Category: Economics

From the Mailbag — Pastor I’m For Open Borders … Why Aren’t You?

Dear Pastor,

I ran across this quote from R. J. Rushdoony and I’m pretty sure you would support it,

We must render honor and justice to all men wherever due, but we have a particular responsibility to care for our own. This means first of all our families. . . . Biblical conduct is regulated by relationship, and to subvert this is to lead directly into welfare economics and socialism. If a man must exercise towards all men the same care, oversight, and charity he does towards his own family, then an impossible burden is placed on him. . . . Every system of ‘universal’ ethics is at one and the same time a system of universal slavery.”

R. J. Rushdoony
On illegal immigration and Amnesty
“Politics of Guilt and Pity”, p. 248

Pastor, I see this quote not as an argument for regulation of immigration, walls, and border patrols but rather as an argument against welfare. I do not see how the need to take care of my own family necessitates that I have a government that prohibits an individual from crossing an imaginary line in say Arizona. This is not logical. Furthermore, to construe this to mean that Rushdoony supported immigration laws is not honest. Could you help me see what I’m not seeing?

Lovey Jardine

Dear Lovey,

Thank you for writing. First let’s consider the RJR quote itself to see if it speaks to immigration. RJR says,

“If a man must exercise towards all men the same care, oversight, and charity he does towards his own family, then an impossible burden is placed on him…”

I would say that this indeed is an argument for regulation of immigration, walls, and border patrols as well as an argument against welfare. So, I do believe you misinterpreting the quote when you say it is not about immigration at all. To hopefully help you see where the relation is between “imaginary lines” and taking care of your family, allow me to offer,

1.) The need to take care of our own families includes the idea of having a stable culture and economy. The flooding of our nation with people of a different religion and culture means your family will not be taken care of because the consequence of such policy means the balkanization of this Nation into hostile religion, ethnic, and economic enclaves which demands a Centralized tyrannical Government can keep in order. One reason the FEDS are following this policy Lovey is that it creates a need for their presence since only a strong handed Government can mediate the hostilities that will arise from the policies of purposeful balkanization that they are pursuing.

2.) The depression of wages resulting in the destruction of the middle class is assured by the current immigration policy. This likewise will eventuate in the voiding of care for our current families. Harvard Professor and Immigration expert George Borjas has analyzed the effects of immigration on the middle class and the conclusion is that this immigrations redistributes capital upwards with the consequence that the mega-Rich get richer and the middle class are increasingly impoverished so that what is created by this policy is a have vs. have not social order. I’m sure you’ll agree with me Lovey that impoverishing your children in order to enrich the Mega-Rich Corporatism class, via this immigration policy, is not taking care of your family.

3.) This quote clearly advances the idea that RJR supported immigration laws when the consequence of them meant the voiding of the care, oversight and charity towards one’s own family. The current status quo does just that. Here is another quote from Rushdoony that communicates much the same idea that Scriptures do call for the extension of hospitality and justice, but not an open-borders re-ordering of social life.

“To call for the modern, humanistic society with an open relationship to all men would have appeared to the Israelites as the ultimate tyranny. The law did not require any such a re-ordering of any man’s private life: It simply required justice in dealing with all men.”

Highest Regards Lovey,

Pastor

______________________________
Lovey wrote back,

Dear Pastor,

Part of your answer was that “immigration “brings down wages”? So we should keep wages artificially high by regulating the number of people that can live or move through a particular area? I guess we not thinking in terms of a free market economy.

When Rushdoony said we need to “take care of our own families” I am sure you are right an he meant extending more power to the government to interfere with the natural right of individuals to move about freely. Yep, that sounds like something Rushdoony would say.

Lovey Jardine

Dear Lovey,

Thank you for writing back. Let’s see if we can tease this out for you.

First, I am not the kind of Libertarian that you seem to be. I do not support this free market economy that you are championing because it is most certainly not a Free Market economy. What you are supporting is the Corporatism wherein the Mega-Corporations are in bed with the Mega-Government to the end of turning the rest of the citizenry into slaves for their pleasure and use. This current immigration “policy” enriches the Mega-rich class and destroys the middle class. Statistics (See George Borjas’ work)

National Data | Economic Impact of Mass Immigration Worse than We Thought

clearly show that current policy means a transfer of wealth from the Middle class to the Mega Rich who are in bed with the Government class. I’m all for free markets when they are fair Markets but the game is rigged right now and I do not support a policy which destroys the infrastructure of the middle class in order to worship at the feet of Austrian Economics while at the same time serving the ends of creating a Globalist New World Order.

Second, per RJR, he was not the Libertarian that North is. North has been destroyed by his worshiping at the feet of Austrian economics.

