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The road to Egypt: job creators in the Ancient World
Times of Israel ^
| 12/19/2012
| DANIEL KAGANOVICH and JEREMY ENGLAND
Posted on 12/19/2012 7:30:53 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In a recent commentary on the Torah portion Parshat Miketz posted in The Times of Israel, Shawn Ruby presents the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt as evidence that having a government-managed economy works. Specifically, he casts Joseph as the first Keynesian economist, that is, the first person to realize that a powerful executive with the authority to make economic decisions on behalf of the people can plan consumption patterns more wisely than a group of disorganized individuals, and thereby become the salvation of everyone.
Mr. Ruby writes:
Whether the famine was supply-side or demand-side in origin, Josephs example teaches us the important role government has in smoothing out the ravages of the business cycle. Saving a surplus during the years of plenty and spending during the lean years is an ancient formula, backed by modern economics since the Great Depression. Unfortunately, it has been forgotten by too many modern-day policy makers.
Mr. Ruby is correct to realize that the story of Joseph and Pharaoh may be read, among other ways, as a brilliant treatise on political economy. In reaching the conclusion that he does, however, he fails to consider a great deal of relevant textual evidence from the story that weighs against his thesis. At the very least he might take a look at the next portion, Vayigash:
Now there was no bread in all the world, for the famine was very severe; both the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. Joseph gathered in all the money that was to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, as payment for the rations that were being procured, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaohs palace. And when the money gave out in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said Give us bread, lest we die before your very eyes; for the money is gone! And Joseph said, Bring your livestock, and I will sell to you against your livestock, if the money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, for the stocks of sheep and cattle, and the asses; thus he provided them with bread that year in exchange for all their livestock. And when that year was ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, We cannot hide from my lord that, with all the money and animal stocks consigned to my lord, nothing is left at my lords disposal save our persons and our farmland. Let us not perish before your eyes, both we and our land. Take us and our land in exchange for bread, and we with our land will be serfs to Pharaoh; provide the seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become a waste. (JPS Tanakh, 2000)
Smoothing out the ravages of the business cycle indeed. What Mr. Ruby ignores, and what the text devotes many verses to emphasizing, is that central planning of the kind undertaken by Joseph and Pharaoh ultimately leads down a Hayekian road to serfdom. Here, what starts as a grain shortage brought on by natural cycles in the east wind and the Niles ebb and flow is leveraged by a government with authoritarian ambitions to utterly enslave the people better yet, to have the people beg the government to enslave them! This much is clear: the more the coercive power of the state is deployed in the name of preventing individuals from making bad decisions about how to arrange their own sustenance, the greater will be the eventual loss of individual liberty.
Of course, the state cannot give anything it does not first take by threat of force, yet when the meal comes back to us, we still often think we are getting something for nothing.
Far less clear is what the people actually gain in exchange for their freedom. Ruby writes It is not clear what caused the famine in Egypt, yet a close reading of the text forces us to acknowledge it may well have been Joseph himself. In the stories of the patriarchs, the Torah is clear that famine strikes every generation, and for every one of the patriarchs, the temptation is the same: to go down to Egypt to get food. This was true not only in the time of Jacob, but for Isaac and Abraham as well. The point is that Egypts irrigated agricultural production is so tremendous in the good years that there is always plenty of food left over for the bad years. The text does not give us a reason to suppose the average quantity of food is any different in the time of Joseph. What changes, however, is who owns it, and where it is kept. Josephs new policies are essentially two-fold: the seizure of grain by the state through taxation, and the relocation of the grain from the countryside to guarded stores in the cities. What we have here is the anatomy of a manufactured crisis.
