Despite the title of the book, write Mark R. Crovelli, Archbishop Chaput leaves the reader without any argument as to why the state has a right to rule over us, why we have a moral obligation to submit to such domination, or why the state possesses the moral authority to extract money from us at the point of a gun. Put in even simpler terms, Archbishop Chaput offers no compelling arguments against those of us who happen to be, in Jerome Tuccille’s words, “sane, moderate, middle-of-the-road anarchist[s].” FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/8454/what-belongs-to-caesar/
What Belongs to Caesar?
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Nick Gray
“BWM- My dictionary defines a revolution as a change of government. King George III stayed on as Monarch of Great Britain. The style of British government didn’t change.”
That’s why it’s the American Revolution (whose government changed) and not the British Revolution (whose government didn’t change).
Peter
“It doesn’t. Why would it? Why do you think it might?”
Because that’s what I take Stanley as saying. I agree with you that it wouldn’t.
YOUR PROTECTION AGENCY has the right to search your house, etc., because YOU GRANT IT THAT RIGHT when you contract with it for protection. Nobody can coerce you to appear in court – they can try you in absentia if you prefer. If convicted, your protection agency can cooperate in enforcing judgement against you…or not.”
Exactly; no justice. We have to hope that the businesses people hire decide to punish their own customers (who then stop paying them). Furthermore, I simply wouldn’t have a protection agency then, as I’m sure many people would elect to do. That way, we could bring case to court against people who DO, but would be immune ourselves. BTW, how would we sue, say, a protection agency for excessive damage to our property? The market might regulate them over the long term, but the market isn’t going to pay me for damages to my property or to me (insurance will likely cover alot of it, I know).
This where I feel some libertarians confuse the self-regulation of market with perfection; the self-regulation means bad businesses will die, but there will ALWAYS be bad, lying, cheating businesses, and the victims should get more redress than “Hey, they went bankrupt, aren’t you happy?”
“3- To everybody.
Stanley Pinchak (and others that i have seen elsewhere) seems to talk of free market and then of the market, as if they where one and only one thing, so my question is: is there a difference between «market» and «free market»?
Or put in other words: are all the markets in this world, free, or do we have some that are free and others that are not?” Gerry Flaychy
According to Ludwig von Mises in «The Scope and Method of Catallactics, 3- The Pure Market» Economyhttp://mises.org/daily
/2979#part3
«free market» is an imaginary construction i.e. it does not exist in reality: we cannot find it anywhere.
So when somebody say that
“the only consistently defensible definition of the just price is the free market price.”, that’s mean that the just price does not exist, according to this definition and to Mises saying. If we push the reasoning further, that would mean that nothing is just in the actuel market, neither the prices nor the wages ! !
rectification: http://mises.org/daily/2979#part3
BWM-
I still think Secession is a better term! Not only is it more accurate, since the Declaration of Independence is a formal notice of withdrawing from an association (i.e. secession), but it also helps you in any war of words- many libertarians talk of secession as a natural right. If you recast the War of Independence as an act of Secession, then you are simply following precedent if you do it yourselves, and your opponents cast themselves as traitors if they oppose secession!
Gerry Flaychy,
good link. If you want to go by that definition of the free market, which I think is a good definition. Let me rephrase the the definition of the just price to take into account the fact that we don’t exist in the imaginary construct of the free market.
As the market approaches the operation of the free market, the price of any good or service approaches the just price. In other words, the less hampered the market, the more closely the market price approaches the just price. If you say that the free market will never be obtained (at least while we would argue this point) we could say that the market price approximates the just price, any differences would be due to the deviation of the market from the ideal free market.
Exactly; no justice. We have to hope that the businesses people hire decide to punish their own customers (who then stop paying them)
Not at all. Say you get robbed. There’s no reason you should care whether the robber’s protection agency (which you earlier suggested is like a “gang”; actually, it’s more like an insurance company) punishes him or not – YOUR protection agency takes care of YOU (i.e., pays out insurance to cover your losses); what happens to him is between him and his company. But your company will try to recover its costs from his company (or from him directly, if you both subscribe to the same company), and various companies will have reciprocal agreements to do that (unless one company represents only or mainly criminals for some reason, it has the incentive to make such agreements to recover its costs when its customers are robbed, etc.) – therefore the robber’s protection agency will “punish” him to recover its costs in paying your agency according to their agreement!
Furthermore, I simply wouldn’t have a protection agency then, as I’m sure many people would elect to do.
If they’re insane. Sane people have insurance.
This where I feel some libertarians confuse the self-regulation of market with perfection; the self-regulation means bad businesses will die, but there will ALWAYS be bad, lying, cheating businesses, and the victims should get more redress than “Hey, they went bankrupt, aren’t you happy?”
