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THE NECESSITY OF BIBLICAL
ECONOMICS (from Biblical, Jewish, Ellen White and political history sources)
by Bryan Bissell, available online at:
www.eslmission.org/resources (click
Bible Programs section)
THE PROBLEM OF POVERTYWith the saying in the Bible that the love of money is the root of all evil…and many strong words against the rich and powerful, it may seem strange to some that God would be concerned about economics. But the evil is not in the money or wealth itself. As with many other things, it is the way that money is used that causes it to be productive or destructive. One writer said it this way: When we choose the Lord as our sole master, He does not remove our money. In fact, He takes the money and transforms it into an ally. The same dollar that places a bet, pays a prostitute, or purchases "crack" cocaine also buys a Bible, digs a well, or supports a missionary. The same dollar the shrewd manager uses to pave his way into a golden future, a shrewd disciple uses to invest in eternal friendships. But the difference is the product of a choice of masters. I have written in my e-mail list some about the extreme unfair trade policies among nations currently and issues that are similar. I said economic principles are an integral part of the Bible. This article shows in some detail some of the Biblical principals of economics and why they are critically relevant for us here and now today. They are NOT just ancient ideas that were a nice idea at one time. They are the ONLY way to solve many of the serious problems that our world has today!! Unfortunately, many people and even some Christians and Christian leaders don’t think that these principles can work today. To answer this doubt, I have collected quotes and thoughts from philosophers and thinkers of many persuasions ranging from the Bible and Christians, to atheists to people like Confucius to show as clearly as possible why the Bible’s economic principles are part of the most basic human rights that each person on this planet deserves and why they will resolve the problems that we face. There are very few other concepts that have such wide acceptance among people of such differing philosophies. This makes it all the more critical to understand and implement these principles. When God’s principles are ignored the serious problems that we have today such as terrorism, crime, starvation and others are inevitable. After you read these, you will no longer be ignorant about the main cause (but by no means the only cause) of some of the most serious problems in our world. Today, poverty is at one of the worst points in history. There are a very few extremely rich people and millions of extremely poor. And some of us who are the privileged wrongly in a way live in a “matrix” of our own way of life and we cannot or do not wish to see the extreme suffering that is going on worldwide to the majority of the world’s people. This little thought is illuminating:
It is doubtful if the gap between the rich and poor in the world has ever been larger than it is now on a world wide scale. And this is not at all by accident. It is inevitable because of the rejection of God’s economic principles outlined in the Bible and practiced to some extant by many ancient cultures which did not have the destitute poverty like we see so commonly today. You may have played the game monopoly. In that game, even though everyone starts out equal, inevitably one person will get all the property and money. That game was based directly on capitalism and we can see in real life that the exact same thing is happening these days (see statistic #1). These are just a few statistics that show what is happening because our world has rejected God’s economic wisdom: 1) Research done by Susan Willett for the Trust for Research and Education on the Arms Trade (TREAT) highlights the inextricable links between war and conflict on the one hand, and high levels of debt on the other. Germany's high levels of First World War debt degraded her economy and provided a breeding ground for militarism and fascism. Today a similar pattern is repeated in the poorest countries. There is a strong correlation between highly indebted countries and countries which have descended into civil war and militarism. During the 1990s alone there have been 39 major conflicts with more than 4 million people killed. Nine out of ten casualties are civilians. There are over 200,000 child soldiers in the world - a corruption of childhood which threatens all of our futures. 2) About a sixth of the world's population -- nearly 1 billion people -- live in slums. "In some developing country cities, slums are so pervasive that it is the rich who have to segregate themselves behind small gated enclaves," the report said. The report describes slums as poor areas that lack basic services or access to clean water, where housing is poorly built and overcrowded. Developed nations are not immune: According to the report, 54 million people who live in cities in richer nations live in slum-like conditions. The report says that the worldwide number of slum dwellers increased by 36 percent in the 1990s to 923 million people. At its current pace, the number could double to 2 billion by 2030. U.N. officials said that's a clear sign the world is not meeting a goal it set in 2000 to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, and said even that goal is far too narrow in scope. The promise was laid out in a declaration adopted by 189 countries at the U.N. Millennium Summit in September 2000. (from a CNN report about the U.N. Human Settlements Program and a report entitled "The Challenge of Slums" 3)
An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance
between the richest and poorest countries was about : 4) In 1976, the wealthiest 1% of Americans owned 19% of all private material wealth in the US. Today, they own over 40% of all wealth. Their share now exceeds the wealth owned by the bottom 92% of the US population. 5)
“The combined wealth of the world's 200 richest people
hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living