In a free market economy, some farmers may store grain in years of plenty, and others may sell it to non-farmers. Enterprising individuals may even take to raising cattle, especially when the abundance of grain drives down its price and puts unskilled growers out of business. Of course, astute observers of grain futures that is, commodities speculators like Joseph can always dream up a plan to make timely investments in grain and turn a nice profit. But with the coercive power of government behind him, Joseph goes much further, using taxes and public investment to crowd out private saving so that the next crop failure will lead to a near-perfect state monopoly on food. Once the food shortage arrives, Joseph and Pharaoh are poised to de-kulakize the farmers, first taking their money, then their property, and finally the farmers themselves in exchange for life-giving bread. Safe and comfortable in their fortified cities (guarded, no doubt, by well-fed soldiers), Joseph and Pharaoh use a supposed concern for the well-being of the nation as a pretext to enslave it. We tend to read the biblical text in light of the eventual Exodus, and carelessly assume that Egypt was always a dictatorship which Joseph simply helped out with a few agronomical innovations. Looking more closely at the text, it becomes clear that Joseph is the one who turned Egypt into a slave society.
Mr. Ruby is right about this: the story of Joseph is very relevant to the debate over the role of government in the economy today. The relentless narrative theme at the core of the Five Books of Moses is that life in Egypt, even as a slave, offers many temptations that each generation must struggle anew to resist. The Torah points out that people are willing to sell everything they have, even their liberty, to be free from the anxiety of not knowing how theyll put food on the table tomorrow. Indeed, the sense of gratitude that this guarantee of security produces can be so powerful that the slave may even forget the price he paid for it: We remember the fish that we used to eat in Egypt for free, pined the Israelites in the desert. Of course, the state cannot give anything it does not first take by threat of force, yet when the meal comes back to us, we still often think we are getting something for nothing.
The story of Joseph is no guidebook for managing the economy, but rather a sophisticated and somber warning of how free people choose to become slaves. Interestingly, many laws in the Torah seek to make this outcome a practical impossibility for the Jewish nation. The fifty-year Jubilee resets gross inequalities in land ownership that have accumulated through past transactions, and the sabbatical shmita rule forces the people to rehearse for famine every seven years by letting their fields lie fallow. Even individuals who insist on remaining slaves after their prescribed term of service are sharply rebuked. The Torah does not encourage reliance on a cadre of powerful experts to secure our future. Rather, by establishing each person (and not a Pharaoh) as the image of God, it sets forth an ideal of individual autonomy and creativity to which we all can aspire.
Viewed in light of this ideal, the political temperaments of todays western democracies are a very sorry sight indeed. In the past several years, Europes ailing welfare states have witnessed ferocious demonstrations against the prospect of reducing free services provided by government, and Israelis have marched to demand that their leaders do something to lower the cost of everything from housing to cottage cheese. Meanwhile, in America, the recently concluded electoral contest saw both major parties promising that they knew best how to use the power of the presidency to create jobs. Among other things, Parshat Vayigash should remind us that the Pharaohs were some of historys most successful job creators: as we learn in the Book of Exodus, there was always more demand for the backbreaking, menial labor needed to construct massive pyramids out of brick and stone for the glory of the god-king. Fortunately for Pharaoh, his planners had enough control over the economy to set a price for labor that was commensurate with the regimes architectural needs. We may only hope that the free societies of the world internalize the lessons of biblical Egypt soon, reversing steps theyve already taken down a road that always leads to the same destination.
TOPICS: History; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: biblicalarchaeology; egypt; exodus; godsgravesglyphs; israel; joseph; letshavejerusalem; serfdom; theexodus
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Joseph turned Egypt into a slave society
To: SeekAndFind
Joseph turned Egypt into a slave societyJust great. An argument about current economic situations ends with a condemnation of Yosef HaTzaddiq (Joseph the Righteous) as an evil man.
What's next . . . Moses as the first Communist?
2
posted on
12/19/2012 8:27:41 AM PST
by
Zionist Conspirator
(Ki-hagoy vehamamlakhah 'asher lo'-ya`avdukh yove'du; vehagoyim charov yecheravu!)