That’s all they get under statism. You’re right, free markets won’t bring perfection – but neither do unfree markets, so what kind of argument is that? There’ll still be crime, but at least it won’t be institutionalized and rampant on a grand scale.
This very blog had an item about Somalia, and how everyone there had something like a protection agency, working for centuries. It was a while back, but I think it at least shows that such things CAN work.
nick gray,
Another example of a highly anarchic society was Ireland during the dark ages. Rothbard researched this society and writes about it in his For a New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty. What the anarcho-capitalists and libertarian purists propose has some historical precedent. There have been places where complex society has existed without a monopolized police and court function.
Stanley: “There have been places where complex society has existed without a monopolized police and court function.”
Israel under the judges in the Old Testament approaches an organization similar to anarchy, too. But in Israel, families acted as the police. Judges were the leading citizens of a town. I haven’t read Rothbard’s book, so can you tell me if families acted as the police in the Ireland example?
fundamentalist,
The clan structure, acted as the police and insurance for their members. So if you count extended family, then yes it probably has similarities with the Israelite system. In Ireland these clan based protection agencies were called tuapa (I don’t know the exact spelling because I listened to the audiobook version of the aforementioned works). I am sure that i missed out on Rothbard’s typical heavy use of footnotes. I will have to look at them again in dead tree or pdf format.
Rothbard postulates that part of the British difficulty in subjugating the Irish was related to the fact that there was no hierarchic command structure to co-opt. The British would gain peace terms and surrender from one leader, but the rest of the clans would not abide by the unilateral decisions which were not in the interests of their members and not consistent with the customary laws. But, I think we are straying a little from the subject at hand at this point.
“As the market approaches the operation of the free market, the price of any good or service approaches the just price. In other words, the less hampered the market, the more closely the market price approaches the just price.” Stanley Pinchak
Meanwhile we are not in a free market, and thus, no price is just, wich include wages.
Gerry Flaychy,
right. And we have the existence of the state to blame for that. So the smaller the state gets, the closer we get to the just price.
” And we have the existence of the state to blame for that.” Stanley Pinchak
According to von Mises, it is not the state in itself that is to blame, not even the government.
On the contrary, the government is view by him as a protector of the market economy, as we can see in the following statement made by him:
“It assumes that the government, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion,
is intent upon preserving the operation of the market system,
abstains from hindering its functioning,
and protects it against encroachments on the part of other people.”
http://mises.org/daily/2979#part3
Gerry Flaychy,
that is basically Mises idea of an ideal state. However, it is very difficult for a state to not hinder the market’s function if its taxes and expenditures are of any significance (both distort the market). That is to say that I think Mises must assume that the state that provides for a free market is extremely minarchist and has a very small foot print on the economy as a whole. I don’t want to call Mises out on this item, but I have a very difficult time seeing how the state can not distort the market unless it loses its state-ness, despite any rhetoric that it enables the conditions for the free market to exist. Its very actions and modus operandi belie its true impact on the market. The state may not use coercion or its monopolistic features which are the result of prior market distortions if it is to reintegrate itself into market operations in the hope of obtaining the free market. It could be said that as long as the state does not itself operate in a way congruent with the free market, it distorts the market, keeping if from being free.
Stanley: “I have a very difficult time seeing how the state can not distort the market…”
If the state is truly minarchist and just provides courts, police and national defense, the distortion of the market should not be much different from that of anarchy, because in anarchy people would pay privately for the same things. With minarchism, we have to worry about a growing state. With anarchism we have to worry about descending into chaos. The US founding fathers feared chaos more than they feared the state. However, they didn’t see the enormous growth of the state that has taken place in the last century. Currently, the threat of the growing state is a much more serious threat. For practical reasons, I would definitely like to try anarchism. Getting there is the big hurdle.
So, fundamentalist, now that the Large Hadron Collider has started preliminary operations, any predictions on finding the Higgs in the next few years?
Peter: “…any predictions on finding the Higgs in the next few years?”
Where did that come from? That discussion happened a long time ago.
My guess is that the odds are low. They’ve tried for 30 years and failed. But, hey, if they do find it, I’ll admit I was wrong.
Duh. Sorry. Go ahead.
Heh. Unbanned already. Why do you think that is?
A good way to close the article would have been to say that the admonition was to render unto Caesar what was his; however, the Biblical reference does not include a definition of what is Caesar’s, except for that in Exodus. That is Caesar’s which he has not stolen. Therefore, render unto Caesar what you please; nothing more.
I just came upon this discussion, which seems to have pretty much petered out, but I do want to add my two cents, since it is a topic I have studied and written on extensively. When I first read Mark’s article, I sent him an email of encouragement to let him know there are others who think and believe as he does.
