The Bible contains the earliest example of a non-interventionist economic policy
If this election campaign proved anything, it was that we would have been unwise to rely on it for any ‘issues’. That is ‘issues’ defined, as they should be in elections, as large subjects about which those of opposing philosophies disagree.
A pronouncement from the Archbishop of Canterbury just before the election campaign, on a subject which used to be dear to Labour politicians, was so much more interesting than anything that any Labour politician said during the campaign itself. Dr Williams was, as was to be expected, against capitalism. He might not have put it as bluntly as that, but that was his gist. In particular, he was against the effect of ‘globalisation’ on what is now called ‘the developing world’. A disapproval of the profit motive ran through his remarks. Here was something to arouse Conservatives, or at least some of us, and we should be grateful to Dr Williams.
I thought I would comment on his pronouncement by having recourse, given his profession, to a neglected economic textbook: the Bible. It might be assumed that the Bible was against capitalism. We all remember the trouble that a rich man would have had getting into heaven in comparison with a camel getting through the eye of a needle. Let us look further.
The very first verses of the Bible have economic consequences. Man falls. Because of that fall, the earth rebels against him and ceases to provide him with food and sustenance ‘as of right’ — as socialists say. Man must make a living. There is no suggestion that God, or the state, will intervene and replace nature as provider. Here we have the earliest example of a non-interventionist economic policy.
But wealth seems to be condemned. The Psalmist warns in Psalm lxii 10, ‘If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.’ Proverbs warns against get-rich-quick schemes: ‘He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent’ (xxviii 20). The same book warns corner-cutting businessmen of their fate in a verse which also grasps the psychology of such people — their belief that they are too smart to fall: ‘He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him’ (xxviii 22).
But there is no bias against wealth and wealth-seeking as such. Quite the opposite. ‘He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich’ (Proverbs x 4). Private property is protected. There is no advocacy of state ownership. Even monarchs are not allowed to expropriate property. In I Kings xxi 18,19 God punishes King Ahab because that monarch — with his wife Jezebel egging him on — allows Naboth to be stoned to death and seizes Naboth’s vineyard. God does not attach importance only to the murder. He causes Ahab to be asked, ‘Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?’ Ezekiel xxxxvi 18 rules: ‘The prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession’ — a passage upholding not just the right of property but the right of the property owner to decide who inherits it.
Christ and the New Testament share these beliefs, which should be unsurprising since Christ specifically says in Matthew v 17 that He has come not to destroy the law and the prophets but to fulfil them. But by His time, the land of the prophets is Roman-occupied. Nonetheless, Christ believes that peace and order necessitate obedience to Roman law where it is just. Thus Roman taxes must be paid. The Pharisees try to trick him into saying something subversive on that point: ‘Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?’ (Matthew xxii 17). It is then that Christ tells them to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s — namely, taxes. But he does not take the opportunity to advocate taxation as an instrument of redistribution.
Then there is that defence of the investment market: the parable of the talents (Matthew xxv 14–30). Before going on a journey, a presumably rich man gives five talents to one servant, two to another, and one to a third. The one with the five ‘traded’ with them, and made five more. The one with two similarly gained another two. ‘But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.’ The returned rich man, hearing of the first two’s wise investments, says to both in turn, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’ But the third is admonished for sloth, and told — in the greatest of all endorsements of the money markets — ‘thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers’. The slothful servant is ‘cast into outer darkness’.
In the parable of the hired servants (Matthew xx 1–16), a vineyard owner hires labourers for a penny a day. He hires some early in the morning. But, judging that more work could be done that day, he hires more later. Those hired early complain that those hired late are paid at the same rate. The vineyard owner asks: ‘Didst thou not agree with me for a penny? ... Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?’ The parable is a defence of free contract. The early labourers received what they contracted to receive. Their anger at what the others received is understandable, but the vineyard owner had the right to take account of changing economic circumstances, and correct his earlier judgment about how much labour he needed for that day. State regulators, or trade unions, would have insisted that the earlier be paid higher. But the vineyard would then have hired fewer next time, with unemployment as a possible result.
It was said, when such subjects were much more part of public debate than they are now, that such parables had nothing to do with economics, and should not be taken literally. The biblical writers simply used everyday things, such as labour, talents and vineyards, to illustrate spiritual truths. For example, the parable of the talents was said to be about how God will judge us on the last day according to how we have used His gifts.
But it is possible that the parable is both spiritual and economic. Spirituality cannot be divorced from day-to-day living. The Bible would hardly use as illustrations of goodness things which were not good in themselves, such as thrift, contract and profit. It would condemn them. Whatever the explanation, at least the Archbishop, in sending us to the Bible in a discussion about capitalism, raised a real issue, and we must hope that he returns to the subject and to others just as interesting.
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