the veritable apotheosis of progressivism in American life.

This is a powerful statement: it is in World War I where progressivism reached its fulfillment.  The ultimate ends, or purpose, of progressivism was to be found in this war – this war that Jacques Barzun and others describe as the suicide of the West, this war that was the fruit of killing God, as Nietzsche’s madman predicted and as Solzhenitsyn would later record.

Where is John Galt?

Who is John Galt?

-          Opening and oft-repeated line from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

No, the title is not a typo.

You all know the story: private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations; one man decides he will stop the engine of the world, wanting to be free from the business-stifling attitude of both government and society; he convinces other businessmen to join him in his strike; the economy comes to a halt.

Who are these titans of industry? 

John Galt: before going on strike, he was an engineer at Twentieth Century Motors.  He developed a motor that was powered by ambient static electricity.  He quit the company when the founder’s children decided “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”  The working model remained in stasis until well after the company went bankrupt.

Francisco d'Anconia: owner of the largest copper mining company in the world – until he purposely destroyed it, destroying the investments of hangers-on while also ensuring the company could not be exploited by these same leaches.

Ragnar Danneskjöld:  the pirate, stealing from government ships that which was taken in taxes from the producers of the world.  What he stole, he converted to gold and then delivered to those producers who joined the strike, returning what was previously stolen from the producers in taxes.

Henry "Hank" Rearden: the producer of an incredible metal – lighter and stronger and less expensive than any steel before it.

Dagny Taggert: the brains behind operating Taggert Transcontinental.

There were several other titans of industry that joined the strike: Calvin Atwood, Ken Danagger, Lawrence Hammond, Midas Mulligan, Ted Nielsen, Dwight Sanders, Andrew Stockton, and Ellis Wyatt.  Beyond these industrial giants are philosophers, composers, middle managers, jurists, and doctors.  All the best of the best, all joining the strike.  All men and women of integrity.  They brought the economy to a halt.

It really is a wonderful book, and despite her protestations, Ayn Rand probably led more people to something approaching libertarianism than any other person in the last century.  There is a great speech by Francisco d'Anconia on money; the story of what happened to Twentieth Century Motors when it implemented its maximum-socialist scheme is worth its weight in gold.

And then there is John Galt’s speech…fifty pages, as I recall.  You get the idea after a page or two, and I guarantee you that even if you revisit the book every five or ten years, you will never read the entire speech a second time.  But still, a good speech – it just could have been delivered in about 1,000 words.

How does the story end?  These striking titans of industry win, a new constitution is drafted, money is based on gold.  All is right for liberty and industry.

I offered the following in my recent post regarding the necessary role that Christianity must play if we are to have some kind of return to liberty:

“Can’t we just convince the people with our ideas?  The non-aggression principle and private property; these should be sufficient, and so easy to understand.”

There is no doubt that such education is necessary and beneficial.  But is it sufficient for liberty?  The simple answer is…no.  I will write something more on this topic in the coming days. 

“Yeah, but it worked in Atlas Shrugged.”  Many libertarians and free-market economists believe that this is sufficient for liberty – leave it to the market, rational self-interest will govern, the virtue of selfishness, no one wants to be burdened by undue regulation from the government.  How is that working out?

Where is John Galt?  Our titans of industry stand at the trough, slopping up the government largesse; they are the ones who write the regulations, ensuring that small businesses have no chance to meet the regulations; they cheer on the funny-money of central banking, knowing that it fuels their wealth while the ill-effects remain reasonably hidden from the masses.

Where is John Galt?  Where are these men and women of integrity, willing to work at a diner or as a track-worker instead of running the best industrial companies in the world?  Today’s titans care nothing for such things, claiming their trillions while the rest receive their pennies.

Where is John Galt?  Are they going on strike at all, let alone in sufficient numbers to stop the machine?  Or do they threaten the rest of us with another end-of-the-world scenario every time their net worth takes a hit?

Where is John Galt?  If ideas are sufficient to set things straight, then isn’t Galt’s speech sufficient to convince (well, maybe shorter, but it’s what I’ve got to work with)?

Where is John Galt?  If he strikes, don’t you think there will be twenty others ready, not to join him, but to take his place?