in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion." 6) Debt relief for the poorest 20 countries would cost only US$5.5 billion- the cost of building one Disneyland/Paris. 7) The world's seven richest men could wipe out poverty. Their combined wealth is more than enough to provide the basic needs for the poorest of the world's population. 8) The world population's basic need for food, drinking water, education and medical care could be covered by a levy of less than 4% of the accumulated wealth of the 225 richest individuals. 9) The New York Times in one of their email updates, in their Quote of the Day section, for July 18, 2001 provided the following quote: "A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day, is neither just, nor stable." -- President Bush 10) U.N. Secretary General said, "Almost half the world's population lives on less than two dollars a day, yet even this statistic fails to capture the humiliation, powerlessness and brutal hardship that is the daily lot of the world's poor." Nearly 2 billion can’t even read or write and they live in constant hopelessness! Why are these drastic inequalities happening? When people are suffering so terribly, is it possible that the church has nothing to say about economics problems that cause violence, war, sickness and disease and much tragedy for billions of people? Is it possible that God would be silent and have no answer for these tragedies that we face? Is he concerned only that we pray and go to church while ignoring the destitution of 2 billion people? NO! It cannot be possible. And it is not a fact. As you will see from the texts below, in the Bible God many times spoke through his prophets about principles of economics which would eliminate destitution and oppression. The Bible is very vocal on the issue of economic justice and it is something that Christians should take seriously because if something hurts God’s children, then it hurts God himself as well. And very little is so destructive and affects so many areas of life as economic injustice. It is clear that in the Bible and the world money is not the most important thing. But, it is the value of our work and effort and is necessary for our physical needs. In some ways, it’s like water. You need a certain amount to sustain life and stay in good health. But, after that certain amount, it’s not very useful. Hoarding water doesn’t make much more sense than hoarding money. God recognized money was important for everyone and gave many principles for its use. He also sent his prophets to condemn the actions of people who abused it and went against His principles. It is obviously something that was a serious concern to him and it should be too Christians today as well. One pastor wrote that: “Jesus used 16 of 38 parables to teach His disciples about money and possessions. Did you know that one out of ten or 288 verses in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John deal with money? In the Bible, there are 500 verses on prayer, 500 verses about faith and 2,000 on money and possessions.” This doesn’t obviously doesn’t mean that money is more important than these things. But, it does show that God has concern about it. God does have very clear and important principles that address and solve these problems that we are experiencing. It is because the natural God given rights of billions of people have been stolen in very sophisticated ways from them that these abuses and injustices are happening. Whenever these rights are restored, the extreme inequalities above will be eliminated in a fairly short amount of time. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “An intelligent approach to the problems of poverty and racism will cause us to see the words of the Psalmist, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" -- are still a judgment upon our use and abuse of the wealth and resources with which we have been endowed.” A great Christian writer, Ellen White, said, “There are not many, even among educators and statesmen, who comprehend the causes that underlie the present state of society. Those who hold the reins of government are not able to solve the problem of moral corruption, poverty, pauperism, and increasing crime. They are struggling in vain to place business operations on a more secure basis. If men would give more heed to the teaching of God's Word, they would find a solution of the problems that perplex them.--Testimonies, vol. 9, pp. 12, 13. {WM 173.3} The early Christian church was actually able to find that solution and they eliminated poverty among them. It was one of the few groups to experience the fulfillment of the Deuteronomy 15 promise that when people followed God’s laws, there would be “no poverty”. The major reason was because they recognized that they were stewards of God’s goodness and had a duty to share with any who were in definite need.
I hope that you will read the things below carefully so that you can participate in freeing the slaves of capitalism gone wrong and bring them to freedom and usefulness for God. DEFINITION OF POVERTYFirst of all, we should define poverty. There will always be a difference in the amount of money have. And making $100 a month would be poverty level in the US, but in Haiti, it would be quite a good salary. SO, there needs to be a definition of what poverty is: Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. says: poor: describing one who is "lacking material possessions; having little or no means to support oneself; needy," and poverty: "indigence, lack of means of subsistence." The Encyclopedia Brittanica defines poverty as "an insufficiency of the material necessities of life." So, we will take poorness and poverty to mean Being so destitute that you are unable to provide for yourself the most basic needs of life such as food, water, housing, clothes, etc. IS ELIMINATION OF POVERTY BIBLICALLY POSSIBLEMany people refer to Jesus quote that you will always have the poor with you and use this as a reason that we shouldn’t be concerned about economics. It won’t do any good anyway. But, they ignore the fact that in Acts 4, the Christian church eliminated poverty.
In Deuteronomy, God wrote these words:
Verses 4 and 11 seem contradictory…but the answer is in verse 5. Whoever follows God’s principles will be able to eliminate poverty as has been done in several places in history. The below quotes from Ellen White explain this in more detail.
