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Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

jurisnaturalist — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:09:23 -0000

Sir,
My life is an open book. I sign often with my real name, Nathanael Snow. I regularly open my home to those in need. I have said before that the right solution is to sacrifice personally.
Please forgive the impersonal tone of my earlier comment. If it is you who are in need, please let me know, and I will see what I can do for you.
ndsnow@gmail.com
Or my publicly published email at George Mason University where I am a student:
nsnow1@gmu.edu
To be clear, you are right: it is unjust for the banks to have their debts forgiven.
You are also right: my ego gets easily overblown.
You are right again: it is sometimes hard to meet our mortgage, and we have relied on the help of others.
And again: I have the vestiges of racism on me, though I confess they are sinful and in need of redemption.
Again: I struggle to love. I want to desperately, and submit to the love of Christ moving through me in my better moments.
Finally: Let me entreat rather than condescend.
Nathanael Snow

Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

twitter-36317363 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:45:41 -0000

This will sound mean because it is. You are right, it is not an injustice that Rosemary was evicted. Or that Banks had their debts forgiven and then didn't forgive others debts.
What is an injustice is that you jurisnaturalist, seem to wholeheartedly love your own ego more than truth.
And that this comment know matter how correct or true is neither helpful, or damaging to your sinister and beautiful evil.
I hope that you would have the conviction to continue to suggest that were I to forcefully remove and/or evict you and whatever (obviously forgiving) family you have from your and their homes that it would also not be an injustice.
Do not make arguments stating that it would be different because you or your family pays your mortgages, because if you do, you will simply be expressing you own ethnocentric racist and and weak minded inability to love.
You condescending son of a...

Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

jurisnaturalist — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:27:21 -0000

A lot of this issue depends on one's perspective of the current recession. Perhaps the housing bubble pop was necessary to correct a mis-allocation of resources into the housing sector. If so, then there may need to be a corrective period where assets change hands until resources are correctly priced. Much of what is happening now may serve to slow-down the corrective process!
Banks refusing to re negotiate mortgages because they are hoping to get bailed out again prevents this process, and so does resisting foreclosure.
What to do? Again, invite the evicted into your homes. Oppose interventionist policies. Let the market do its job. Wait.

Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

jurisnaturalist — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:16:43 -0000

I, too would like to see more renegotiations rather than foreclosures. I'm afraid the same government money which the banks received might also give them the incentive to foreclose more often. The complications of arbitrarily allocated taxpayer funds are nearly impossible to entangle. Part of why I dislike them so much. There's no way to demonstrate how the secondary consequences were caused by the primary influences.

I think calling lenders "predatory" goes too far. It suggests fraud. Most borrowers voluntarily got in over their heads and should not be bailed out. The exceptions must not influence the decision of the rule.

I think "getting in the way of evictions" is an attempt to put pressure on politicians, perhaps to force banks to write off foreclosures?

Honestly, I have a hard time identifying how Rosemary was treated unjustly. She had a rough break, and many around her are having a rough time, too. But that is not an injustice.

Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

markvans — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:47:34 -0000

I'm not advocating a simple write-off of foreclosures. Rather, I'm hoping that banks would be more willing to renegotiate in light of the forgiveness they've received from government monies.

And I'm certainly advocating that we the church be willing to help one another out in a much deeper way than we've seen in our society. You are right that the sacrificial act of paying off loans is the better thing. The early church's appropriation of Jesus' revision of Jubilee (seen in the early chapters of Acts) is an example of sacrificial giving to meet needs.

I'm not seeking to manipulate the political mechanism...please show me where I've done that. Just because some activists do that (and have done that even in this case) doesn't mean I'm doing that. The truth is, wherever we see injustice, all those who want to challenge injustice will find themselves in the mix together.

Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

jurisnaturalist — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:06:29 -0000

I agree that following precedes regeneration, though by following I usually think of a curious bystanding watching and listening rather than praxis. I think you would say that the way one comes to regeneration is by a re-forming of the imagination through imitation and practice. Close?
Do you really think banks should defraud their investors by writing off all foreclosures? I just don't see that as working out well. I also don't see this strategy of demonstrating sacrifice as nearly as compelling as the sacrificial act which either pays off the loan or invites the evicted to live with them.
It strikes me as an attempt to manipulate the political mechanism through popular opinion rather than an act of subversion.

Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

markvans — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:44:39 -0000

Of course we expect jubilee from unbelievers. That isn't to say we should coerce them into it. But when Jesus walked around and proclaimed the Kingdom of God, he called all people to repent and follow. What we're doing with foreclosures and evictions is calling bankers and everyone else involved to repent and be a part of the Jubilee.

So of course we ask the world to embrace a kingdom ethic. But not one divorced from Christ. I am careful to keep this centered on Christ as much as possible. If they repent and start following in the way of Jesus, regeneration comes. Following precedes regeneration (of course, this is perhaps an Anabaptist way of seeing things).

Re: Proclaiming Jubilee in the Midst of Foreclosures

jurisnaturalist — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:44:09 -0000

Mark, Good to see you here at sojo.
I agree that Christians should practice jubilee and debt forgiveness. But should we demand this from unbelievers? How should we combat injustice? Is it not by laying down ourselves? Why not pay off the mortgage instead of the protest?
I don't remember many of the particulars of the situation, but it seems asking the world to adopt a christian ethic of forgiveness is no better than insisting the world adopt the christian ethic of monogamy or abstinence.
It's not that they should, but won't. It's that they CAN'T apart from regeneration!
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail

Re: What we Deserve?

jurisnaturalist — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:50:57 -0000

1. You are right that Americans should not suppose God has a peculiar blessing or curse reserved for them, especially based on what their government does. God is no respecter of nation - states. He uses them like pawns sometimes, but that way of thinking has entirely married the church to the state. It is superstitious at best.
2. The genocides performed by Europeans, and the enslavements which ensued, represented a redistribution of the existing wealth of the land at that time. The oppressors were made wealthier, the victims were made poorer. This, it must be noted, was a transfer.
3. The prosperity enjoyed by most Americans today can not have derived from what was stolen. A limited and precise quantity was reallocated. Whenever a transfer is enacted by force in modern times we recognize a net loss of wealth, never a gain. If gain were feasible it could also have been achieved without force. We must say that net wealth was diminished as a consequence of the theft.
What came next did not depend in any way upon the reallocation of resources by force. It was the creative energies of human minds which were relatively free from government restrictions which invented improved methods of production. It need not have been Europeans who came up with these ideas. If they had not been oppressed the natives or the slaves might just as likely have been the inventors. Indeed, all of us should have been better off had their creative energies likewise been free to invent. They might be the wealthier among us, though social mobility is part of what has encouraged invention, had they not been robbed.
My point is that we are not wealthy because we stole from them. We are worse off for it. Our prosperity has been created by positive forces, and ought not to be shunned or a source of shame. What we do with our prosperity is another story.
Your story is too simplistic, and requires alteration. The main point if it, however, that worrying about God's position in relation to nation - states is vain, is quite correct. We can arrive at this same conclusion by rejecting the concept of nation states as pagan from the get-go. It is a much easier argument, drives straight at the heart of state-worship idolatry, and does not conflate issues which have no bearing on the argument at hand.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

tedtroxell — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:01:34 -0000

It occurs to me that, if you have not done so, you might go back to Marx's Das Kapital to get a feel for anti-capitalist critique. I say this for two reasons: one, Marx is critiquing a version of capitalism closer to what you have in mind, rather than the version we have currently; two, I have to think that Marx would strike you as delightfully crunchy (read: not squishy) modernist discourse. Or he's the birth of the squishy. You decide. :) If you do this, MacIntyre's Marxism and Christianity might be an interesting companion work. (MacIntyre, btw, is a strong influence on Hauerwas.)

And to clarify: I'm not suggesting that the market is surreptitiously a power-over phenomenon. I'm suggesting that relying on the over/under distinction, which I think helpfully describes the kinds of power that characterize human interaction, might blind us to the ways in which we are held in bondage by social systems. I think there are places in world where, thanks to capitalism, the choice really is between hungry and starving, to allude to a distinction you made above. Of course hungry is better -- but what kind of justice is that?

If a better way of life is possible, and if the people of God have resources for living such a life, it would seem that our ethical responsibility is to extend that way of life to as many as possible. Sussing out what might be the best they can do otherwise is not, for me, a satisfying exercise, owing at least partially to the fact that I'm not terribly Reformed in my theological thinking (I think you get that).

