05.15
Shawn Ritenour on Christianity and Private Property
I recently listened to the lecture by Shawn Ritenour, given at the Austrian Scholar’s Conference. If you don’t know Shawn’s work, you really should. His work on Christianity and Libertarianism is really well done and it’s worth your time to check out. Plus, anyone that has the guts to sport that moustache deserves kudos. This particular lecture was called Nineteenth Century Conservative Protestant Theory and the Biblical View of Property and it deals with the biblical and protestant views of private property theory. I couldn’t find the paper on-line so I thought I’d hit some of the high points here. I’ve linked the stream below if you would like to listen to it.
I guess I should give an ever so brief definition of private property first, just so we’re clear. Private Property is simply property not owned by the state. On an individual level, private property is anything that you own. This may seem obvious to you, but it’s amazing how many people struggle to categorize private property correctly. Let’s be clear. Private property isn’t just your car, house, computer, etc. It’s also your money, your body and your time. It’s anything that belongs to you. Private property is not granted by the state, because it’s a natural extension of what we intuitively recognize in nature. You intuitively know that your body belongs to you and nobody else. The fact that your stereo falls under the same category is just an extension of that recognized natural right. And the fact of private property enumerates other rights by default, such as the right to trade your property freely with others, and the right to make contracts involving that property. These types of rights are commonly called rights of “free association.”
So, with that out of the way, let’s look at what Shawn discussed. He first established that early protestantism had a robust understanding and promotion of private property rights. They saw it as simply the natural order of things that God had ordained. He quotes Francis Wayland, an influential early 19th century Baptist preacher and professor a few times. Laurence Vance has this quote from Wayland:
“Thus a man has an entire right to use his own body as he will, provided he do not so use it as to interfere with the rights of his neighbor. He may go where he will and stay where he please; he may work or be idle; he may pursue one occupation or another or no occupation at all; and it is the concern of no one else, if he leave inviolate the rights of everyone else; that is, if he leave everyone else in the undisturbed enjoyment of those means of happiness bestowed upon him by the Creator.” –Wayland
Wayland likewise considered the right of property to be “the right to use something as I choose, provided I do not so use it as to interfere with the rights of my neighbor.” Because he believed that “men will not labor continuously nor productively” unless they receive some benefit from their labor, Wayland deplored property “held in common” because under such an arrangement there was “no connexion between labor and the rewards of labor.” He insisted that the “division of property, or the appropriation, to each, of his particular portion of that which God has given to all, lays at the foundation of all accumulation of wealth, and of all progress in civilization.”
Shawn also goes through and quotes some other early protestant thinkers in the paper. But, the most intriguing examples were the Biblical references themselves. I think he’s exactly right in his analysis of these passages of scripture. The first he gives is that of Ananias and Sapphira from chapter 5 of Acts. Many people use this story as an example of socialism or communalism, saying that it’s obvious from this passage and the reference earlier to people selling land and giving it to the church, that private property is non-Christian. The one phrase that changes that whole meaning and makes that interperetation not work is hilighted below:
“But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.”
Peter chastises Ananias with an explicit confirmation of private property: “Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?” Ananias wasn’t killed for not giving the Apostles his land. He was killed for lying about it. He was guilty, not of capitalism, but of pharasaism. He wanted praise for his peity, but that peity was phony. He “lied to the holy spirit.” Peter’s argument would fall flat without this implicit acceptance by everyone present, that private property was legitimate.
The other example he gives is from our Lord Himself. It’s the story of the land-owner and the hiring of laborers. Again I’ve hilighted the crucial point that is so often missed:
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, ’You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, ’Why have you been standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ’Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ’You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.’
“So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ’Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.’ And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. And when they had received it, they complained against the landowner, saying, ’These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them and said, ’Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.”
Again, the rhetorical force of this parable comes from the implicit understanding of private property rights. Without private property as an underpinning, this parable falls to meaninglessness. It is God who owns all things, and has granted us the right as stewards to tend his property. Likewise, the hearers of this parable saw that it made sense. That nobody had the right to tell them what to do with their own property. This leads correctly to the prior point. If we have such a natural right, then God, in who’s image we are made, most certainly holds that right over all creation. This couldn’t be plainer. The modern church leadership has a tendency to sign on board with every piece of legislation that comes down the pike, with no respect for it’s impact on private property. Things like cumpulsory school attendence laws are in direct violation of our natural right to do with our bodies and our talents what we want to. Yet the church is far too eager to get on board with this.
Do yourself a favor and listen to Shawn’s lecture that I linked to at the top. It’s fairly short; only about 15 minutes or so I think.
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