I have reviewed the comments rather cursorily and spotted some remarks I’d like to address. At one point FUNDAMENTALIST said, “So why would Jesus, and the Apostle Paul, command Christians to pay taxes?”
Jesus did not command anyone to pay taxes. On the contrary, he stood four square against taxes. He told a group of people, including his disciples who were familiar with Psalm 24:1 (“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”), to give Caesar what is Caesar’s (viz., nothing!) and God what is God’s (viz., everything.). He most likely would have counseled his disciples that paying taxes would only encourage the Romans to persist in violating their Father’s command, “Thou shalt not steal.” Under the circumstances, however, he would not allow his questioners to “trap him,” which was their intent, by giving them the answer they fully expected based on his previous remarks on taxes and his derogatory comments regarding those who collected taxes. Instead, Jesus responded to their “trick” question exactly as his enemies expected he would. If they need to be interpreted, and they don’t, they mean, “No, don’t pay Caesar’s illicit tax.” But Jesus said so in a way that his disciples understood, but which completely flummoxed and silenced his cunning adversaries. However, a few days later the same adversaries, belatedly realizing what Jesus had told them, dragged him before Pilate where they reported that he was “forbidding the payment of taxes to Caesar.” (Luke 23:1-2)
There is a book-length essay, JESUS OF NAZARETH, ILLEGAL-TAX PROTESTER, available on the web. It is the first comprehensive compilation and analysis of everything Jesus ever said or did in relation to taxes and tax collectors as recorded in the canonical gospels. Anyone who believes Jesus endorsed paying taxes or the concept of human government (viz., humans ruling humans) will no doubt change their opinion when they consider all of the evidence in the essay to the contrary with an open mind. It is available free of charge at:
http://www.jesus-on-taxes.com/uploads/JesusMarch17th08-_2.pdf
Regarding Romans 13, a number of bible scholars have argued that verses 1-7 are an interpolation, inserted at a later date after the church and church officials had become enthralled by Rome, reaping the tainted fruits of forcible taxation for itself and themselves. But even if Paul did write Romans 13:1-7, here are two important caveats for anyone thinking of paying taxes based on these seven verses, which statist-Christian leaders have been parroting for 1700 years in order to keep the tax booty flowing their way:
1. Paul is not Jesus, does not speak for Jesus, was not, as he represented himself to be, one of Jesus’ apostles, and never personally knew Jesus. Furthermore, Paul was a Roman citizen and proud of it (see, Acts of the Apostles), and a beneficiary of the many benefits Roman citizens enjoyed at the expense of non-citizens like Jesus and most of his disciples. Jesus was crucified by a Roman tax magistrate whose welfare was entirely dependent on taxes. In fact Pilate was chief tax administrator for Judea, a man who could ill afford to allow anyone opposed to Caesar’s tax to continue living.
2. Paul’s endorsement of paying taxes is qualified and thereby limited to only those taxes that are “due.” In Paul’s time, as today, taxes are never due until they have either been lawfully assessed or voluntarily confessed as being owed. Paul, writing to disciples in Rome, may have been employing the wit and wisdom of Jesus when he said render unto Caesar. In this case Paul was advising disciples, in a letter which was subject to being read by Roman authorities, to pay only such taxes as were duly owed, which the disciples knew in their case meant none.
Jesus was an anarchist and a foe of taxes. Was he concerned with politics? You bet he was, in the same way that an anarchist today is deemed to be political for denouncing electoral politics.
Holy Cow! FUNDAMENTALIST SAID: “[C]alling taxation theft..was not the teaching of Christ or the church. I (sic) was fabricated by Rothbard in the late 20th century. To claim that Christ held to Rothbard’s ethic 2,000 afterwards is a little odd.”
FUNDY, stop making up history! Long before Rothbard, Leo Tolsoy equated taxation with theft, and the Book of Samuel pronounces the first taxation in Israel to be a consequence of the people rejecting God as their lawgiver. Jesus certainly condemned taxation. When asked, “Shall we pay Caesar’s tax?” (Gospel of Mark, Ch 12), Jesus responded “Give Caesar what is his, but give God what is His.” Obviously, with those words Jesus was endorsing Psalm 24:1, which proclaims that everything in this world belongs to God, leaving nothing for poor old Caesar.” Although his answer flummoxed his questioners at the time, when the Pharisees who were also intimately familiar with scripture found out what Jesus had told the spies they had sent to trap him, they grabbed him and dragged him before Pilate where they leveled this charge: “We found this man perverting our nation (Rome), forbidding the payment of taxes to Caesar.” Not only that, when Peter was asked by a couple of tax collectors whether Jesus paid taxes, and Peter shot his mouth off and said he did, Jesus read Peter the riot act and made him go fishing to find money to pay the tax he had mistakenly committed Jesus to pay with his big mouth.