So, from these verses and thoughts from the Bible and Ellen White, it is clear that it is possible to largely if not completely eliminate starvation, homelessness and extreme destitution IF AND ONLY IF we follow God’s principles outlined in the Bible. ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES FROM THE BIBLEHere is a summary of some of the economic principles from the Bible with some explanations by me and some quotes by famous thinkers which can solve the problems that perplex the world in a short time (maybe even as little as 10 years according to some). This is NOT proposing socialism or communism or capitalism. It does not at all demand that all people have equal wealth or equal compensation by the state. It does demand that each person has a somewhat similar amount of God’s resources to work with and then what they do from that point is up to them. They are not coddled and enabled to be lazy. Neither are they made into slaves of the super rich. This is something very different that is not being done by any current economic theory (The only one that comes close is “Land Rent” and cooperative democratic capitalism which I will explain in future messages.). As you read this, remember this quote from Gandhi: “There is enough in this world for everyone’s need, but NOT everyone’s greed.” His quote could not be more accurate. It is directly because of greed and theft of natural rights that billions are suffering today. GOD’S ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES SUMMARIZED 1) GOD OWNS EVERYTHING, PEOPLE ARE CARETAKERS & STEWARDS OF GOD’S RESOURCES 2) EVERY PERSON HAS A RIGHT TO LAND (and/or natural resources) 3) JUBILEE SYSTEM (land can’t be permanently sold. It returns to original owners after 49 years, except if it’s in a city. Land and property in cities can be sold permanently.) 4) CHARGING INTEREST IS EVIL (especially to the poor or relatives) 5) CANCEL DEBTS EVERY 7 YEARS 6) TRADE FAIRLY 7) PAY FAIR WAGES 8) CHARGE FAIR TAXES AND RENT 9) SHARE & BE GENEROUS TO THE POOR 10) BE INDEPENDENT—DON’T SUPPORT DEPENDENCY 11) Give tithes and offerings ============================================================================ GOD OWNS EVERYTHING, PEOPLE ARE CARETAKERS & STEWARDS OF GOD’S RESOURCES ============================================================================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: Since God made everything and all people, everything in the world belongs to him. Since we are all God’s children, every person has a natural right to possess at least some part of God’s land and/or resources. This will provide them a way to make their livelihood and to be economically self-sufficient. It will also give each person the chance to use their talents and skills to their full potential. Now many can’t even go to school even though they may be very smart. The skills and talents of millions are wasted and will never benefit others. But, if their natural right was given to them, most people’s natural abilities and usefulness could be maximized. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), said, "You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to no one." "The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind from the immediate gift of the Creator." - William Blackstone (1732-1780), British judge. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish historian who christened economics 뱓he dismal science� asked, "Who can or who could sell us the earth? Actually the earth belongs to these two: the almighty God and all his children who have ever worked on it or who will ever have worked on it or who will ever have to work on it. No generation of men can or could with even the highest solemnity and exertion sell the earth according to any other principle." Herbert Spencer (1820-1910), British philosopher and more famous than Marx at the time, said, "Equity does not permit property in land... The world is God's bequest to mankind. All men are joint heirs to it." Max Hirsch (1877-1968), banker, investor, and author, said, "Abolish special privileges and Government interference in industry. Give to all equal natural opportunities, equal rights to the inexhaustible storehouse of Nature and wealth will distribute itself in exact accordance with justice.” Tom Paine (1737-1809), who authored Common Sense which catalyzed the American Revolution and coined the phrase "the United States of America", wrote, "Men did not make the earth ... it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds... from this ground-rent ... I ... propose ... to create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person ... (a) sum." (Agrarian Justice, 1795-6) Voltaire (1694-1778), more than a millennium later in the Age of Enlightenment, had his character Candide say, "The fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all, to which each man has equal right." His colleague, (19) The Mennonite church has a very
good approach to this idea of stewardship. It’s at:
http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/about/cof/art.21.htm (The Jubilee system
mentioned is not at all out of date. Ignoring its principle is a huge factor in
poverty today as you will see below): ==================================================== EVERY PERSON HAS A RIGHT TO LAND (and/or natural resources) ====================================================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: As Karl Marx said and many economists agree, almost all wealth comes from land. There may be a few exceptions, but almost everyway to make money depends on land for its operation. Farms need land to grow crops. Supermarkets need land to show their products. Businesses need land for their stores. Schools and institutes need land to give them a place to teach. Doctors need land for their hospitals and etc. Internet is a new phenomenon, but even internet stores need land to store their inventory (such as computers and software), to do research and development, processing and other similar things. These days, land could be expanded to include oil, coal, airwaves (worth billions), space, atoms/nanotechnology and many other parts of our natural world that were originally created by God and so belong to his children. QUOTESAdam Smith (1720-1790), the father of economics, wrote in his classic, The Wealth of Nations, that "Both ground rents and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own... Ground rents seem, in this respect, a more proper subject of peculiar taxation... Nothing can be more reasonable than that a fund which owes its existence to the good government of the state should be taxed