Jesus Economics With F.A. Hayek

Weekend Libertarian ^ | July 4, 2011 | B.P. Terpstra

[AustralianConservative]

Economists who pontificate about economics but know next to nothing about why civilizations rise and fall are not very bright. F.A. Hayek was different. Unlike today’s media-approved economists he explains in The Road To Serfdom, why socialism is more than a break with the recent past but also “with the whole evolution of Western civilization.”

I doubt today’s esteemed finance reporters can name three differences between the Old Testament and the New. Again, Hayek was different, stressing the need to embrace a “longer historical perspective” as opposed to the Left’s New Soviet Man.

Adamant as well: “We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, of Adam Smith and Hume, or even of Locke and Milton, but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and the Romans. Not merely nineteenth- and eighteenth-century [classical] liberalism, but the basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.”

In one way, Hayek, the Christian, who went onto become the co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics is saying: Don’t just read me, study Christianity. Study ancient civilizations. Please.

Described as a proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century, Hayek would be labeled an evil right-winger conservative today, my guess, because he couldn’t stop praising Christianity, correctly recognizing her place in great periods, including the so-called secular Renaissance.

Remember too Hayek was questioning narcissistic adults-first positions, and openly held the view that individualism had a bad name in his day because it was associated with “egotism and selfishness.”

[AustralianConservative]

http://weekendlibertarian.blogspot.com/2011/07/jesus-economics-with-fa-hayek.html

[gorush]

I recently read “Road To Serfdom. It was written between 1940 and 1943. It should be required reading for anyone with a vote.

[haroldeveryman]

“socialism is more than a break with the recent past but also “with the whole evolution of Western civilization.” “

No wonder these dirt bags don’t teach history in schools any more.

[hinckley buzzard]

Absolutely. Hayek was a moral philosopher, like Adam Smith. He understood that centrally planned economies, by "redistributing wealth" could make things better for a period of time. Their most critical failure is moral, not materialistic. Socialism is evil not only because it impoverishes people, but because ultimately it reduces people to the drones of an anthill.

[Loud Mime]

Hayek would be labeled an evil right-winger conservative today, my guess, because he couldn’t stop praising Christianity, correctly recognizing her place in great periods, including the so-called secular Renaissance.

Evil because he was a Christian.
Right-winger because liberals believe they are in the center - - which is wrong.

[the invisib1e hand]

but the basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.”

Techology made this inevitable. See McLuhan, "Understanding Media" circa 1964

[the invisib1e hand]

“Techology” — which is a cool word I just invented and might use again — should have been “Technology” — for those of you in Rio Linda.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Then there's the Iron Rule of Oligarchy.

Even while fighting desperately against socialism/communism America finds itself in a quasi-fascist corporate state.

Corporations amass power and then use part of their profits to lobby/bribe governments to do their bidding in order to retain their power.

Whether the underlying "ethic" is socialist equality, or quarterly profits, without a firm moral foundation we will be led by conglomerates run by a rather small slice of the population.

Of course the good news is that in a democracy, whether socialist or corporatist, most anyone can rise to the top of the pile. You just have to say and do the right things (and people) for a sufficient number of years.

[newheart]

In one way, Hayek, the Christian, who went onto become the co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics is saying: Don’t just read me, study Christianity.

I have not read everything of Hayek. However, in what I believe is his last book,The Fatal Conceit in the last chapter he wrote these words: "So far as I am personally concerned I had better state that i feel as little entitled to assert as to deny the existence of what others call God, for I must admit that i just do not know what this word is supposed to mean." He was "a professed agnostic."

Yes he had enormous respect for Christian tradition and its influence on the development of human ethics and morals, but the words "Hayek, the Christian," seem to be a bit inaccurate.

[dadfly]

have read *road to serfdom.* a great work. did credit to von mises, one of his mentors i believe. did not know that hayek was a christian or even a believer. any more on his faith?

[newheart]

Nope. In The Fatal Conceit he describes himself as a “professed agnostic.”

[dadfly]

thanks, didn’t get the feeling from reading “serfdom” that he was a believer.

[RoadTest]

Jesus economy: “And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.
And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.
And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:
For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.” (Mk. 12:41)