FUNDY, try reading the bible with the mind of a brave tax resister like Jesus, rather than that of a statist like Paul, who was a Pharisee and loyal citizen of the same Roman empire that murdered Jesus, or Peter, whose courage failed him so that he quaked whenever he was confronted by Roman authorities.
Mark,
Some of the questions and objections you raised in your essay, esp. about taxation, might be cleared up by seeing things from the perspective of the bishop, Chaput. See Modern Catholic Dictionary for the entries for…
anarchism
authority
government
hierarchy
mystical body, and
service.
Please bear in mind as you read what follows that I’ve assumed that you still claim to be a Catholic, though of course you may no longer do so or even think of yourself as such. Whatever the case, the explanation given for “service” is telling. The author, Hardon, SJ, defines it as…
That alone should suggest to you why the American conference of bishops is so sympathetic to socialized medicine. Hardon gives the Apostolic See’s postion about anarchism, too, and he does so clearly. The…
Of course, Hardon’s criticism is a cheap straw man attack. A pillar of liberalism is that people, esp. statists, should NOT be trusted, as with power, and, furthermore, that it would be naive to suppose that anyone other than the worst of statists would be likely to rise to the heights of power in a statist government. Chaput may have recognized during your e-mail exchanges that you are someone who…
“pertinaciously denies or doubts” at least one “of the truths that must be believed with divine and Catholic faith”. If recognized that, you would be “considered a heretic”. If you don’t know what was prescribed for stubborn heretics by Thomas Aquinas, the author of the “principal doctrinal synthesis in Catholic theology”, it would pay to the read the part of Summa Theologica where Aquinas prescribes for the heretic extermination from the world by secular authority. In fact, since 1983, it has been stated in the Code of Canon Law of the Latin Ecclesia that candidates for the priesthood are to harbor a special reverence for Mr. Aquinas. In short, one can be (i) a faithful, obedient Christian in communion with the H.R.A., the Holy Roman Assembly, my own translation for “Sancta Romana Ecclesia”, or (ii) an anarchist. But one cannot be both.
Liberalism, too, was condemned in Pius’ Syllabus of Errors, for liberalism “stresses human freedom to the neglect and even denial of…the RIGHTS OF SOCIETY in civil law”. Hardon’s entry for “authority” is another frontal assault on individual liberty mixed up with ideas about a common good and collective rights that are echoed in Hardon’s entries for government and liberalism. Supposedly, an example of a “natural society” is not only the family but also the state. In fact, according to Hardon, authority is the…
How would that compulsion be done? “According to scholastic philosophy,” government is “the authoritative direction of a people, requiring them to use certain prescribed means for realizing a predetermined plan for the common good.” Hardon adds in the entry for government that “essential to the notion of government are authority vested in certain designated persons” and “management of things pertaining to the common good”.
Now, how could the caisers of the Earth manage things pertaining to the common good if they lacked the authority to tax their subjects sufficient to obtain those things? Will they own and operate private businesses for profit, and use those profits to obtain and to manage the things pertaining to the common good? Even if so, what skeptic of statism can believe that the caisers would refrain from interventionism on behalf of their private businesses? So, how can you escape the conclusions that the HRA’s teachings not only are consistent with taxation but also affirm a right to tax? I don’t think you can.
At any rate, you cannot be both an obedient Catholic and someone who thinks that “man does not need government in order to live a peaceful, pious and productive life in society”. As for Chaput, whom you hold in the highest esteem: I see no choice but to conclude that Bishop Chaput, if he is no heretic, believes that statism is not only possibly good but also necessary, too. In fact, his statism is motivated by fidelity to the supreme law of the HRA, which is the salvation of souls, as we know from Can. 1752 of Codex Iuris Canonici. So what is Chaput? He’s another of the Earth’s many troublmaking do-gooders who preaches a doctrine of obligatory service to collectives, as he makes entirely clear on the cover of his book, before the reader so much as takes his first look inside. You, Mark, are a means to an end that Chaput wishes to accomplish, and you are a tool to be used by others. Your duty is to serve the needs of others and to be a bandage for their wounds. In fact, you are encouraged, on the pretext of love, to sacrafice yourself on their altars.
Unfortunately, Christianity doesn’t get any better by abandoning the HRA.
Lastly, I suggest that you read Hardon’s entry for Unam Sanctam, if also not the entire text of that papal bull, which is not very long. The Holy See proclaimed about 700 years ago that the temporal sword is in the power of the HRA to control, even though that sword is to be wielded by secular government.
Best wishes,
Paul, a former Catholic.
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