peculiarly." "Whenever the ownership of the soil is so engrossed by a small part of the community that the far larger part are compelled to pay whatever the few may see fit to exact for the privilege of occupying and cultivating the Earth, there is something very much like slavery." - Horace Greeley “I slowly came to realize that political democracy cannot flourish under all economic conditions. Democracy requires an economic system which supports the political ideals of liberty and equality for all. Men cannot exercise freedom in the political sphere when they are deprived of it in the economic sphere.” --M Mortimer Adler, a philosopher of politics and economics. “The land, the earth, God gave to man for his home, sustenance and support, should never be the possession of any man, corporation, society or unfriendly government, any more than the air or water -- if as much. An individual or company, or enterprise, acquiring land should hold no more than is required for their home and sustenance…, and never more than they have in actual use in the prudent management of their legitimate business, and this much should not be permitted when it creates an exclusive monopoly. All that is not so used should be held for the free use of every family to make homesteads and to hold them so long as they are so occupied….But when slavery is over and settled, men should never rest content while oppression, wrongs and iniquities are enforced against them.” Abraham Lincoln “Take the question of over-crowding; the land question in the towns bears on that. It is all very well to produce "Housing of Working class" bills; they will never be effective until you tackle the taxation of land values.” David Lloyd-George “It is in vain in a country whose great fund is land to hope to lay the public charge on anything else; there at last it will terminate. The merchant (do what you can) will not bear it, the labourer cannot, and therefore the landholder must: and whether he were best to do it by laying it directly where it will at last settle, or by letting it come to him by the sinking of his rents, which when they are fallen, everyone knows they are not easily raised again, let him consider.” John Locke “No nation can avoid land reform. All it can do is determine the course it will take: bloody revolution or taxation.” (meaning taxation of the land) General Douglas McArthur Clarence Darrow (1859-1938), lawyer of Scopes Monkey Trial fame, said, "Henry George was one of the real prophets of the world; one of the seers of the world... His was a wonderful mind; he saw a question from every side... When we learn that the value of land belongs to all of us, then we will be free men �no need to legislate to keep men and women from working themselves to death; no need to legislate against the white slave traffic." ============================================================================= JUBILEE SYSTEM (land can’t be permanently sold. It returns to original owners after 49 years, except if it’s in a city. Land and property in cities can be sold permanently.) =============================================================================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: As above, land is the source of wealth. The extreme poverty systems of today are largely due to monopolies on land. This Jubilee system would make land monopolies impossible and this would eliminate the majority of poverty. Pliny the Elder (23-79) wrote that “Land monopoly ruined Rome.” Tiberius Gracchus, a Roman statesman complained: “The private soldiers fight and die to advance the wealth and luxury of the great and they are called masters of the world, while they have not a foot of ground in their possession.” Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), author of the Declaration of Independence and with Ben Franklin the most inventive and intellectual of the Founding Fathers, wrote, "The earth is given as a common stock for men to labor and to live on... Wherever in any country there are idle lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. Everyone may have land to labor for himself, if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation from labor in old age." (Notes on Virginia, 1791) Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), the steel magnate, noted, "The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." “No human being can live without using land. As long as some people must pay others for the right to use land, there will be poverty. Once all persons have an equal right to use land, poverty cannot exist. Nature is generous, she is the author of love and life, but her gifts must be allowed to flow freely throughout all of society; they must not be held for ransom. If they are, what will flow throughout society will be the opposite of life: pollution, anger, violence, hatred, suffering, confusion, war and death.” Adam Jon Monroe, Jr. Editor of “The Georgist News” MacArthur,Douglas(1880-1964) Inspired by Henry George's reform proposals, MacArthur saw to it that during his military governorship of Japan following the Second World War that land rent reform was incorporated in the writing of the Japanese Constitution. The new constitution reversed the portion of agricultural commodities collected as rent between owners (whose portion dropped to one-third of the total), and the tenants farmers who actually did the work (who were then able to retain two-thirds of what they produced). Read more on this topic at: http://www.landreform.org/reading0.htm and especialy on the Jubilee at: http://www.landreform.org/wp9.htm ======================================= CHARGING INTEREST IS EVIL (to poor or relatives) =======================================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: The charging of interest is the major way that the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. It also enables a person to make money by doing nothing which is very likely the reason that the Bible prohibits it. Below are 2 sections: 1) An article from an Islamic source showing why interest is destructive and 2) An economics professor showing why interest destroys nations and citizen’s futures and is equivalent to slavery. From: www.islamvision.org/EvilsofInterest.asp “The collection of an extra amount by the lender at a fixed rate on a loan given by him from the debtor is called Interest. There is a big great deal of difference between business and interest. In a business the individual invests money and gains profit in return. But merely investing his capital is not sufficient. The person involved in the business venture, be it agriculture or industry, has to