Before I understood the ways of faith, I had to see something before I could believe it. The Austrian economists, including their forerunner Adam Smith and their chief spokesman Friedrich Hayek, taught me to value what is invisible. Market forces are unseen, unavailable to the senses and to the mind of man. What we live by is not a product of our reason, but of forces and traditions we did not create, plan nor modify, except at great peril.
The Bible teaches us to depend on the Holy Spirit, a True Being, God Himself living in every believer, making known to us who he is in Christ Jesus. Hayek references the Bible frequently in his seminal work The Fatal Conceit, where he dismisses the humanistic traditions of the Catholic Church and the rationalist intellects of the ancient Greeks. He solidifies certainty for the realm of the spiritual, foreshadowed in the writings of Adam Smith, who wrote of the “Invisible Hand” that drives commerce.
Biblical faith is akin to the awareness of true yet invisible forces, much like market and cultural streams described by the Austrian economists:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1).
This seminal definition mentions nothing about time or space, or a period of waiting, in determining that something is true. Believe that it is real, then receive.
From a cursory reading of Scripture, both from the Old and New Testaments, it is evident that God is vitally interested in each one of us prospering.
“But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.” (Deuteronomy 8:18).
And:
“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” (3 John 2).
Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and their mentors taught me to walk by faith, not by sight. Not just for their persuasive and accurate refutations of socialism and the failed theocracy of the state, but for assisting my understanding of Scripture, I am grateful. From their contribution to the full workings of the business cycle, including their forceful and accurate predictions about boom-and- bust, my faith exploded.
The United States needs a crash course in “the spirit” of economics, respecting what one cannot see. More specifically, economics teachers in our public high schools need a crash course in how economies really work, not the flighty aberrations that pass for learning in skeptical, elite academic institutions. Too often, however, the educated elites of our universities spawn a legacy of non-thinkers who contrive textbooks and contravene the truth in our classrooms. The centralized, anti-capitalist bias of modern economics teachers arrogantly disregards fundamentals, such as scarcity and trade. There is simply not enough of everything to give to everyone, no matter a nation’s ideology. Trade and prices distributed resources without force.
This material world is inevitably a closed order. Even though politicians promise the sun, the moon and the stars, voters only have themselves to blame when taken in by the metaphysical kool-aid of getting everything without having to pay for it. The near-defaulted Greeks are learning this notion the hard way. They are fully at fault for it.
These intended consequences are also unseen, yet no less real.
The morality of profit evades easy, sensate detection. Private equity is about making money. All capitalist initiatives are about making money. Job creation is a result of wealth creation. Men and women do not go into business because they want to hire people. Instead of demonizing entrepreneurs and corporations who seek a profit, we should trust that their efforts soon will profit us.
Former Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney helped create, build up and close businesses through Bain Capital. We should not shirk from pointing out the obvious: For companies to profit, some workers have to be fired. Capitalism is hardest on the capitalists themselves, though, as they risk their own money to make money over a long period of time – an act of faith, without a doubt.
Currently, profit makers are harassed by shifting government regulations, populist uprisings and cowardly politicians who spend more time reading the visible, risible polls instead of respecting steady, invisible forces. Again, capitalism is about profits first. Job creation comes afterward, certainly not as primary focus anymore than a tea kettle boils on a stove because the cook is staring at it. The fire that drives investment is low and intense, rising to the surface, apparent to all only after money starts exchanging hands again, and without extensive direction from the state.
Wealth, money, trade – these realities are born of tradition, matters of custom, articles of faith. More than any other school of thought, the Austrians solidified the credible foundation of markets. They made a true believer out of me.
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a writer and blogger on issues both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A lifelong resident of Southern California, he currently lives in Torrance. He may be contacted at arthurschaper@hotmail.com, aschaper1.blogspot.com and at asheisministries.blogspot.com. Also see waxmanwatch.blogspot.com.