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

Maria Kirby — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:03:26 -0000

Nathan,
Just an idea here, but in studying ecosystems and the cooperative structure of biological systems I have discovered that the natural order of things follows an economy very similar to capitalism. I have not been able to philosophically determine whether or not such a natural system would be under the power of evil influences since the Bible claims power over death as a spiritual victory. Death being a result of the natural principle of entropy. However, this side of the resurrection, entropy is necessary for life to exist, so I haven't been able to puzzle it out yet. Suffice it to say, it is at the least another example of how God turns evil into good. And if God can do that with entropy, then I would think he could do that with other natural systems such as capitalism.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

jurisnaturalist — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:01:54 -0000

We are agreed. The points of departure are much deeper, and I will have to do much more thorough investigation to understand your perspective.
You rightly identify the real point of departure as whether the market is a power. The trivial response, “no,” is unsatisfying. Where does the onus lie? Well, on the person who is trying to do the persuading, I suppose, and differences in starting places may indeed leave us at loggerheads.
I think I have given an explanation of how emergent phenomenon based on voluntary action can’t hardly be described as a power-over influence. But if we can remove all power-over actions or attempts, perhaps this influence creeps in and changes the situation. I am tempted to move the analysis to game theory - which I may for more publishable works.
I really appreciate the references. I will look into them sometime in the future. I should probably drop the whole discussion for a while, since I have tests to pass, etc.
I found Cavanaugh's On Being Consumed very, very squishy indeed, couldn’t quite finish it.
My reformed position is also something that I really need to investigate more. I left behind (heh) more conservative theological positions (pre-trib, ceasationist, etc.) once I opened up to pacifism. I have not carefully re-structured my systematic theology again since then. Of course, you might challenge the very idea of a systematic theology!
I must be a total modernist. I really want for there to be a theory which expounds how exactly the market can be a power. Mostly it is just asserted that it is. If something other than modernism in thought is applied, I don’t know how conversations like ours could proceed. I want for there to be things we can know.
Oh, well.
Most conversations never get to the place where first premises are exposed, but this one has. Mark and I also once went fairly deep into a conversation, where my “two-Kingdoms” paradigm was exposed. I don’t know exactly what that means, or what the alternatives might be. Mark promised to get back to it someday, but has been busy.
Anyway, thanks.
I’ve reposted our conversation on my blog.
Nathan

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

tedtroxell — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:30:17 -0000

[I'm replying here because we're slamming up against the margins, which strikes me as an interesting phrase.]

I think you've done a good job presenting your thoughts, and it's clear that you've put a lot of thought into working things out. I'm unconvinced, for reason that are not necessarily internal to your project, but it helps me see at least one of my conservative/libertarian friends in a different light and may afford me a different approach to our conversations, which don't usually go well. He has no use for Christian radicalism on my terms; he may be more amenable to yours.

Your thoughts are coherent and I certainly think you have something to contribute to the larger discussion. I do think your system is predicated on seeing life and scripture through the lens of modernist discourse, and I don't feel the need to address that beyond pointing out that there are other lenses, and this will partially determine the kind of audience you're able to appeal to. Pursuing that further would take us much farther afield; just know that it's out there. I also think your thoughts are predicated on Reform theology, perhaps more than you recognize, which not to cast aspersions on that theology but to point out an additional consideration of audience.

You had asked about resources for the critique of capitalism, and I can't think of anything that addresses your question directly, though I can point to some titles that will put you in the ballpark. Most of it, however, is squishy stuff by people who use the word "narrate" a lot. There's an article by John Milbank called "Stale Expressions" that informed my essay. Try this link if your school subscribes to Sage; otherwise try googling it. Hardt and Negri's Empire might be worth a look. I would assume that Cavanaugh's On Being Consumed would be helpful but I haven't read it. You might also try Alisdair MacIntyre's After Virtue and/or Dependent Rational Animals as an alternative to Randian ethics that I don't think is super-squishy.

A charge that I think your thesis is open to, and for which you may want to be prepared, is that -- at least in what you have described so far -- it doesn't account for the possibility that the market is among the principalities and powers against which we are called to wage war. The market is a system, and not something we can really control. The diehard libertarian says: of course, we only screw things up when we try to control it. This strikes me as a tacit acknowledgment of the quasi-godlike status of the market, which is my point. Even the "invisible hand" metaphor speaks to this. You recognize the potential oppression in social systems but seem to limit your critique to overt power-over dynamics. Since the market as a system of control does not appear this way, you regard it as inert (or you seem to), which I find ethically problematic.

