• Is classical liberalism compatible with the Bible?

I believe that the Bible is for every part of our lives, not just Sundays, and it is a highly practical book covering topics such as sex and money. I also believe that my political and economic beliefs have to be compatible with the Bible, otherwise my world view will have internal inconsistencies that will cause confusion. Over time I’ve moved from Left to Right to Classical Liberalism: have I finally found a political and economic system that is compatible with the Bible? Read on to find the answer to an important question.

This essay is divided into five sections:

1. What is the fundamental axiom¹ of classical liberalism?
2. Is that axiom compatible with the Bible?
3. What about slavery?
4. Conclusion
5. Additional comments

1) What is the fundamental axiom of classical liberalism?

The fundamental premise of classical liberalism is the ‘nonaggression axiom’.

Murray Rothbard describes it thus:

The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synony­mous with invasion.

Walter Block says the same thing a little more succinctly:

It is illicit to initiate or threaten invasive violence against a man or his legitimately owned property.

“Person” refers to each individual’s physical body, so the nonagression axiom is saying that each person has personal rights and property rights. Classical liberalists believe that these rights are inviolable unless a person initiates or threatens invasive violence against a man or his legitimately owned property and thereby gives up his rights. Rothbard says:

We have advanced the view that the criminal loses his rights to the extent that he deprives another of his rights: the theory of “proportionality.” We must now elaborate further on what such a theory of proportional punishment may imply.

In the first place, it should be clear that the proportionate principle is a maximum, rather than a mandatory, punishment for the criminal. In the libertarian society, there are, as we have said, only two parties to a dispute or action at law: the victim, or plaintiff, and the alleged criminal, or defendant. It is the plaintiff [or his heirs in the case of murder] that presses charges in the courts against the wrongdoer. In a libertarian world, there would be no crimes against an ill-defined “society,” and therefore no such person as a “district attorney” who decides on a charge and then presses those charges against an alleged criminal. The proportionality rule tells us how much punishment a plaintiff may exact from a convicted wrongdoer, and no more; it imposes the maximum limit on punishment that may be inflicted before the punisher himself becomes a criminal aggressor.

2) Is that axiom compatible with the Bible?

If a child goes to the beach and makes a sand castle it is generally accepted that the sand castle is that child’s property because the child has created it. Similarly, God created the Earth and the rest of universe, so it is his property, as it says in Psalm 24:1:

The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains,
The world, and those who dwell in it. (NASB)

In Genesis 2:15-17 we see the practical application of this:

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (NASB)

This shows that God had property rights over the man and the garden, because only by having property rights could God place the man where he wanted him to be, give him a job, set rules about the usage of what was in the garden, and set consequences for the breaking of those rules.

We can see God exercising his property rights again in Genesis 3:22-24:

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” — therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. (NASB)

This was the very first trespass order! Only the owner of a property has the right to prevent people from entering his property; he may also delegate that authority.

In Genesis 1:28-30 we see that God delegated his property rights to mankind:

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. (NASB)

Whilst in Genesis 4:13-15 we can see that God also gave us personal rights:

Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is too great to bear! “Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” So the LORD said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold ” And the LORD appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him. (NASB). See also Exodus 21:12-36.

In summary, we have seen that God has property rights over the Earth and all that is on it (as well as the rest of the universe), that he delegated that authority to mankind, and that he gave us personal rights.

This is summarised nicely in the ten commandments:

• Exodus 20:13 “Thou shalt not murder”. That’s personal rights.
• Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal”. That’s property rights.

To return to the original question: yes, the fundamental axiom of classical liberalism is compatible with the Bible because that axiom is based upon personal rights and property rights which were instituted by God, and God has said that no one is allowed to break those rights. Further to that, the classical liberal belief that someone who breaks the personal and/or property rights of another person forfeits their own personal and/or property rights to an extent proportional to the crime is supported by Exodus 21-22.

3) What about slavery?

By now you may be thinking “How is slavery in the Bible compatible with personal rights?”. When you think of “slavery” you probably think of chained Africans being carried away on ships, but please try to set that aside and consider what the Bible says.

