/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>850774

Idk what is ideal but capitalism is tolerated on the basis that it isn't necessarily evil.

All options besides free market capitalism are predicated on theft, which is sin.

From these relevant scriptures you have listed we see the instruction to be charitable, to not idolize wealth, and on closer inspection we see a rejection of the legitimacy of earthly rulers to confiscate wealth from subjects.

Libertarianism is the most Christian political philosophy, and free market capitalism (not corporatism) is the best Christian framework. Nuances beyond this point revolve around theories of the economy like austrian business cycle theory or the minarchism vs anarchism debate.

I am convinced that the ideal social model is the hoppean covenant community which privatizes all property and only engages in rulesetting by express consent of everyone involved. I had to sign a membership covenant to join my church. I had to sign a membership agreement to join costco. My membership in both of these is conditional.

I did not sign any agreement to have my wages confiscated from me to fund affirmative action programs 3000 miles away.

https://libertarianchristians.com/get-started-here/

>>850776

>I am convinced that the ideal social model is the hoppean covenant community which privatizes all property and only engages in rulesetting by express consent of everyone involved.

Surely you see the flaw here. Actually it is a twofold flaw. First, privatizing property IS a rule. And second, how do you enforce said rule, if every rule must be agreed by express consent? How do you deal with the people who do not agree to that rule, is basically what the question is here.

Because you cannot decide on a way to deal with that problem without getting express consent of everyone involved first.

In fact to be consistent you even have to include getting the consent of those people who are part of the problem, who do not agree to the rule of privatizing property, much less do they agree on the proper method of how we are to deal with those who break that rule.

Also, there is even another two fold flaw with the idea of express consent itself. First, how do you deal with people who say they consent now and later revoke it. Second how do you figure out a way to deal with those who do this, because according to you it has to be a way that everyone expressly consents to, including the perpetrators themselves.

>>850774

Possession is the simple act of possessing something. The sovereign, being sovereign, in effect possesses all within its control. Property is legally acknowledged ownership, and so its recognition is dependent on a legal institution which is provided by a political organisation above it.

Modern political theory, from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, conflates these concepts. As Geoffrey Hodgson notes of Ludwig von Mises in his Conceptualising Capitalism: “He (von Mises) argued that legal concepts could be largely relegated from economics and sociology…” Hence for Von Mises, property was natural and ahistorical rather than legal and institutional; it was a physical rather than a social relationship. By downgrading the institutions required for the protection and enforcement of the capacity to have property, von Mises also neglects the social aspects of ownership and consumption, both of which signal identity, power or status. Contrary to von Mises, the law does not simply add a normative justification for having some thing: it reinforces the de facto ability to use and hold that thing.

The resemblance of von Mises’ to Marx’s own dismissal of law is uncanny; both Marx and von Mises concentrated on raw physical power over objects rather than legal rights. Marx has little to say on legal rights across his numerous discussions of “property-as-possession”. Hence, when in 1844 Marx addressed “private property”, he argued “an object is only ours when we have it – …when we directly possess, eat, drink, wear, inhabit it, etc., – in short, when we use it.” With both Marx and von Mises, effective power over some thing is conflated with a de facto right, and the legal and moral aspects of property are thus overshadowed.

Across the suite of liberal philosophies, the state is defined out of the issue of property. For all modern theory is fundamentally anarchist, and only varying in its recognition of this point. A question arises from the conflation of property and possession: If all property is possession, then how and why do people come and stay together. Modern theory provides a single answer – Hobbes. From this point, the state is an alien entity acting as an umpire or a stationary bandit and called in only to enforce the peer-to-peer agreements between property-as-possession holders.

>>850776

If we proceed to eliminate all ideal ethical values and powers, and if we install in their place the purely natural instinct of self-love as the guiding force in the economy, and if we go one step further and demand complete freedom for this guiding force in the quest by individuals for profit, then we should not be surprised by the consequences. A system which proceeds from false premises – as the free enterprise system does – and which is self-contradictory, can only lead to absurd consequences when it goes into operation. And what are these absurd consequences? They may be summed up into two words: capitalism and socialism.

>>850787

You're not really getting it. Read democracy the god that failed for a full view. Chaos theory by Bob Murphy is a good shorter take on the structure of a Rothbardian society.

It all boils down to property rights. If someone becomes unwelcome on your property you have the natural right to remove them. If someone doesn't want to enter into covenant with others they wouldn't, that's the entire point.

>>850815

Ridiculous comparison of Marx to Mises. Strawman for the rest.

Nobody is advocating the elimination of ethical values and powers and replacement with self interested greed.

What is the false premise of the free enterprise system? The only premise is property rights. Do you reject property rights? If so you're not consistent with the Bible.

>>850815

Actually I found my answer in your post

>Property is legally acknowledged ownership, and so its recognition is dependent on a legal institution which is provided by a political organisation above it.

Yes you simply do reject property rights. Its not legally recognized ownership, its ownership regardless of any lawmaker's opinion. The only valid sovereign is God who appointed man as stewards over creation.

>>850816

Marx and Mises both share the same initial premises; both men are liberals.

Liberalism, in all its species, is contrary to, and incompatible with, Christianity.

>>850817

>Yes you simply do reject property rights. Its not legally recognized ownership, its ownership regardless of any lawmaker's opinion.

This is the same thought as Mises and Marx - the same thought as all post-Smith economists.

Law is that which is provided by an institutionalised judiciary. This law does not arise as a formalisation of custom, but exactly when and where exceptions to custom occurred. Custom then is that which is accordance, explicitly or implicitly, with authority and not provided by an institutionalised judiciary. All actions – all accepted standards – were and are done so in accordance with the authority.

This clear separation of custom and law associates law directly with complex and organised political systems, and this is the cornerstone of clarifying both property and possession.

>>850822

forgive me for being a brainlet but what difference is between democracy (valid form of government according to aquinas) and liberalism?

>>850825

Liberalism, as originally defined was you do what you want and I'll do what I want as long as we don't infringe upon each other's rights.

Liberalism became communism after the communist wore out the name socialist and wore out the name progressive.

Democracy is the idea that the majority can kill and eat the minority if they can out vote them.The US of A on paper is a constitutional representative republic and not a democracy. In reality we're a vassal state to the Satanic Globalist empire

>>850825

>Liberalism

The liberal paradigm claims that the sovereign nature of each individual is key, and under which hierarchy of any kind is wrong.

We note here that the liberal paradigm is wholly against Christianity in its parts and its totality.

It follows from the liberal concepts of humanity, by way of Cartesian philosophy, that everyone is in possession of equal and identical rights, which itself leads to the concept that all humans are jointly capable of reaching the same level of understanding and therefore the claim that anyone is incapable of such achievement is false, and is the result of bigotry, or hatred, or ignorance.

To take this further, if you have accepted the concept of the liberal self, then you must justify why liberal individuals form into societies, i.e., Hobbes, Locke, Schmitt, and why society should be comprised of only some of those individuals.

One cannot be a Christian and a liberal.

>Democracy

Democracy, being premised upon the "general will" of sovereign individuals, is based upon the liberal paradigm. A decision cannot be made by a multitude; a decision is made by a single person, who then mobilises numbers to impose their decision by force, or threat of force, by means of voting. The vote is a threat of force.

Aquinas and Aristotle were wrong on the validity of other forms of government; neither understood the implications of republicanism and imperium in imperio. Aristotle discusses the relationship between the government and the character of a people; liberal political thought has departed from this point, falsely believing that all structures of government are neutral in effect on a society.