You could address this by rejecting such a reading of the powers (which follows Wink but also Yoder and Berkhof) and making a robust argument that the market is no more a principality or a power than, say, gravity. I probably wouldn't buy it, but it would do the work. You could also incorporate it by arguing that subjection to the ruler of the powers of the air is the lot of the unbeliever, which is why Paul can narrate expulsion from the social and economic care of the assembly as handing someone over to Satan. That would make for an interesting conversation. But hey, this is your life's work, not mine, and I don't want to sound too much like your thesis advisor. :)

Anyway, fun stuff. Thanks for indulging me.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

jurisnaturalist — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:53:26 -0000

Haha! Many Christians who read Rand walk away believing she’s on to something. Few make a leap to anarchism. Fewer still embrace peculiarity. I’m guessing most Christian Randians haven’t read anyone in the pacifist tradition. I have even read Piper on Rand, and he misses several key things to be learned from her.
And, again, you have summarized my position eloquently.
That my thesis provides a guidepost for involvement in the democratic process is most likely the reason I developed it. You may be quite right that we don’t need to be involved. I don’t suppose I shown that we must be. However, if we are going to be involved, I find my thesis most consistent with the Christian Ethic as I understand it. There are several focal points where my understanding may be significantly flawed. The only venue for having my thoughts rigorously tested has been the blogs. (You should see what happens when I make some of these suggestions over at Sojourners or World magazine!)
Perhaps my thoughts are useful for radicals who must converse with conservatives who say they believe in free markets, but really just want to maintain the current oligarchy. Each set of beliefs must be pushed to its limits and tested under various assumptions. Otherwise the robustness of the theory is left unknown.
Anyway, if I have successfully defended my thesis here, I feel very excited indeed. Not only have I had the opportunity to articulate it more carefully than before, but I have learned to be more careful in explaining my assumptions and in drawing logical connections. Most importantly I have shown a way to challenge progressives and fundamentalists on their own terms and to move them toward a purer Christian Ethic.
Thanks for listening.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

tedtroxell — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:45:15 -0000

You win the prize for the most interesting use of Rand I think I've seen. Like Paul, I'm not much of a fan, at least philosophically, but she did have a knack for giving her characters boring philosophical monologues (kind of like the Matrix movies).

In a nutshell, you're suggesting that Rand was right, at least as pertains to the world, and the only way out of Rand's quasi-nihilistic maelstrom of competing self-interests is to have our interests changed through the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit. Since this will happen to a limited number of people, the answer for the rest is the mediation of a free market that allows for something like the "greater good" as an emergent property of the interplay of interests, along with a minimal legal apparatus that serves to protect the freedom of the market and wield the sword for the limited purposes suggested by Romans 13.

To sum up: for the elect, a new heart and a new spirit; for everyone else, the Invisible Hand.

What I find interesting here is that while other versions of Christian anarchism generally (and it is notoriously difficult to generalize radicalism, but those who study it can't resist trying) recognize that a power-under society is not practicable in the world at large, and will only become universal in the eschaton, you are suggesting that some limited version of such a society is at least theoretically available to the world even if it is unlikely to be realized.

This would serve to function as a guidepost for involvement in the democratic process -- as Greg Boyd puts it, they ask our opinion, we might as well give it -- while retaining a realistic sense of what is possible in the world.

But this almost seems an extra step: if the church is a sign, a foretaste, and a herald of what God will bring about in the eschaton, and thus a testimony (however faltering) to an ideal, why a separate ideal for the world that is no more likely to be embraced by the powers that be? I can think of answers that would seem to be consistent with your reasoning, but I don't want to presume.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

tedtroxell — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:23:08 -0000

I'm not claiming to be hip, and can't actually claim to be a Mac person (like them, but don't have one), but based on our conversation above I can see ways in which I am the Justin Long to your John Hodgman. Don't read too much into that.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

paulmunn — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:40:24 -0000

I'm not a fan of Rand (or TULIP), but I'm very impressed by the conclusions you have come to, Nathanael. Especially your understanding of the (at least potential) working of the Spirit in us.

And I mostly agree with your explanation of Romans 13, except I think the Judges were much more like prophets (sensitive to God's wisdom and will, and chosen by God) than like our modern (elected) enforcers of state law. And then Jesus calls us to much more than the OT models, doesn't he?