Conclusion

“Can’t we just convince people with our ideas?”  Just who are we going to convince?  The characters of our “Atlas Shrugged” are more like James Taggart than Dagny, Lillian Rearden than Hank, and Dr. Robert Stadler than Hugh Akston. 

Wesley Mouch is today’s rainmaker; Bertram Scudder writes for our own New York Times; Claude Slagenhop sponsors Greta on her world tour.  And Horace Bussby Mowen epitomizes today’s industrialist.

There are no men and women of integrity, ready to go on strike instead of putting up with the largesse of the state; our titans live off of that largesse.  Who holds such people accountable?  We know it isn’t the state and we know it isn’t markets – such as they are. 

Unless and until Christianity plays its proper role – and I grant, that may be a bigger ask than waiting for John Galt, given what we know of many Christian leaders today (even before shutting down for Holy Week) – I find little reason to expect that the state will at all shrink in its role.

It stinks, I know.  But there it is.

The Parts We Don’t Like

I have an “ask” at the end of this post, and will appreciate any feedback.

A few months ago, I decided to read the Bible all the way through, from beginning to end.  As familiar as I am with some parts of the Bible, I have never read it all the way through before and there are many parts I have likely never read.

I think we can all say that it’s pretty exciting until the middle of Exodus, then it becomes a slog for quite awhile before getting to some more interesting reading again.  But what I am after in this post is the genocidal-type stuff: things like God said to slaughter them all, and God took displeasure if the Israelites didn’t obey this edict.

I have written something on my thoughts about this before; instead of coming up with some new way to say it, I will just copy and paste:

To properly understand this book and the time, I will be walking on some difficult terrain, especially when it comes to the Israelites and aspects of the Jewish tradition beyond that which pointed to Jesus.  I am not trying to understand or develop theology when I note the history: there is much of Old Testament Jewish history prior to the times of the prophets that is greatly similar to all Middle Eastern cultures of the time: wars, territories conquering and conquered, massacres, slavery, dislocation, etc., etc., etc.

Why do I point this out?  The Old Testament, absent that which points to Jesus, can be a history about any of the tribes and gods in the Middle East of the time.  Change the names and the victors, and it is the same story: my god is bigger than your god; god will lead us to victory in battle; god, why have you forsaken your people; god, why have you abandoned us?

In the beginning was the Word.  The Word became flesh.  This is unique.  In the Old Testament, it is what points to this Word that is unique – unique vs. other Middle Eastern religions and unique, to my knowledge, among any of the major religions around the world.  Without the Word, it is just tribes doing battle and hoping that my god is stronger than your god.

Jesus summarized the law with two commandments: Love the Lord your God; love your neighbor as yourself.  On the surface (and maybe deeper), this is quite contrary to much of what we read in the Old Testament.

I will add: while I have not yet made it to the time of the exile in my reading, from my recollection (and also from reading The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, by Karen Armstrong), my sense is that the story changes significantly – the relationship of God to man starts moving toward what Christians see in Jesus and the Apostle Paul.  Maybe I am wrong about this, but this is somewhat secondary for now.

So, why am I writing this?  I am certain that the early church fathers and many since then have dealt with this question of what clearly are recounted as genocidal stories.  How do these fit into an understanding of proper Christianity?

So, I ask for any references to serious apologists on this matter.

We Are Born Sinners

Romans 3: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

If I was to describe to you the hodge-podge of Christian influences that have resulted in my understanding to date, half of you would say “no wonder he sounds so confused,” while the other half would say “it is truly a miracle that he makes any sense at all.”  Well, this post should satisfy both sides….

The idea of Original Sin is difficult for many to accept.  In brief:

Original sin, also called ancestral sin, is a Christian belief in a state of sin in which humanity has existed since the fall of man, stemming from Adam and Eve's rebellion in Eden, namely the sin of disobedience in consuming the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Further:

Original sin, in Christian doctrine, the condition or state of sin into which each human being is born; also, the origin (i.e., the cause, or source) of this state. Traditionally, the origin has been ascribed to the sin of the first man, Adam, who disobeyed God in eating the forbidden fruit (of knowledge of good and evil) and, in consequence, transmitted his sin and guilt by heredity to his descendants.

Depending on your point of view, Original Sin can be something rather insignificant or can mean total depravity (another loaded phrase, but not the subject for today).

Despite its importance for understanding Jesus’ sacrifice, the doctrine of original sin has been minimized since the European Enlightenment.