work hard day and night even after investing huge sums of money in it. Finally, even after all this monetary risks and hard work there always exists a fear of loss in this venture. Contrary to this, in interest dealings, the lender lends his money at a fixed rate of interest and collects a regular profit from the borrower in the form of interest without any physical effort or fear of loss and also irrespective of the economical condition of the borrower. “ In a business transaction the entrepreneur gets a profit only once out of a particular deal, whereas in interest dealing, the lender goes on receiving profit for the money that he had once lent, with an increase in it as time goes by. Islam very strictly prohibits all kinds of interest dealings. The impact of interest on the lender as well as the debtor is highly disastrous. The lender becomes extremely materialistic and wild after his greed for money. He does not bother about the consequences of the system of interest on the society. He forgets human relationships and kindness. He becomes wealthy by pushing innumerable people into the darkness of poverty. That is why the Holy Qur'an has compared them to mad and foolish people in Chapter 2, Verse 275. The borrower on the other hand loses whatever goods he possessed with him in the process of repaying the loan and finally ends up paying an amount that is many times more than what was actually loaned to him. It is also observed that often, even after the death of the borrower many successive generations come to pass but are still unable to repay the loan taken by their ancestors due this concept of Interest. Interest Free Banking Countering the unjust and unharmonious financial systems, Islam laid down its own economic and financial principals with greater emphasis on interest free banking. Islamic banking is not merely a business but also a mission for attaining economic equity. This system will not allow concentration of wealth to take root at any cost. The most prominent feature of the Islamic financial system is that, it forbids the charging of Riba (Interest) on money lent. Islamic banking, based on the Qur'anic prohibition of charging interest, has moved from a theoretical concept to embrace more than 100 banks operating in 40 countries with multi-billion dollar deposits worldwide. Islamic banking is widely regarded as the fastest growing sector in the Middle Eastern financial services market. Exploding onto the financial scene barely thirty years ago, an estimated $US 70 billion worth of funds are now managed according to Shari'ah (Islamic Law). Deposit and Principles assets held by Islamic banks grew to a whopping 60 billion dollars in 1994 as compared to a meagre 5 billion dollars in 1985. ------------------------- From: http://www.ied.info/books/ed/debt.html#_Toc35644544 Third World development has not had serious consideration. Instead, vastly underpriced developing world natural resource commodities and underpaid labor (essentially dictated by IMF/World Bank/GATT/NAFTA/WTO/ MAI/GATS/FTAA structural adjustment policies and unequal currency values) and overpriced developed world manufactures created excessive accumulations of capital in the already wealthy world, which were lent wastefully back to the developing world for purchase of developed world exports (a major share being for arms). This forced the developing world to harvest ever more of their natural resources to pay that debt, which further increased surplus production, which lowered natural resource commodity prices still further, and the process keeps repeating itself. This is the little understood debt trap. Sooner or later the crunch of debt incurred under the massive assault of financial warfare will become unpayable: A debtor who repeatedly borrows more than the surplus his labor or business enterprise produces will fall further and further behind in his obligations until, sooner or later, the inexorable pressures of compound interest defeat him ... interest [is] usurious when the borrower's rightful share of profit [is] confiscated by the lender.... The creative power of capital [is] reversed and the compounding interest [becomes] destructive. (Greider, Secrets of the Temple , pp. 707, 581-82; Susan George, Fabrizio Sabelli, Faith and Credit (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 80-84, 215.) Professor Lester Thurow explains: The fundamental mathematics is clear. To run a trade deficit, a country must borrow from the rest of the world and accumulate international debt. Each year interest must be paid on this accumulated debt. Unless a country is running a trade surplus, it must borrow the funds necessary to make interest payments. Thus the annual amount that must be borrowed gets larger and larger, even if the trade deficit itself does not expand. As debts grow, interest payments grow. As interest payments grow, debt grows. As time passes the rate of debt accumulation speeds up, even if the basic trade deficit remains constant.( Lester Thurow, Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan , Europe , and America (New York: William Morrow, 1992), p. 232.). The size of a financial warfare debt trap can be controlled to claim all the surplus production of a society and the magic of compound interest assures those unjust debts are unsustainable. developing world debt climbed from $100-billion in 1973 to $1.7-trillion in 1999, to $2.5-trillion by 2003. With resource prices having dropped 60% the past 40 years and still dropping, obviously that debt cannot be paid. Most of these debts are incurred without the recipient country receiving any lasting benefits. In fact, only about $500-billion of that $2.5-trillion debt was borrowed finance capital; the rest was runaway compound interest (Michael Barratt Brown, Fair Trade (London: Zed Books, 1993), pp. 43, 113.) The situation is comparable to the loathsome form of slavery known as peonage. In classic peonage, workers, though nominally free and legally free, are held in servitude by the terms of their indenture to their masters. Because their wages are set too low to buy the necessities, the master grants credit but restricts the worker to buying overpriced goods from the master's own store. As a result, each month the peon goes deeper and deeper into debt. For as long as the arrangement lasts, the peon cannot pay off the mounting debt and leave, and must keep on working for the master. Nigeria [and most other Third World countries] shares three crucial characteristics with a heroin-addicted debt-trap peon. First, both debts are unsecured consumer debts, made up of subsistence and spending-spree expenses, and with future income as the only collateral. Second, both loans are pure peonage loans, that is loans made not because of the potential of the project the loan is to be used for, but simply in order to secure legal control over the economic and political behavior of the debtor. Third, the only way made available for getting out of both debts is by getting into more debt.