Your understanding of the church also seems quite accurate to me (have you seen what Kierkegaard wrote about it, such as this, or his words here?).

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

jurisnaturalist — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:26:54 -0000

I probably am not in amongst the flowers, but the vegetables. If I’m going to flower, I’d like it to produce some fruit. I’m probably an eggplant, and not the skinny kind. I taste great once I’ve been grilled (as in this conversation!)

I do accept most of TULIP. I also employ mostly modernist methods of discourse. And I bristle a bit at social construction of reality theories. I’ve also read too much Ayn Rand.

That is, I usually want to hold individuals accountable, and not communities. It seems very difficult to me to relocate the decision-making agency from the individual to the community.

However, I fully recognize that the whole is seldom the sum of the parts. This is actually the vanguard of the sort of macroeconomics being taught by Richard Wager at George Mason University, where I am. He’s a little late to the game, but he’s first among economists. The interactions among independent individuals combine to create macro movements which none of these agents intended. The cars in a traffic jam are all moving forward, while the traffic jam itself is moving backwards.

I do see salvation as a transforming moment in a person’s life. I see empowerment of the Holy Spirit as the invitation to join God in His continuing creative work. I see regeneration as a moment when the self-interested nature of fallen man can be cast off in favor of Christ-interestedness.

With Ayn Rand and other Objectivists I find it inconsistent with human nature for people to act charitably. Most charity is imposed by irresponsible people, or is a signaling of power to the recipients and those who observe the gifting. It is a manipulation, a power-over weapon. Society itself is an aberration, a power-over construct, a squelching of individuality and dignity.

But regenerate people are no longer solely self-interested. We are Christ-interested. We want to do what we see our Father doing, even as Jesus did. We want to have a sensitivity to the Spirit to know what He is doing. We want to say with Brother Lawrence that we don’t even bend to pick up a straw except for the love of God. We do nothing for reward or personal gain. We already have our reward, Christ is our reward! What more could we want? Our charity asks for nothing in return. It seeks no political advantage, favor, or position. We do it in response to the Spirit. We receive joy alone, the sensation of being used by Him, as our motivation.

Rand’s philosophy removes the right of anyone to make a claim on the life of anyone else. The wealthy have no obligation to the poor. The mother has no claim to her son’s produce. All social norms which imply such claims are evil. I’d have to agree that such claims are vehicles for powering-over others, even for the poor to power-over the wealthy.

As believers we first give up our rights to ourselves to Christ, in acknowledgment of His deity and in acceptance of his salvation. We remember this in communion. We then give up our rights to ourselves to the body – the church – and grant them the right to make claims on our life. This is the act of baptism, and the entry point to the community, the only legitimate collective on earth, because it renounces power-over and practices mutual power-under. Some marry and give our spouses the right to make claims on our lives. I count marriage among the sacraments for this reason.

I am resistant to the concept of habit formation in general because I prefer intense sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Habit forming cannot tell you when not to help the sick person. Yet Jesus did not heal everyone. The goal is not to help and love people, but to love God (ah, here I am reformed again), and to glorify Him. God is sovereign over the suffering of His innocents. We don’t have to save them all. Yet we alone are empowered to save. It is a hard thought to know that some will not be saved.

Now, Romans 13. I often backpedal from anarchism at this point to a minarchism including courts which operate according to common law processes. God provided Israel with Judges and with a basic set of laws, out of which the people could count on protection of property and enforcement of contracts. He also established precedents and appeals processes.

So the authority wields the sword for justice. Some anarchists suggest the function of courts could be decentralized and subjected to market discipline. It may be possible. But I can accept a monopoly among courts.

Romans 13 is mostly telling the Christian that the method for practicing the gospel is not political rebellion. Pay your taxes – just don’t expect them to do any good.

Beyond this I recognize that the unbelievers will construct power-over institutions, despite our power-under attempts to dismantle them. We are to be subject to these institutions, recognizing God’s sovereignty, and to use interactions with these institutions as opportunities to demonstrate to peculiarity of the Christian Ethic. Where such institutions generate injustices were are to step in and offer ourselves as surrogates, or offer to redeem the innocent at our own expense. We are never to rebel. Again, the practice is to constantly push public opinion and policy at the margin in the direction of the ideal, never deceiving ourselves as to the possibility of achieving that ideal. It would be vanity if it were not purely service to Christ.

