Abstract
Upon deep reflection, it becomes apparent that the “Our Father” prayer contains the entire content of Concordian economics: To make our daily—earthly—bread, we need the exercise of four economic rights and responsibilities. The practice of a moral economy requires the (Mosaic) systematic cancellation of our debts every seven years. This is consistent with the development of Concordian economics from the reintroduction of hoarding (as expressed in The Parable of the Talents) in the economic discourse.
Keywords: Our Father, Economic Rights and Responsibilities, Debt
The relation between religion and “culture” is of perennial profound interest. Biblical and other religious texts remain sources of inspiration as legal, moral, and spiritual authority. Here we will be briefly concerned with the broad issue of the relations between religion and economics.
Common wisdom assumes that economics is a positive science which eschews all values such as those embedded in a system of morality. Conversely, there are many who argue that even a positive science such as economics cannot avoid values: values are embedded in economics as in many other sciences (see, e.g., Caplin and Schotter 2008).
At the other end of the spectrum of ideas, the practical end, there is a burgeoning literature that goes under the banner of “The Economics of Religion.” The field is so vigorous today as to have gained in a short time its own JEL code, Z12, and to have formed its own professional organization, the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture (ASREC). This literature mostly studies religion as if it were a commodity and the church as if it were a business firm (see, e.g., Iannaccone 1998; McCleary 2011).
Fascinating as these investigations are, this writer, as the founder of Concordian economics, stays away from both approaches. For this claim of paternity, see, e.g., Journal of Economic Literature , December 2017, p. 1642. The abstract discussion is too abstract: values are everywhere; the practical discussion is too practical: money is everywhere, even in the church. In between, there are the traditional lines of analysis, which find in the Bible the original source of relationships between religion and economics and range from the very broad—religion affects everything—to the very specific, especially how to conduct business. They include the old quest concerning the effects of Protestantism on economic growth (Weber 1930; Fanfani 2003) and focus on the search for the roots of what today is called business ethics.
This literature is well represented in the Talmudic branch (see, e.g., Mangeloja 2004), the Protestant branch (see, e.g., North 1973;Rushdoony and Otto 1984), and the Catholic branch of religion (see especially authors who treat the entry “social justice,” as one of the most prominent, Behr 2019). Each branch has naturally tended to interpret Biblical texts for its own specific purposes, from the homiletic to the political to the ideological.
Invaluable insights on the relation between religion and economics can also be gathered from the growing economics literature on the Islamic (e.g., Kuran 1995), Buddhist (e.g., Zsolnai 2009), and Hindu (Bokare 1993) traditions.
Needless to say, no one in this literature has met the Economics of Moses and the Economics of Jesus head-on. It is hoped that this essay will spur a re-examination of those topics. The expectation is that experts deeply rooted in any or all of the vast religious traditions will gain much more benefit than this writer has been able to gather.
Going back from Concordian economics to the ancient history of economics, this writer has written of the Economics of Moses and the Economics of Jesus from a variety of points of view. Here he would like to present the most synthetic formulation of them all: The Economics of Moses and the Economics of Jesus are fully present in the “Our Father.”
The most explicit formulation is the prayer to Our Father to “forgive our debts.” This is an original translation; what must be a common mistranslation is “forgive our trespasses.” Trespasses? What is a trespass? The word trespass isolates Jesus from Moses.
A program of debt forgiveness is a Mosaic Debt Jubilee. Given the context, we can say that Jesus was very forceful about it. A systematic debt jubilee every seven years is essential to set our monetary house on a steady and sound foundation. This is the first essential program of Concordian monetary economics.
The second essential program of Concordian economics is also included in the “Our Father.” Jesus prays to God to give us “our daily bread.” In the Parable of the Loaves and Fishes, Jesus makes it perfectly clear that He was—He is—concerned about our earthly bread. Otherwise, He would have remained content with the offer of a sermon to the crowd. Jesus was obviously concerned with our daily earthly bread—in addition to our heavenly bread, of course.
It has been a recent revelation. To make our daily bread we need all four factors of (modern) production: 1. Land (a place to grow wheat and to bake bread); 2. Labor (flour does not knead itself into dough); 3. Money (to rent or buy the land where bread is made, buy flour, and sell the bread); and 4. Physical capital (the oven and other tools).
Concordian economics teaches us that to acquire control over these four factors of production we need to exercise four rights:
- The right of access to land and natural resources;
- The right of access to the fruits of one’s labor;
- The right of access to financial resources imbued in our national credit; and
- The right of access to the fruits of one’s property.
How are these rights acquired? To the best of this writer’s understanding, economic rights are acquired through the exercise of corresponding economic responsibilities; namely,
- The responsibility to pay taxes on land and natural resources under our control;
- The responsibility to perform tasks required in the process of wealth creation;
- The responsibility to repay loans obtained through access to national credit; and
- The responsibility to respect the property of others.
Who are the powerful people who would object to this program of action? As pointed out on another occasion, four presumed antagonists are supposed to be:
- Landowners who do not want to pay their fair share of taxes on the value of their land;
- Central bankers who do not want to serve the public interest;
- Entrepreneurs who do not want to offer full compensation for services received; and
- Business people who want to gobble up the fruit of other people’s effort.
Where are they? Apart from their minuscule apparitions, when measured against the billions of entrepreneurs who behave morally, they are four phantoms—but more dangerous for being ingrained in the imagination of people who, blinded by their institutional power, see neither economics nor morality clearly. READ: tax assessors, politicians, and academicians who, unable to speak truth to power, make themselves powerless and paralyze entire nations.
Full demonstration to the contrary can be found in the following extraordinary circumstances. Having shown to the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) the wisdom of Concordian monetary theory, the Fed had the moral fortitude to respond: “Given your proposal, I suggest that you contact your state and federal representatives.”
Notice that the Fed has traditionally fought political interference into its operations tooth and nail.
This writer has had precious few resources of money and time to devote to the task. Is this the time for more resourceful entities to intervene in these affairs?
Yes, the whole of Concordian economics is contained in the “Our Father.”
Yes, Concordian economics alone will grant us all financial independence—without the contribution of even one cent from the powers-that-be, but through the transformation of their privileges into economic rights and responsibilities for all.
And what does financial independence mean? It means that we cannot be any richer; we are as rich as we want to be, as rich as we can be.
It means that, being economically free, we can finally assume all the moral responsibilities that make our lives worth living.
We will finally be able to integrate the requirements of economic, ecological, and human interdependence.
We will finally be able to live as brothers.
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