How Libertarian Is God? (by T)

By T

Is God a Libertarian?

Something only a relative few know about me is that I used to be, not just a student of economics (it was my major at college), but fairly obsessed with economic and monetary policy. I studied and came to trust in the kind of supply-side economic theories that Milton Friedman made famous and the kind of monetary policy that the central banks of Germany and the US have implemented, on the whole, for about 30 years in the US, and even longer in Germany. In law school these passions translated into and fueled discussions and studies of public policy including those affecting children and people in poverty. And for my third year writing requirement, I did a review of a book by libertarian and legal scholar Randy Barnett,The Structure of Liberty which I still recommend. And it was safe to say that for a period of time, I leaned strongly toward libertarianism, and it’s also fair to say I still find some of the wisdom of that school of thought convincing and helpful.

But in the midst of all the discussions and studies in law school, a question hit me, as someone who was also passionate about Jesus and seeking to integrate my studies with that love: Since God, as king over Israel, had multiple economic policies built into the Mosaic Law, what kind of jurisprudential and economic policies did he establish for his chosen people, his holy nation? My approach to the scriptures, even then, was nuanced enough not to think that whatever God did then is what we should do today, especially considering the economy for ancient Israel was so dependent on land as capital for farming, ranching, and related economic activity. But that didn’t mean that the law of Moses couldn’t be enormously enlightening. A perennial question in public policy is how to balance individual incentives and rights with safety nets. I remember thinking that surely there would be something we could induce of God’s values in how he answered that question in Israel’s law. What was the priority given to social safety nets vs. individual responsibility and/or accumulation of wealth in God’s economy? What limits, if any, did God put on personal property rights, which are the foundation of modern capitalist societies and economies? What did God consider “just?” What economic goals, if any, did God have for Israel? C.S. Lewis once commented of young atheists (such as he once was): “Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side.” In a similar way, I didn’t realize I was going into the Lion’s den by reading the books of Moses in search of answers to my questions about economics and God’s plans for balancing the good of the poorest against individual responsibility. I was also very curious about how God pursued his goals. Would there be any wisdom that could be applied in today’s economies?

As I mentioned, for the libertarian, private property rights are the foundation of the entire legal and economic system. Another way to put it is to say that one can probably measure the extent to which one is dedicated to libertarianism by how little tolerance one has for anything that would limit or infringe upon individual property rights. Such rights begin with one’s own body and are extended outward to creations and lawfully obtained rights in various types of property and the income therefrom. To a libertarian, the authority of the government to tax ought only be tolerated to the extent absolutely necessary (and what counts as ‘necessary’ for society is often a matter for debate, though common defense is perhaps most often on the list, with most every other item of government being more suspect, even infrastructure, environmental regulation, safety nets, criminal justice, etc.). For example, in Randy Barnett’s The Structure of Liberty which I referenced above, he argues, more persuasively than many would expect, that even the vast bulk of the civil and criminal justice system can be privatized.

But one does not need to get very far in the Law of Moses to realize that God did not build Israel’s law on a foundation of private property rights, only to be infringed as minimally as possible. Indeed, even though the scriptures speak of various families “owning” parts of the land, which was the central “capital” for this economy, God makes it clear that the only true owner is himself, and the entire nation of Israel are, with respect to the land, his tenants. It does not take a law degree to see the very substantial difference. But God goes even farther. His justification for limits on slavery and debt of Hebrews by Hebrews was rooted in the same concept. The Hebrews, God said, belonged to him. They were his servants that he had purchased by his great victory over Egypt. Therefore, no Hebrew was to be permanently enslaved by another, though a Hebrew could dedicate himself to a human master out of love for him. We’ll look more closely at these, the most striking of God’s economic policies, in the next post, but to summarize they are:

Multiple forms of required charity for immediate needs,
Limits on interest charged, with automatic, across the board debt forgiveness (and related servant-slave release) every 7 years, with provisions supplied to the released,
Re-gifting of land (capital) to the families/tribes every 49 years.

Some are no doubt saying, “Well, that’s fine that God didn’t base Israel’s laws on individual rights . . . it was a theocracy with God personally centered and present as king. Since we don’t have that option, we have to settle for (maximized) individual rights (and responsibility) to best protect everyone.” I would say, yes and no. Yes, there’s was a theocracy, but no, that’s not really a material difference for most of the economic policies in Israel. Even if we take God’s ultimate “ownership” out of the picture, individual rights, though present in Israel, were still limited, not just “upwards” to God, but also “downwards” to fellow (poorer) Israelites in numerous and substantial ways for the purpose of alleviating and preventing systemic poverty. We will look more closely at the most noteworthy of these kinds of policies next post, but I don’t think the theocracy vs. democracy difference dodge works at all. (I tried it for myself!) A democracy could just as easily put limits on debts, just as our modern (weaker) bankruptcy laws put limits on creditors rights. It’s a policy choice, or rather a series of them, that prioritize goals for a society. What I learned, as a young and passionate libertarian who looked at the economic policies and priorities that God implemented, was that God was surprisingly willing, not to eliminate private wealth and personal incentives, but to go much further in limiting them vis a vis other people for the sake of giving provision and second (and third, etc.) chances to those in need, even if the poor were the cause of their own need.

But there was a kicker: God seemed convinced that following these radically kind policies to those at the bottom wouldn’t just eliminate poverty in Israel, but also bring great wealth to the nation. His goals for Israel could best be described as “both/and . . . but only if” as in, Both wealth and help for the poor . . . but only if you give the individual and institutional help to the poor that I have said is required and just.”

We’ll look at the specifics more later, but my question today is, do we care? What do we do with the fact that this is the kind of economy, the kind of policy, the kind of goals, the kind of laws and protections, that God made when he wrote economic policy and laws for a nation? This gets to our view of scripture generally and our view of the Old Testament in particular, which is no easy thing for evangelicals to come to terms with. For my part, I’ll be up front that I went into that study expecting that whatever I found would reveal some measure of God’s own priorities or values when it comes to the inevitable trade-offs of personal responsibility and help for the economic “losers.” I wanted to know how God decided, as king, to make that trade. What were his economic goals for Israel? What did he prioritize? Secondly, I was looking for wisdom as to how he designed policies (yes, for a very different economy) to accomplish that set of values. Whatever view we have of the OT, I thought these were appropriate goals. We’ll look at the second, the “how’s” in the next post. For now, what do we do with God’s heart? What do we do when God’s idea of “justice” as it pertains to individual property and economic rights differs from our own leanings? What do you see, if anything, in Israel’s laws that matters for how we conceive of a “just” society and its policies? Should God’s choices and balancing of individual rights, incentives and institutional mercies in his laws shape our own priorities in any way today?