There is then, no justification for the formation of a movement. There are only individuals choosing to be in community, and to be responsive to the Spirit. There is complete decentralization of action, which God sovereignly directs to His macro-purpose. We are just to obey.

Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

jurisnaturalist — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:08:23 -0000

Ah, the no-spaces was a mere consequence of my typing my response in word and then cutting and pasting. It may reveal that I am not a Mac man, and that may say a great deal about my sensibilities! I will now hit the enter button twice, and in so doing return to the spaces-between-paragraphs-style.

See!

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

tedtroxell — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:53:30 -0000

I'm sorry about "reified." To "reify" is to make real, or to take as having real substance, or to regard something abstract as having concrete reality. I don't tend to use the term "regeneration" myself; the fact that you do, and the way in which you use it, suggest to me that you see something concrete happening in an individual that I don't see in quite the same way.

The reason I guessed you as Reformed is because of the role regeneration plays in Calvinist theology, and the fact that the word doesn't get used a ton outside those circles. Of course that doesn't automatically make you a TULIP 5-pointer, but I was guessing it put you somewhere in the flower patch.

It probably won't surprise you at this point that I'm more of a "social construction of reality" guy. I don't draw a hard line between the power of the Holy Spirit to effect change in a person's life and our formation in the habits of faith learned in community, which I submit is the normative means by which such power is made manifest. For some this is too bleak or reductionistic, and I understand that.

So I bristle at a phrase like "only Christians can do volitional good" because I don't have a theological mechanism for locating the point at which someone goes from being incapable to capable of such good.

Now, I'm curious: when dealing with Christian anarchists, people love to bring up Romans 13. There are ways that the Christian radicalism with which I'm most familiar handles this, but the more robust of those ways are rendered unavailable by your "two anarchisms" rejoinder to "two kingdoms" theology. Can I ask how you handle that?

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

facebook-714178806 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:11:59 -0000

This is a really interesting conversation and I don't mean to diminish the momentum, but I couldn't help noticing, Nathaneal, you went back to your traditional no-spaces-between-paragraphs writing style (which I think better represents your sensibilities!) after a few replies. I definitely prefer it that way (over the easier to read stuff anyway). Keep it coming. And sorry for no serious comment from me.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

jurisnaturalist — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:11:49 -0000

Your first paragraph has summarized my position brilliantly.
I'm unfamiliar with "reified" and google didn't help. What do you mean?
I like Piper a bit, but my background is mostly Baptist/evangelical, with a strong helping of Calvary Chapel, until I snuck into a class Hauerwas was teaching at Duke.
I attend a Presbyterian church, but still doubt I know how to spell presyptyrian correctly. I also ask a lot of questions that surprise people in Sunday School.
How would you contrast our different perspectives on regeneration? These fundamentals are often the key to understanding the rest of the conversation.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

tedtroxell — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:26:53 -0000

I find this very interesting because I resonate with a lot that you say here, but I have been resistant to libertarianism. The common articulations of libertarianism retain the state for precisely the purposes -- the use of force -- that many anarchists reject the state. What you seem to be saying is that something like gift-economy anarchism or anarcho-communism would be great for the church, wherein regeneration makes such arrangements possible, but that for the world at large, the closest possible thing -- anarcho-capitalism, which substitutes the play of market dynamics for the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit -- is as good as it gets, and better than the alternatives.

Is that close? And let me be honest: I'm intrigued but I'm probably not going to get on board, at least partially because you seem to have a more reified sense of what regeneration means (I'm guessing a Reformed background?) among other things. I'm not convinced you can get Hauerwas and Buchanan in the same universe, but it might make an interesting book.

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

jurisnaturalist — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:43:40 -0000

