Go to the ant, O classical liberalist

Ancient Israel was an agricultural economy and the people were in touch with nature in a way unknown to many modern people, so God used lessons from nature to teach his people. Proverbs 6:6-8 says:

Go to the ant, O sluggard,
Observe her ways and be wise,
Which, having no chief,
Officer or ruler
Prepares her food in the summer
And gathers her provision in the harvest. (NASB)

In Israel there are several species of ants that gather and store seeds for winter feed, and they will often take seeds from threshing floors so the ants would have been familiar to Israelites.

There are three lessons here for classical liberalists:

1) the ants know that there there is a future need and make provision for it by their own labour. Times of need , both foreseeable and unforeseeable, inevitably come to all of us and this passage instructs us to put aside a reserve for those times.

This is the opposite of a Socialist system where the State makes itself responsible for your future needs and steals money from you to (supposedly) provide for those future needs. What’s even worse is that the State will steal your money and give it to those sluggards who make no provision for the future whatsoever (see Prov 30:22b).

2) the ants have no chief, officer or ruler telling them what to do, rather each knows what needs to be done and gets on with it. If they don’t put food aside for winter they will die, and likewise classical liberalism is about each person taking responsibility for their own life (and death, if they choose not to provide for themselves. See 2 Thes 3:10, Prov 16:26).

Again, this is the opposite of a Socialist system where the State takes upon itself the responsibility for the life and death of the citizens: this is not altruism, rather this is one more way for the State to rule the citizens. For example, at Middlemore Hospital doctors make the final call regarding do-not-resuscitate decisions, so the State is deciding who will live and who will die (see this post, point 3).

The State also rules us via legislation, which is backed with force: e.g. when the State says that you must wear a seat belt they are ruling you. I don’t need a chief, officer or ruler to tell me that wearing a seat belt is a good idea, just as the ants don’t need a chief, officer or ruler to tell them that gathering food for winter is a good idea.

3) the ants provide for themselves in the most efficient manner possible. Which is easier: climbing one plant after another to gather seeds, or going to a threshing floor and picking up seeds that the humans have kindly gathered into one place? I’m not advocating theft (which it’s not if an ant takes the seeds), but my philosophy is “there’s no point in doing things the hard way if you don’t have to”.

God wants us to use the resources that he has given us in the most efficient manner possible, and classical liberalism provides a profit motive that encourages the efficient use of time, money, energy and other resources. Socialism takes away the profit motive and inefficiency becomes rampant, as anyone who has spent time in a public hospital will tell you.

Next time you have ants marching across your kitchen take a moment to ponder the lessons that can be learnt from ants … then grab the fly spray and ponder the fact that God gave mankind dominion over the animals.

Do you know of any other lessons that can be learnt from ants?

Click here for a humorous-but-true perspective on Proverbs 6:6-8