To: SeekAndFind
I saw no evidence that the Egyptians saw themselves as oppressed. Egypt under Joseph’s rule prospered and literally saved the known world as the mediterranean nations around Egypt were also affected by the famine. The tax system was flat based and equitable. Besides Joseph was not in rebellion to the Mosaic code since God had not delivered it yet; that would occur some 483 years or so after the arrival of Israel at the land of Goshen. Joseph was under God’s tutledge and guidance when Joseph laid down his economic salvation plan which saved Egypt and the known world from hunger. Now after 400 years Josph’s systems became corrupted, enslaving the Hebrews into keeping Egypt’s economic system afloat.
Remember, Joseph’s plan was God’s plan, so any criticisms of the choices and decisions Josph made are criticisms of God himself. Nevertheless, a point could be made as to the devolution of the Egyptian economic systems post Jospeph; ie lavish wasteful spending, costly foreign wars, and increasingly brutal tyranny over the nation’s populace without the guidance of wise Godly men!
3
posted on
12/19/2012 8:35:01 AM PST
by
mdmathis6
("Barry" Xmas to all and have a rapaciously taxable New Year!)
To: Zionist Conspirator
I don’t think he was calling Joseph evil.
He was using his story as a cautionary tale of being over-dependent on government ...
As Bastiat would say -— In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects.
Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
Joseph’s IMMEDIATE ACTS saved everyone, the long term effects (hundreds of years later ) of what he did and what the people allowed themselves to become, was something he could not have predicted, and only God in His sovereign wisdom, knows.
To: SeekAndFind
Fortunately I have read the whole story, and there is not one bit of Keynesian thoughts to be found in Joseph’s life story. There is no Creator in “Keynesian” doctrine. “Keynesian” doctrine is a narcissistic personality disorder wherein the ‘state’ is god.
To: SeekAndFind
I dont think he was calling Joseph evil.I certainly hope not.
He was using his story as a cautionary tale of being over-dependent on government ...
As Bastiat would say - In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects.
Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
Josephs IMMEDIATE ACTS saved everyone, the long term effects (hundreds of years later ) of what he did and what the people allowed themselves to become, was something he could not have predicted, and only God in His sovereign wisdom, knows.
My point is simply this: there are things more important than our current economic arguments. Joseph was a righteous man, and he has often been slandered by anti-Semites and "enlightenment" types. Joseph was (like all of us) an actor in a cosmic drama that makes our economic clashes look microscopic by comparison, and he should not be treated in this manner.
Frederic Bastiat did not create the universe. Some conservatives need to make up their minds about their ultimate authority.
6
posted on
12/19/2012 8:45:44 AM PST
by
Zionist Conspirator
(Ki-hagoy vehamamlakhah 'asher lo'-ya`avdukh yove'du; vehagoyim charov yecheravu!)
To: Just mythoughts
How do you take this statement made by those who needed help during the famine?
“Take us and our land in exchange for bread, and we with our land will be serfs to Pharaoh; provide the seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become a waste.”
(Genesis 47:19)
Joseph or even the Pharoah he served the might have been righteous men, but what would have happened if the same policy were continued AFTER both of them died?
To: Zionist Conspirator
I am not going to criticize Bastiat as he did not even mention Joseph in his writings.
I am simply citing this author’s arguments...
An understandable policy when set in place IN RESPONSE to a crisis should be REVISITED after the crisis passes, especially when it results in centralized authority and concentrates too much power in the hands of one person.
Same principle applies to our financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. We spent OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS ABOVE and IN EXCESS of our budget ( which was a mere 2.6 Trillion in 2008 ).
What has happened after the crisis passed? Heck, the CRISIS BUDGET is now the NORM. we never reverted back to the normal 2.6 Trillion budget we were used to in 2008.
THE RESULT: we now have to BORROW TILL WE BECOME GREECE to sustain our trillion dollar deficit which is now the NORM.
So, going back to Joseph, was it a good idea for the people to cede their lands to a central authority and be in bondage IN PERPETUITY after the 7 year famine had pass?