( Chinweiezu, Debt Trap Peonage, Monthly Review (November 1985): pp. 21-36.) =========================== CANCEL DEBTS EVERY 7 YEARS ===========================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: Debts and especially interest cause the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer very fast. These extremes cause much instability in society. Especially since our societies are not giving people their natural economic rights, debts should be cancelled. In many places burdensome debts destroy people’s futures and they have to spend all their time and energy just in paying off debts. This severely limits the contributions they can make to society and makes it very difficult or impossible for them to follow their passions and dreams and become a useful and creative contributing citizen. This is why debts should be cancelled every 7 years. From: http://www.ied.info/books/ed/debt.html#_Toc35644544 There are compelling reasons for paying attention to this potential for catastrophe as, every debt crisis in history since Solon of Athens has ended in inflation, bankruptcy or war, and there is no cause to believe we've solved this one, even if it has been postponed.(George, Fate Worse Than Debt, p. 196.) As much of this imposed debt can never be paid back, most developing world debt is severely discounted. As of June 1990, Argentina's debt traded at a low of 14.75-cents on the $1 while the average price of all developing world debt was 28-cents on the $1.( CNN News (June 28, 1990); David Felix, “Latin America 's Debt Crisis”, World Policy Journal (Fall 1990): p. 734.) Although it is being traded at a 72% discount, the indebted countries must still pay full price. After the financial collapse on the periphery of empire seven years later, discounts for those debts can only trade at a sharply higher discount. In the 1800s, the United States defaulted on much of its development debt, as did Latin America and others during the crisis of the Great Depression. American managers-of-state knew their nation became wealthy due to avoiding the monopolization of their economy, and their European cousins eventual sharing their industrial capital and markets. America returned that favor by sharing its wealth after WWII to rebuild the ancestral home of their culture. There was no expectation of that shared wealth being repaid. The rational decision, and one that Professor Lester Thurow and others consider the developed world's only choice, would be to also forgive the developing world's unjustly incurred and unpayable debts. (Thurow, Head to Head , p. 215. See also, Gowan, The Global Gamble; Gray, False Dawn (New York: The Free Press, 1998), and Longworth, Global Squeeze.) The precedent has been set by earlier defaults, by the quickness of decisions to protect trading allies, and an honest accounting would find the developed world owing the developing world for the destruction of their social wealth, the earlier enslavement of their labor, and the long term underpayment for their labor and resources. Rutherford B. Hayes (19th U.S. President), from his personal diary, year not provided (between 1881-1891) December 4 Sunday. In church it occurred to me that it is time for the public to hear that the giant evil and danger in this country, the danger which transcends all others, is the vast wealth owned or controlled by a few persons. Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many ============= TRADE FAIRLY =============
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: This should be obvious on an individual level. Cheating is not right and neither is price gouging and taking advantage of others. But, consider that it may also apply on an international level (we’ve talked about this before in previous messages). Unfair trades are a kind of economic warfare that destroys people’s abilities to provide for their basic needs. The tenets of capitalism as practiced now are largely opposed to Biblical economic principles. They emphasize greed and selfishness and getting whatever you can no matter who gets hurt or cheated out of their natural rights. They work great for those who want to control others and want to legally confiscate the profits of others work for themselves. From:
http://www.ied.info/books/ed/externaltrade.html Wealth accumulation advantage from unequally-paid but equally-productive labor is not a linear progression, it is exponential. Consider how long the underpaid nation must work to buy one unit of wealth from the high-paid nation and then consider how many units of wealth the high-paid nation can purchase from the underpaid nation with the wages of their equally-productive labor working that same number of hours. The equally-productive worker in the poorly-paid nation produces a unique widget, is paid $1 an hour, and is producing one widget an hour. The equally-productive worker in the well-paid nation produces another unique widget, is paid $10 an hour, and also produces one widget per hour. Each equally-productive nation likes, and purchases, the other's widgets…The $1 an hour country must work 10 hours to buy one of the widgets of the $10 an hour country but, with the money earned in the same 10 hours, the $10 an hour country can buy 100 of the widgets of the $1 an hour nation. At that 10-times wage differential…there is an exponential 100-times differential in capital accumulation or buying power. http://www.ied.info/books/ed/freedom.html Three tenets of capitalism are: pay the lowest possible price, charge all the market will bear, and give nothing to anybody. That is great philosophy for powerbrokers with a subtle monopoly on capital, technology, markets, and military might. It takes no deep thought to realize that these tenets of classical economic philosophy were implanted by an earlier power-structure to maximize its claims to the wealth of others (that feudal residue in our philosophy, laws, and customs). …French economic students understood that economic theory as taught had no relation to reality and in the fall of 2000 they protested and academic administrators agreed to address what heretofore had been “controversial” subjects. Twenty-seven Ph.D. economic students at the University of Cambridge, UK, signed a similar, but milder, letter of protest in 2001. =============== PAY FAIR WAGES ===============