What is this relationship of Original Sin to the Enlightenment?  Perhaps it is as simple as seeing the myriad utopian schemes for the perfectibility of man that have been born from this age of so-called reason. 

From communism (you will be perfect, under penalty of death), to National Socialism (our people are perfect, the rest will suffer the penalty of death), to liberalism (you will have perfect liberty, and you will accept it or risk punishment up to, and including, death), to progressivism (science will make you perfect, even if it kills you) to cultural Marxism (some are perfect, the rest are deplorable and deserving of death), to post-modernism (all of these schemes for perfection are nonsense; there is no such thing as truth, so how can there be perfection?  You might as well kill yourself).

After that list (and tell me that my descriptions are wrong…), the Apostle Paul doesn’t sound so bad, does he, when he writes (citing from the Hebrew Scriptures):

Signposts

That's the signpost up ahead—your next stop, the Twilight Zone!

-          Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone

Call it QE to infinity, modern monetary theory, magic monetary theory (H/T Zerohedge), whatever.  Goldman Sachs has come out with a report; the Zerhohedge headline reads: Goldman Spots A Huge Problem For The Fed.

Ya think?

To summarize, the inflation of the Fed’s (and every other major central bank’s) balance sheet cannot end, as the volume of required Treasury purchases is overwhelming and will continue to overwhelm the market.

My working thesis regarding this corona hysteria is, and has been from the beginning, that financial markets were past the point of requiring a bailout.  I have seen noithing that has caused me to change my view, and this Zerohedge piece fully supports it.

The first signposts were last fall when the overnight repo market interest rate hit 10% - meaning banks were not willing or not able to lend overnight to other banks.  The Fed stepped in to settle things down, eventually.

The corona gave the pretext for what had to happen in any case: the financial system required bailouts to avoid illiquidity and insolvency.  The Fed and its supporters knew that the people wouldn’t go for this scam again (recall the overwhelming pushback in 2008 / 2009), so they needed to do something to scare the hell out of everyone.  Climate change was way too far out in the future – not personal enough.  Enter the corona.

Now this doesn’t mean that there aren't other objectives or agendas.  Forced vaccines, your papers, please, etc.  I can think of a hundred possibilities – so, it is a target-rich environment.  For those who never want to let a crisis go to waste, well, this is Christmas, New Year’s Day, winning the mega-millions lottery, and a twenty-first birthday all rolled into one.

So, what does all of this have to do with the Zerohedge article?  The last few paragraphs tell the story:

"Can governments continue to borrow at such record levels? No," said George Boubouras, head of research at hedge fund K2 Asset Management. "Central-bank support is key in the massive bond buying we’ve seen for now. But if they blink then at some point, in the medium term, it will all likely unravel - with unforgiving consequences for some countries."

Ironically, this also means that an end to the coronavirus crisis is the worst possible thing that could happen to a world that is now habituated to helicopter money and virtually unlimited handouts, which however need a state of perpetual crisis.

"Once there is an end to the crisis in sight, they will be less and less willing to provide support and it will fall more on the street to absorb paper," said Mediolanum money manager Charles Diebel, who’s adding bond steepeners in anticipation of a coming inflationary supernova.

They “will be less and less willing to provide support,” only without a pretext.  Hence, they need an ongoing pretext:

That, incidentally, would be the endgame for the current monetary regime, which is why anyone hoping that officials, policymakers and the establishment in general, will allow the coronavirus crisis to simply fade away, is in for the shock of a lifetime.

Read the last paragraph twice.

If it takes keeping half of the working class in the developed world unemployed (while sending the occasional $1200 check), so be it.  And if it takes a few million or tens-of-millions of hunger-related deaths in the more poverty-stricken regions of the world, no problem.  At the cost of a few hundred billion dollars and a few tens-of-millions dead, the bailouts to the financial system are in the multi-trillions.

Conclusion

So, I expect we are certain to face a second and third wave, or maybe the virus (or whatever it is) will morph into something else, or whatever.  They have already moved the goalposts at least once: from “flattening the curve” to “finding a vaccine.”  They will move the goalposts as often as necessary and as long as they can get away with it.

We are likely facing perpetual crisis mode until a major economic and financial reset is forced upon the inhabitants of planet earth.