There are two types of slavery mentioned in the Bible:

i) God used Israel to punish wicked nations and he instructed them to take the women and children as slaves (Deut 9:4; 20:14). This is difficult for people with modern Western sensitivities to comprehend, but we have no right to question God in this matter. No nation on Earth today is authorised by God to punish wrongdoers: just don’t tell George W. Bush that I said that, otherwise I’ll have the US Marines kicking down my door, intent upon violating my personal and property rights to the fullest extent possible.

ii) the second type of slavery involved Hebrew slaves belonging to Hebrews. English translations of the Bible mainly use the word ’slave’ but the Hebrew word can be interpreted in several ways, including ’servant’. It is difficult for us to understand the nature of this slavery, but the nearest modern equivalent is probably the employer/employee relationship. A quick look at a few Bible verses will show us that this type of slavery has no relationship to chained Africans being carried away on ships:

He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death. Exodus 21:16 NASB

You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose in one of your towns where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat him. Deut 23:15-16 NASB

But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man”, then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently. Exodus 21:5-6 NASB

It is clear that this type of slavery did not involve involuntary detention, and I conclude that it did not violate personal rights².

4) Conclusion

Classical liberalism is compatible with the Bible because the fundamental axiom of that creed is compatible with the Bible. As Rothbard said, “the libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom”.

5) Additional comments

i) if I were to march into your house every pay day and take 20-40% of your wage would you object strongly? If so, you believe in property rights. Do you also think that it is OK for the State to levy taxes? If so why do you say that it is not OK for me to take part of your wage but it is OK for the State to do the same? Any person who says that they believe in property rights but also supports a political/economic system that involves the involuntary taking of an individual’s property is contradicting themselves.

ii) any political/economic system that involves the involuntary taking of an individual’s property – taxation is the most visible form of this – is incompatible with the Bible because it violates a commandment given by God, i.e. “You shall not steal”. Theft by the State is no different to the theft that occurs when I march into your house and take a portion of your wages³.

iii) any person who supports a political/economic system that involves the involuntary taking of an individual’s property is supporting something that is contrary to a commandment given by God: approving of theft by the State is no different to approving of theft by an individual.

iv) in my personal experience classical liberalism in the only political/economic creed that illuminates the Bible instead of causing confusion when I read the Bible.

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1. an axiom is “a generally accepted propsition or principle, sanctioned by experience; maxim”, according the Collins English Dictionary.

2. When reading what the Bible says about slavery it is helpful to remember that someone can voluntarily forgo part or all of their personal freedoms. For example, when someone signs an employment contract they are agreeing to forgo their freedom of movement and freedom of choice of activity during their hours of employment. They may also forgo something as personal as the freedom to choose their own clothes. This is not exploitation as Marx claims, rather it is a pure capitalist exchange, i.e. the employee is saying “I will forgo my personal freedoms during my hours of employment if you pay me X dollars” and the employer is saying “I will pay you X dollars if you forgo your personal freedoms during your hours of employment“. Both are freely giving something that they value in exchange for something that they value more, which is the essence of a capitalist transaction.

3. Rothbard said:

But, above all, the crucial monopoly is the State’s control of the use of violence: of the police and armed services, and of the courts—the locus of ultimate decision-making power in disputes over crimes and contracts. Control of the police and the army is particularly important in enforcing and assuring all of the State’s other powers, including the all-important power to extract its revenue by coercion.

For there is one crucially important power inherent in the nature of the State apparatus. All other persons and groups in society (except for acknowledged and sporadic criminals such as thieves and bank robbers) obtain their income voluntarily: either by selling goods and services to the consuming public, or by voluntary gift (e.g., membership in a club or association, bequest, or inheritance). Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion, by threatening dire penalties should the income not be forthcoming. That coercion is known as “taxation,” although in less regularized epochs it was often known as “tribute.” Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.

It would be an instructive exercise for the skeptical reader to try to frame a definition of taxation which does not also include theft. Like the robber, the State demands money at the equivalent of gunpoint; if the taxpayer refuses to pay his assets are seized by force, and if he should resist such depredation, he will be arrested or shot if he should continue to resist. It is true that State apologists maintain that taxation is “really” voluntary; one simple but instructive refutation of this claim is to ponder what would happen if the government were to abolish taxation, and to confine itself to simple requests for voluntary contributions. Does anyone really believe that anything comparable to the current vast revenues of the State would continue to pour into its coffers? It is likely that even those theorists who claim that punishment never deters action would balk at such a claim. The great economist Joseph Schumpeter was correct when he acidly wrote that “the theory which construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchase of the services of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind.”