That is the lesson we have to learn in HINDSIGHT.
To: SeekAndFind; windcliff; stylecouncilor; raven92876
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
w, s, & r ping....
9
posted on
12/19/2012 8:57:09 AM PST
by
onedoug
To: SeekAndFind
Centralized Government works only if you find a man as rightious as Joseph. Joseph was easily one in a million.
Our attempts at the same have only found hundreds of thousands of evil men. Just does not work out the same...
Now Joseph saved much of the middle east when God clued him in about the famine coming. Still and yet, the society turned to slavery. Our leaders are absolutly clueless, and far from rightious, but the slavery comes just the same.
So the key obviously is rightiousness, the truth in the matter is that with centralized government, no matter who runs it, it ends up in slavery.
10
posted on
12/19/2012 9:04:12 AM PST
by
American in Israel
(A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
To: SeekAndFind
Putting resources aside for a rainy day--or years of famine--is, and always has been, provident behavior. It is the precise opposite of the Keynesian approach, which is to spend what has not yet even been achieved.
What Joseph advocated was what Squirrels have practiced from time immemorial. It is fully in accord with the natural order. Suggesting anything in common with those who deny the laws of nature--the humanist cretins who are destroying Western culture, today--is ludicrous.
William Flax [Whither American Conservatism?]
11
posted on
12/19/2012 9:05:26 AM PST
by
Ohioan
To: Ohioan
The author was not criticizing what Joseph did during the 7 years of plenty. He was CAUTIONING against OVER DEPENDENCE on central government such that people lose their liberty AFTER a crisis is over.
To: American in Israel
RE: Centralized Government works only if you find a man as rightious as Joseph. Joseph was easily one in a million.
Apparently there are people today who believe they have found someone like Joseph (and more).
His name is Barack Obama and Jaimie Foxx calls him “Our Lord and Savior”
See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk5KAWdwPpE
To: SeekAndFind
I was responding to the comment in the article, which suggested that Joseph was a Keynesian.
However, I do not think that the Egyptian social structure--such of it as I even pretend to understand--was sufficiently comparable to that of a settler nation, such as the America the Fathers thought they were vouchsafing to their posterity--for the cautioning aspect to be particularly relevant--other than in a very general way.
All human societies are not comparable. Some are more analogous to beasts that live in herds, with a structure suitable to living in herds. Our traditional American societies are more analogous to those of species that operate much more individually--or in small family units.
This does not mean that over dependence on anything is a good thing. It just means that in a "top down" constructed society--as opposed to one that grows organically from the individual families up--the allocation of resources will reflect the very significant differences in ultimate responsibility.
Of course, even in the point I make, their is a cautionary point, against allowing Obama or his corrupt minions to play Pharaoh!
William Flax
14
posted on
12/19/2012 9:22:34 AM PST
by
Ohioan
To: SeekAndFind
How do you take this statement made by those who needed help during the famine? Take us and our land in exchange for bread, and we with our land will be serfs to Pharaoh; provide the seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become a waste. (Genesis 47:19) Joseph or even the Pharoah he served the might have been righteous men, but what would have happened if the same policy were continued AFTER both of them died? One needs to know who the 'these' are that sold themselves and their land to serve Pharaoh... (history repeating itself?) Remember Moses wrote this down as given to him by the Creator, as Moses had not yet been born with these events occurred.
History repeats itself, and Paul made note of this fact in ICorinthians 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; (examples) and they are written for our admonition, (warning) upon whom the ends of the world (age) are come.
Now to know specifically who the 'them' are that Paul is referencing is said in ICorinthians 10:2 .... the children of Israel/Jacob, being freed from Pharaoh. I do not believe there is a coincidence that we hired a Pharaoh type to rule over US.
To: Ohioan
Sorry about the use of “their” for there in the last sentence.