Thirdly, I would challenge you on your individual natural rights language which is straight out of Enlightenment Humanism. Strictly speaking individuals have no natural rights. As Christians, we have duties. Only God has rights. In this case, per the first RJR quote, my duty and responsibility to care for my own is my particular responsibility. Since Biblical conduct is regulated by relationship my duty as a Christian to my family outstrips your Humanist idea of individual rights. I have already demonstrated in the first response how all of this impinges upon my duty to my family.

A good book to help you think through your whole “Individual Natural Rights” language is,

http://www.amazon.com/Whats-wrong-rights-Robert-Ingram/dp/B0006CZ1R4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1406212559&sr=8-2&keywords=T.+Robert+Ingram

Fourth, you warn about artificially high wages but I hardly believe that anybody would make the case that we are currently living in a time where artificially high wages is a problem for our families which reflect the middle class. The real problem here is the artificially low wages that would result were we to turn this country into a huge sweatshop. Also, I would repudiate the idea that immigration restrictions necessarily lead to extending more power to the Government especially when the policies you are advocating concerning immigration works to the end of setting in concrete a Tyrannical state. The immigrants we are speaking of here are a natural constituency for the Marxist (Democratic) party. That party will use the votes of the immigration pattern to grow the Government into a centralized top down Usurping State. So, you chastise me for my alleged support of larger government because I want it to “provide for the common defense and yet your support of the current immigration imbroglio assures the rise of the totalitarian state. I fear you have not calculated the impact of Corporatism enough in your thinking Lovey. I also think that you need to listen to the RJR lectures where he points out that Libertarianism and Marxism are two sides of the same coin.

All the Best,

Pastor

Marxism and Libertarianism; Cinderella’s Two Ugly Stepsisters

in the end the Libertarian vision and the Marxist vision share a common teleology in terms of their vision for the future. Both envision the eventual withering away of the State. The Marxists envision it happening by way of abolishing private property. The Libertarians envisions it happening by exalting the ownership of property to the Highest good of politics. The Marxists envisions it happening by absolutizing the State so as to deny private property. The Libertarians envision it happening by completely eliminating the State so as eliminate the commons. However, each vision is pursued to the end of some fanciful Utopia.

Both Libertarianianism and Marxism articulate a anthropology that reduces man to homo econonomicus. Both view man as the sum of his economic decisions.

Both Libertarianism and Marxism get the One and the Many wrong. The Libertarian extinguishes the One in favor of the Many and the Marxist extinguishes the Many in favor of the One. Taken together they are Van Til’s “Rational” and “Irrational” wash women taking in each others laundry.

Libertarianism is all particulars and no Universals. Marxism is all Universals and no particulars. Libertarianism gives us beads without holes. Marxism gives us strings that have no ends.

Further, both Liberrtarianism and Marxism lose the idea of the Transcendent Objective. This is seen most clearly in ethics for the Marxism, while for the Libertarians the absence of the Objective transcendent is seen most clearly in the absence of any objective standard of a just price or wage. Both Libertarianism and Marxism suffer from the subjectivity of Monism that always affects those who do not have a vigorous understanding of Transcendence.
One solves ABSOLUTELY NOTHING by championing Libertariansim over Marxism.

The Shortfalls of Movement Libertarianism

Dear Pastor,

I just read an article making the case that Libertarians make good Christians.

Why Christians Make Great Libertarians

I know you like to say that Libertariansim is good as far as it goes but that when it is seen as a system authoritative in itself that it is a positive evil. Could you explain, in your estimation why it is the case that Libertarians who have embraced movement Libertarianism don’t make good Christians?

Leland

Dear Leland,

Thank you for the opportunity to deal with this again. I do think that Libertarianism does at points coincide with Biblical Christianity but as a ideological movement it is opposed to Biblical Christianity. Biblical Christians and Libertarians, for example, both agree that the State should be minimal. However, movement Libertarianism tends to absolutize the individual while Biblical Christianity absolutizes God. As such because of these different absolutes the definition of liberty is different for each. For the movement Libertarian liberty is largely defined by something they call the Non Aggression Principle whereas for the Biblical Christian Liberty is that behavior which is lived out consistent with God’s Law Word. Here are some other ways in which I can see that movement Libertarianism is not consistent with Biblical Christianity.

1.) Movement Libertarians absolutize Liberty so that it turns into anarchy. (Each man does what is right in his own eyes.) Biblical Liberty is ordered liberty — ordered by God’s law word.

2.) Libertarians turn man from Homo Adorans (man the worshiper) into Homo oeconomicus (man the economic being). Movement libertarian reduce man to the sum of his market decisions and turn his whole being into one of economics. Biblical Christians do not see man as primarily an economic being and so the thinking of Biblical Christians on social order issues does not reduce man to the sum of his economic decisions.

3.) Movement Libertarians have no standard by which to measure Liberty except the sovereign autonomous self and its fiat word. Libertarianism insists on doing that which is good for the individual but that which is defined as good in only in reference to the individual.