Of course a pure form of capitalism does not exist. There does not exist a pure form of anything, save Christ.
I want to point out that certain systems are dependent upon central direction, and others emerge spontaneously. I claim that those which emerge spontaneously are better reflections of human nature as it really is. Power-over influences distort these reflections. Free markets emerge spontaneously in the absence of too-strong power-over agents. Free markets are the exact image of how people would interact with one another if power-over were suppressed. Altruistic cooperation is emphatically not how self-interested individuals (unregenerate) would interact if power-over were suppressed.
So, in our interactions with public policy it makes more sense to try to encourage public opinion toward adoption of free markets and other emergent voluntaristic mechanisms rather than the expansion of political franchises and privileges.
For example, as Christians we can recognize that the state affords a privilege to married couples which functions as a discount coupon on transactions with the state. That such a privilege is denied to homosexuals should not make us want to expand the franchise and provide the privilege to homosexuals as well, but rather to repeal the privilege altogether.
Again, when some complain that illegal immigrants take advantage of welfare programs, we ought not to encourage the state to extend the welfare programs to all, but rather to repeal them to all, and assume full responsibility for the least of these ourselves.
Whether or not any such changes in policy ever take effect, we at least have a right understanding of what the ideal is in each debate and can, by making an argument for radical practice of the Christian Ethic by Christians, and unfettered free voluntarism for others, challenge every premise of the power-over structure. Such a testimony shuts the mouths of Christian progressives and fundamentalists alike, and surprises those who have never heard the gospel applied to real life and politics so radically.
There is incredible value or clout gained, and amazing opportunity for sharing the gospel, when we adopt such a stance toward policies.
Again there is both an ideal for Christians to adopt, the Christian Ethic, or the gift economy you spoke of, and a separate ideal for Christians to advocate on behalf of the unregenerate – that is, for public policy – which is unfettered voluntarism / anarchism. Any other system advocates for some power-over agent or other. It is this advocacy for the power-over which I cannot abide, which must be rooted out from the church wherever it occurs, which has enslaved evangelicalism, fundamentalism, progressivism, and so many other –isms alike.
We must have an ideal in order to know which direction to push policy in (at the margin – or in individual debates) consistently. Otherwise we wind up pushing in one direction on one issue and then in the opposing direction on a similar issue. Witness the right-to-life / pro-war dichotomy, for example.
What is difficult about all of this is that in the end, only Christians can do volitional good. We have to be brutally honest about the self-interested nature of the unregenerate man. Almost every other system tries to overcome this obstacle by power-over methods. Only anarcho-capitalism allows each person’s self-interest to work to the benefit of his fellow man, and avoids employing the power-over explicitly.
There remains the question of whether the formation of moral imagination by capitalism is a power-over mechanism. If it is, then it is only so implicitly, certainly not explicitly. Perhaps that makes it all the more demonic. I am unclear of the precise way this occurs, and would appreciate being directed to good resources for understanding the mechanisms involved. Too often I hear that such things all occur through narrative, etc. Such arguments are too squishy for me, and would be completely un-compelling to most audiences. I am reluctant to accept or employ them. I might just have to get over that.
I am vitally serious about understanding these issues clearly and honestly. It is my life’s work, most likely. To have Stanley Hauerwas meet James Buchanan, if only conceptually in my writings, would be climactic for me.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com

Re: The Prodigal Consumer

tedtroxell — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:55:26 -0000

I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Nathanael, and willingness to dig into things. I also appreciate your lack of interest in the present economic system that many of us refer to as "capitalism," even if that upsets hardcore market enthusiasts. At any rate, you're right to point out differences in the capitalism of cultural theory (in which nerdy people say things like "narrative transaction") and the capitalism of economists (which would involve, like, numbers and stuff). I appreciate as well your concern that we not neglect a "pure form" of capitalism based on the social critique of capitalism by people in the humanities.

I'm not sure a pure form of capitalism exists -- or, if it existed at one time it led to what we have now, and I don't think it's possible to go back. Whether it ever existed or not, to suggest that it would be better is, to me, a little like suggesting that riding a unicorn to work would be more environmentally friendly than driving my old truck; it's true enough, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to work it out.

Since I'm piling on the colorful (or just lame) analogies, I don't fault you for taking an interest in the political and economic landscape of the world at large, and you're correct in your intimation that I don't have a ready substitute -- but there's an extent to which arguing global or national economics is like asking my opinion as to the best way to get to LA when I'm convinced that we simply don't need to be going to LA in the first place (no offense to LA, I just picked it at random).

The only economic system that I can enthusiastically endorse is a gift economy (which might mean Paul and I agree on something) or some form of anarcho-communism. But these are not practicable on a national scale, and I think your recognition that whatever the ideal might be is not available to the unregenerate speaks to this (even if your concept of the "ideal" differs considerably). So pondering the most workable economic system for the world and coming up with some kind of pure capitalism is fair; I'm just not sure I buy it (pun shamelessly intended).

I picked on capitalism (as I understand it) in this piece not because it is the most heinous example of economic injustice imaginable but because it is our present economic environment, and it is unjust.