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: Remember the above quotes on the widgets. If fair wages are paid, then extreme inequalities will end and so will poverty because everyone will have enough to pay for what they need. There are several kinds of slavery…and one of them is economic. If a person doesn’t have economic freedom, then it is very likely that he will be forced or oppressed by someone else. Leo Tolstoy wrote, “The essence of all slavery consists in taking the produce of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live.” From: http://www.ied.info/books/ed/externaltrade.html#_Toc35644427 As we have learned, in direct trades between countries, wealth accumulation advantage compounds in step with the pay differential for equally-productive labor. If the pay differential is 5, the difference in wealth accumulation advantage is 25-to-1. If the pay differential is 10, the wealth accumulation advantage is 100-to-1…If the pay differential is 60 (the pay differential between Russia and the victorious America [23-cents an hour against $14 an hour]), the wealth accumulation advantage is 3,600-to-1…Place a trader between those two unequally-paid nations to claim all surplus value both through outright underpaying in hard currency or through paying in soft currency and selling in hard currency, capitalize those profits by 10-to-20 times, and you have accumulated capital through capitalized value.11� Inequality in pay creates invisible borders that guide the world's wealth to imperial-centers-of-capital. Equal pay for equally-productive labor instantly eliminates those borders and alleviates world poverty. If unequal pay for equally-productive work were reduced to a 50% pay differential (an equally-productive $5-an-hour nation trading with a $10-an-hour nation), the wealth accumulation advantage of the high-paid nation in direct trades with low-paid nations would be reduced to a 4-times advantage. A $3-an-hour labor nation trading with a $4-an-hour labor nation incurs a doubling (1.77 times) of wealth potentially accumulated (or consumed) for the better-paid nation. When all have access to technology and markets and pay is equal for equally-productive work, the wealth retained (and available for accumulation or consumption) by each nation is equal. ============================ CHARGE FAIR TAXES AND RENT ============================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: Unfair taxes can be another way for the rich to oppress the poor and siphon off their wealth. We often talk about the “pork” in politics. And many taxes go to pay for “pork” political decisions. Unfair taxation was done in Israel several times. It was also one reason why America rebelled against Britain and fought for her independence. Charging rent that is unfair also is a kind of theft and makes people unable to pay for their basic necessities. These 2 ideas can be combined in an idea called “land rent”. More on this in a future e-mail, but here are a couple quotes to make you curious. Henry George (1839-1897), author of Progress and Poverty (1879) which outsold every book of its era but the Bible, distinguished between creation and production and urged us to "abolish all taxation save on the value of land." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), who kept a photo of George on his desk and whose dying words to passengers on a train were to tax land alone, told the Russian Czar and the world that "people do not argue with the teachings of George, they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree." The Chinese philosopher Mencius said (in 2A:5): "Respect the worthy and employ the capable; put talented people in key positions, then all the shih of the realm will be pleased and will want to be members of your court." "In the market-places, charge land-rent, but don't tax the goods; or make concise regulations and don't even charge rent. Do this, and all the merchants in the realm will be pleased, and will want to set up shop in your markets." "At the borders, make inspections but don't charge tariffs, then all the travelers in the realm will be pleased and will want to traverse your highways. "If the farmers merely have to help each other with the government fields, and do not have to pay an additional tax, then all the farmers in the realm will be pleased, and will want to till your fields. "If you do not charge fines to the unemployed in your marketplaces, then all the people in the realm will be pleased, and will want to become your subjects." "If you are really able to put these five points into practice, then the people from the neighboring states will look up to you as a parent. Now, there has never been a case of someone being able to consistently succeed in making children attack their own parents. This being the case, you will have no enemies in the realm. The one who has no enemies in the realm is the vicegerent of Heaven. There is no case of one who attained to this level, and who did not attain to true kingship." ================================ SHARE & BE GENEROUS TO THE POOR ================================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: Emergencies and disasters happen. People need 2nd chances at becoming independent and self-sufficient. If they do become self-sufficient, this will benefit the whole community, not just those who are helped. Sharing with each other, especially the land and it’s resources with everyone working diligently will create something similar to the Age of Great Harmony that Confucius and Mencius in China talked about. http://www.noogenesis.com/Confucius/harmony.html When Confucius was sad about the state of the world he said in reply to a question as to why he was "overcome with sighs":