4.) Movement Libertarainism atomizes man and completely misses His covenant jurisdictions. As such men become free floating integers that are not inherently connected to any covenantal identity. If Socialism makes the mistake of seeing man only as part of the hive, movement Libertarianism makes the mistake of seeing only man as unrelated to anything but his own subjective self (ego).

5.) Libertarians don’t make good Christians because as Rushdoony taught Libertarianism is merely the flip side of the coin to Marxism. Marxism and Movement Libertarianism presuppose one another. Neither get correct the One and the Many and in getting the One and the Many wrong they serve the purposes of each other’s errors in that regard.

Thanks for writing Leland,

Smith & McAtee On Corporatism

I have said the blockquote below forever, to anybody who would listen that deficits in the budget of the Federal Government is not paid either by the Uber-Rich, nor by the poor, but it is paid by the middle-class. It is in the Middle Class where all the money is and so despite the lies about how the “rich are going to be made to pay their fair share,” it is always the middle class folks that are the ones that foot the bill. People have known this for decades.

I will even go so far as to insist that our current tax system is NOT a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor but rather it is a redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the uber-wealthy. Every tax policy that is pursued in Washington is pursued in favor of taking from the middle class and giving to the uber-wealthy. They lie about that. They masquerade and cloak that. They compliment themselves on how noble they are for doing that. However, in the end the tax policy is to enrich the uber-wealthy and their political bag men and enforcer thugs. This is the essence of the Corporatism that we are currently living under where mega government and mega Corporations are in bed together to enrich themselves at the cost of the rank and file middle class.

What is most frustrating though is when the middle class is too stupid to figure this shell game out, and as such keeps pulling levers for both Democrats and Republicans who both are part of the crony capitalism that is Corporatism. Our ignorance is killing us.

But enough of me … consider how Al Smith put it clear back in 1936,

“Now here is something that I want to say to the rank and file. There are three classes of people in this country; there are the poor and the rich, and in between the two is what has often been referred to as the great backbone of America, that is the plain fellow.

That is the fellow that makes from one hundred dollars a month up to the man that draws down five or six thousand dollars a year.

Now, there is a great big army. Forget the rich; they can’t pay this debt. If you took everything they have away from them, they couldn’t pay it; they ain’t got enough. There is no use talking about the poor; they will never pay it, because they have nothing.

This debt is going to be paid by that great big middle class that we refer to as the backbone and the rank and file, and the sin of it is they ain’t going to know that they are paying it.It is going to come to them in the form of indirect and hidden taxation. It will come to them in the cost of living, in the cost of clothing, in the cost of every activity that they enter into, and because it is not a direct tax, they won’t think they’re paying, but, take it from me, they are going to pay it!”

Gov. Al Smith — 1928 Democratic Presidential Standard Bearer
1936 Speech — Betrayal of the Democratic Party

Government Entitlement For the Corporate Class

“by the late 19th century the inner sanctums of Wall Street understood that the most efficient way to gain an unchallenged monopoly was to ‘go political’ and make society go to work for the monopolists — under the name of the public good and the public interest…. One barrier to mature understanding of recent history is the notion that all capitalists are the bitter and unswerving enemies of all Marxists and socialists…. In fact the idea is nonsense. There has been a continuing, albeit concealed, alliance between international political capitalists and international revolutionary socialists — to their mutual benefit…. The open minded reader should bear two clues in mind: monopoly capitalists are bitter enemies of laissez-faire entrepreneurs; and, given the weaknesses of social central planning, the totalitarian socialist state is a perfect captive market for monopoly capitalists, if an alliance can be made with socialist power brokers.”

Antony C. Sutton
Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution

Clearly the point above is that the idea that socialism and (finance) capitalism are arch enemies is ridiculous. In point of fact the purpose of finance capitalism (Corporatism) is to enrich itself via the means of socialism.

A couple of examples will begin to bring to light this reality.

How else, but as entitlement to the Oligarchy, does one view the FEDS lifting bad assets from private bank balance sheets? This is an entitlement for the International Money interest, is it not? This is a clear re-distribution of wealth upwards.

When we bail out mega companies from their private debt who’s money is committed to being the ‘lender of last resort’ but those of taxpayers?

In such a move we see a re-distribution of wealth upward from the have-nots to the haves.

Secondly by way of example, taxing the middle class income and using it to pay the interest on the Treasury bonds that make up the National debt is also and example of redistribution of wealth upwards where there oligarchs are enriched at the cost of the middle class. This is because the Treasury bonds that represent the National debt are held mostly by the wealthy companies, individuals, and nation states.

Socialism is NOT a boon to the lower class. Socialism is the way the Oligarchy fools the lower economic class into thinking they are trying to help them. In Socialism the Oligarchy (the International money interest) is helping and enriching themselves at the expense of the middle class. Socialism does not lower the gap between the Bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In point of fact Socialism widens the gap between the finance capitalist Corporatist class and the blue collar laboring class.