16
posted on
12/19/2012 9:27:34 AM PST
by
Ohioan
To: SeekAndFind
Well, not much I can say to someone who worships an anti-messiah type. Just like a pirate crew cheering the captain on leading them to more looting and pillaging, evil likes evil, that is the way of the world. Just like you cannot spend yourself to prosperity, you can't loot yourself there either. The victims just go Galt on ya.
I expect that in the real world, lemmings cheer the leader on all the way over the cliff.
17
posted on
12/19/2012 10:58:27 AM PST
by
American in Israel
(A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
To: SeekAndFind
As righteous as Joseph was, his policies resulted in the government owning almost everything. Gen. 47:20 "And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaohs."
There was no longer widespread private ownership of the land.
Furthermore, Egypt's citizenry moved from the rural areas into the cities, leaving them easy targets for foreign takeover. Indeed that is what happened. The Hyksos conquered and occupied Egypt. The Bible does not mention the Hyksos by name. It only states "another Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph."
If the US were to implement Joseph's policies, we would lose our farms, our cities would become even more overpopulated and we would be an easy target for the ChiComs to invade us and take us over.
18
posted on
12/19/2012 2:25:04 PM PST
by
Guyin4Os
(A messianic ger-tsedek)
Thanks SeekAndFind.
Shawn Ruby presents the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt as evidence that having a government-managed economy works. Specifically, he casts Joseph as the first Keynesian economist, that is, the first person to realize that a powerful executive with the authority to make economic decisions on behalf of the people can plan consumption patterns more wisely than a group of disorganized individuals, and thereby become the salvation of everyone.
The "Canal of Joseph" is still there, and still called that, and dates from the period of the Middle Kingdom:
Joseph and Potiphar
by Immanuel Velikovsky
...realizing that the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt took place not during the New Kingdom but during the preceding Middle Kingdom, in order to find out whether the personality of Joseph or the patron of the early stage of his career, Potiphar, is referred to in the historical documents, we have to look into those of the Middle Kingdom. The task appears simple. According to the Book of Genesis Potiphar was "an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard." In the register of the private names to the Ancient Records of Egypt by James Breasted, we find the name Ptahwer. Ptahwer was at the service of the Pharaoh Amenemhet III of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. According to an inscription of Ptahwer at Sarbut el-Khadem in Sinai dated in the forty-fifth year of Amenemhet III, his office was that of "master of the double cabinet, chief of the treasury."
...The inscription records the successful accomplishment of some peaceful expedition. Since there is only one Ptahwer in the historical documents, and since he lived in the time when we expect to find him, we are probably not wrong in identifying the biblical Potiphar with the historical Ptahwer... In the days of Amenemhet III there occurred in Egypt a famine enduring nine long years... it seems that the Pharaoh in whose days was the seven years' famine was the successor of the Pharaoh in whose days began the rise of Joseph's career (if Yatu is Joseph). Potiphar, who lived under Amenemhet III, probably lived also under his successor.
The inscription which deals with Ptahwer mentions a man whose name is transliterated by Breasted as Y-t-w. Among the monuments of Amenemhet III's reign is one of the Storekeeper who was honored together with two other persons, and , with a royal If we remember that according to the Scriptural narrative Joseph was appointed storekeeper of the State (Gen. 41:40-41) in anticipation of the seven lean years, with the powers of a chief Minister of State or Vice-King, we may suspect in Yatu the Biblical Joseph. In the Scriptures it is said that his name was changed by Pharaoh to Zaphnath-paaneah, but still his original name may have been in use until he became next to the Pharaoh in importance.
The inscription that mentions Ptahwer refers to his activity in the mines of the Sinai peninsula. In this respect it is of interest to find that the Jewish traditions connect Joseph with the area of the Sinai Peninsula saying that he kept a large quantity of treasuries near Baal Zaphon, the scene of the Passage of the Sea.
19
posted on
12/21/2012 8:43:21 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
20
posted on
12/21/2012 8:47:45 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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