Confucius' Great Harmony Another Chinese philospher Mencius went to see King Hui of Liang: The King said: "My good man, since you haven't thought one thousand li too far to come and see me, may I presume that you have something with which I can profit my kingdom?" Mencius said: "Why must you speak of profit? What I have for you is Humanity and Righteousness, and that's all. If you always say 'how can I profit my kingdom?' your top officers will ask, 'how can we profit our clans?' The shih1 and the common people will ask: 'how can we profit ourselves?' Superiors and inferiors will struggle against each other for profit, and the country will be in chaos." "In a kingdom of ten thousand chariots, the murderer of the sovereign is usually from a clan of one thousand chariots. In a thousand-chariot kingdom, the murderer of the sovereign is usually from a clan of one hundred chariots. Now, to have a thousand in ten thousand, or one hundred in a thousand is not really all that much. But if you put Righteousness last and profit first, no one will be satisfied unless they can grab something." =========================================== BE INDEPENDENT—DON’T SUPPORT DEPENDENCY ===========================================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: When you create dependency in people, you are making them able to avoid the use of their skills and talents and you are causing them to be a drain on others and very likely the church. If there are emergencies or unusual situations like orphans or widows or natural disasters, then help in any way possible is critical and necessary. But, enabling someone to be lazy by getting handouts for free is directly against the Bible principles listed above. A person who refuses to work should not be given food by those who work diligently. We are to assist people to become independent and self-sufficient, NEVER dependent on us and our money. A
missionary in Africa, pastor David Wilkinson, stresses self-reliance this way:
========================== GIVE TITHES AND OFFERINGS ==========================
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?: This is the recognition that God created everything and is the due that he asks of those who believe in Him and honor Him. Many great businessmen were and are faithful tithe payers. Some include: Woolworth, J.C. Penny, Hershey, Rockefeller, Colgate and many others. New York Times best selling author Robert Allen shared his insights on money live on a radio show, The Mike Litman Show. There were 7 skills (see them at: http://www.joshhinds.com/mlitman_articles/litman_rallen.html). The final skill was “SHARE YOUR MONEY”. He said, “You've got to share your money. Frankly, for me, I pay my sharing first. Out of every dollar I get in, and out of every net profit that I get in, I pay 10% right off the top. It's the first money that I spend and then I live on the rest and I save the next 10%, then I spend the rest on taxes and shelter and cars and whatever else.” In Israel, tithe was used mostly for 4 things (the tithe in Israel may have been larger than 10%…with offerings it may have reached up to 25% of their income…but God promised that he would bless them if they followed this): TITHES USES
1)
TO SUPPORT PASTORS & BIBLE WORKERS (and by
association evangelistic ministries)
2)
TITHE IS TO BE EATEN WITH JOY IN THE PRESENCE OF
THE LORD with family and friends and co-workers. (this one surprised me
actually) Deuteronomy 14 (note: the wine here is most likely fresh grape juice since that was the best wine of the ancient peoples) 22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always. 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice. 27 And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.
3)
1/3 OF TITHE IS TO BE USED FOR THE POOR &
DISADVANTAGED 12 When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. 13 Then say to the LORD your God: "I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them. 14 I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while I was in mourning, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor have I offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the LORD my God; I have done everything you commanded me. 15 Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey."
4)
FESTIVALS ARE SUPPORTED BY THE OFFERINGS TO THE
CHURCH AS GOD HAS BLESSED US So, tithe and offerings are another way to alleviate poverty as well as help people enjoy and celebrate the worship of our creator God who made us. ============ CONCLUSION ============ On the surface, it may appear that this will make people a lot poorer. But, in reality, when you have everyone’s opportunities and abilities maximized as they would be when everyone has all of their natural and God given economic rights, the benefit to the nation and eventually to each individual in the nation will be exponentially increased. There is no cause for concern if we follow these principles. I recently read these things from Ellen White and they are quite eloquent as a conclusion to this topic. Prayerfully read and consider these ideas! No one can give place in his own heart and life for the stream of God's blessing to flow to others, without receiving in himself a rich reward. The hillsides and plains that furnish a channel for the mountain streams to reach the sea suffer no loss thereby. That which they give is repaid a hundredfold. For the stream that goes singing on its way leaves behind its gift of verdure and fruitfulness. The grass on its banks is a fresher green, the trees have a richer verdure, the flowers are more abundant. When the earth lies bare and brown under the summer's parching heat, a line of verdure marks the river's course; and the plain that opened her bosom to bear the mountain's treasure to the sea is clothed with freshness and beauty, a witness to the recompense that God's grace imparts to all who give themselves as a channel for its outflow to the world. {MB 81.3} This is the blessing of those who show mercy to the poor. The prophet Isaiah says, "Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily. . . . And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought: . . . and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." Isaiah 58:7-11. {MB 82.1} The work of beneficence is twice blessed. While he that gives to the needy blesses others, he himself is blessed in a still greater degree. The grace of Christ in the soul is developing traits of character that are the opposite of selfishness,--traits that will refine, ennoble, and enrich the life. Acts of kindness performed in secret will bind hearts together, and will draw them closer to the heart of Him from whom every generous impulse springs. The little attentions, the small acts of love and self-sacrifice, that flow out from the life as quietly as the fragrance from a flower--these constitute no small share of the blessings and happiness of life. And it will be found at last that the denial of self for the good and happiness of others, however humble and uncommended here, is recognized in heaven as the token of our union with Him, the King of glory, who was rich, yet for our sake became poor. {MB 82.2} HOW DID JEWISH RABBIS IMPLEMENT THESE LAWSThis is a list of questions and answers that I received from expert orthodox rabbis in answer to questions about the Jubilee economic system of the Old Testament. I have been reading and comparing from several sources:
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