The Case for Legalizing Blackmail
Seriously I am just a rebel. Where else do you get hard-hitting stuff like this? An excerpt:
The interesting aspect of this system is that it would provide an informal means of “fining” people for violating social taboos. Although this might strike some (such as Scott Sumner, whom we’ll discuss in the next section) as a horrifying means of puritanical social control, we could alternatively view it as a useful mechanism of minimizing socially undesirable behavior that augments more conventional law enforcement.
For example, consider the infamous case of the comedian Louis C.K. According to him, he always officially got consent from women before engaging in his wildly inappropriate behavior. So assuming that he is telling the truth, he didn’t engage in officially criminal behavior.
Even so, most observers agree that what he did was WRONG and should be actively discouraged by social pressure, including economic incentives. In a society with a mature, legal blackmail industry, as soon as Louis C.K. started earning some real money, the women involved could have told their stories to a company like The Truth Hurts. After its internal investigators verified the allegations and were confident “something was there,” they would approach Louis and ask (say) $200,000 for every year that they sat on the story. Out of that payment, perhaps the company would transfer half to the women complainants, likewise ensuring their annual payments so long as the public never learned of the allegations.
The Bob Murphy Show, ep. 17
My interview with Alex Tabarrok is up. A fun discussion between two economists geeking out.
A Different Way to Understand Salvation Through Faith
One of the trickiest aspects of Protestantism is the notion of “salvation through faith alone,” as opposed to works. This is obviously a huge area of theological controversy, with many nuances in each denomination’s position. (This Wikipedia article gives an idea of the issues involved.)
For our purposes here, the reason this doctrine seems so perverse from a worldly perspective is that a serial killer who repents on his death bed “goes to heaven,” while a law-abiding, friendly guy who simply can’t believe thousand-year-old stories about a guy walking on water “goes to hell.”
One of the classic verses to support the Protestant position comes from Romans 4:
1What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5And to the one who does not work but believes ina him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness…
Someone in my Sunday school class pointed out an interesting aspect of this (famous) example of Abraham. The point at which the Bible actually says, “And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness,” doesn’t actually occur until Genesis 15:6. And if you click the link and look at the context, you’ll see that earlier in that conversation, Abram (sic) actually didn’t understand how he was going to enjoy the blessings God had been promising him for some time, because Abram had no direct heir. It was only then (in Genesis 15: 4-5) that God spelled it out exactly for him, that Abram would have his own son as heir–even though Abram and his wife were very old at this point.
(To be sure, from the beginning God was promising Abram that he would be the father of a great nation, but it’s not until Genesis 15 that Abram directly brings up the issue of him being so old and still lacking an heir.)
Now if I understood him correctly, what the guy in my Sunday school class was getting at, is that Abram started obeying God (imperfectly) from Genesis 12. And this was some pretty serious stuff; God told a 75-year-old man to pack up all his stuff and move to a different country!
So we see a nice contrast between faith and works: Abram did a pretty brave thing and obeyed God’s difficult command, but that wasn’t what made him righteous. (And it’s a good thing too, because Abram obviously committed sins along the way.) It was only when Abram believed the promises of God that he was saved.
Now that I’ve laid out the context, here’s my thought: If you’re thinking of heaven as a magical place where angels are strumming harps, and you get in by accepting Jesus regardless of your sins, whereas hell is a furnace where you burn forever if you fail to love God, then yes it’s difficult for a non-believer to make sense of that system.
However, what if it’s more like this: God has promised paradise to those who trust in Him. To the extent that you believe Him, you are saved…right now. You have heaven on Earth, to the extent that you believe everything the Bible says about God’s character and what He has in store for His children.
If instead, you are cynical and doubt that there’s really a “higher power” or “something that makes sense of it all,” then the nature of man and what we do to each other–all the pointless cruelty and suffering–is a living hell. People can try to deal with it by drinking, drugs, or writing existential tracts, but it takes a loving Creator to fill the void.
Catching Up on Podcasts
I have been traveling a lot and I can’t remember if I posted all of these. So anyway…
The Bob Murphy Show ep. 14 is my review of The Three Lads and the Lizard King.
The BMS ep. 15 is my interview with David Gornoski, which got into some heavy-duty stuff about scapegoating.
The BMS ep. 16 is my interview with Joe Salerno, which covers some of his work in Austrian economics but also fun Rothbard anecdotes.
And the last three episodes of Contra Krugman–here, here, and here–have been pretty fun, largely because we recorded late and Tom is usually in bed by 9.
God Is Good
At the tail end of my discussion of The Three Lads and the Lizard King, I alluded to the familiar problem of evil, and how the orthodox Christian answer is a bit scandalous. Specifically, God allows evil to happen. In the book of Job, the Devil literally gets permission from God to do horrible things.
Yet the Bible also shows that God uses these evil acts–which do not originate with Him–to ultimately be turned into serving God’s purposes. The most obvious is the crucifixion of Jesus, which is the worst possible sin we could have committed, and yet God flipped it into our salvation and deliverance from evil.
Another one is the horrible policy of the Pharaoh to have newborn Israelites snuffed out (in order to control Israel’s population growth and keep them in bondage to the Egyptians). Yet God used this awful policy to be the wellspring of Moses himself, who could not have turned into the man he did, under more pleasant circumstances. (Also worth reminding people: Moses was EIGHTY YEARS OLD when he was first approached by God with the mission to lead His people out of Egypt.)
Now if you look at your life (or world history) and conclude, “God is either evil or limited in power,” then you made a mistake in your reasoning. God by his very nature is both good and omnipotent.
Incidentally, this passage (from Ex. 33) always fascinates me:
18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock.22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
Is that passage saying men are able to handle the full brunt of God’s goodness, but there are other aspects of His might that they can’t handle? The last time I read that passage, I thought it was saying God’s goodness itself might overwhelm and consume Moses, but upon this reading, I’m wondering if it’s saying the opposite.
Discuss.
Yet Another Analogy on the Carbon Tax
We only have 12 years to act before I run out of analogies…
Try this one kids:
Should Students Support a “Point-Neutral Exam Reform?”
Suppose a college math professor is very concerned about the self-esteem of her students, and so declares that for the upcoming exam, she will give each student the average of the actual scores that the class earns. That is, the professor will first grade the exam the normal way, then add up the total points earned by all of the students collectively, then divide the total by the number of students in the class, and finally she will award that result as the score to each student.
When the professor announces the rule, at first the students are suspicious, as they have come to distrust anything proposed by adults—especially those in authority. However, the professor explains that out of the class of 100 students, there are 10 very high achievers, who get an A+ on every test. Another 87 students are pretty average, who all usually get a C+ through a B on their tests. And finally there are three students who are in danger of flunking, who get an F or a D on their tests.
The students in the class, however, still don’t see where this is going. The professor reminds them that her proposal is—as she calls it—a “point-neutral exam reform.” That is, the professor’s new scheme won’t create or destroy points, but instead will merely redistribute point among the students. The total number of points the students score on their exams, will end up being the total number the professor records in the grade report for the registrar.
However, because of the different patterns in student scoring, the professor predicts that her scheme will mean that 90 percent of the students in the class will receive more points from the scheme than they will forfeit. That is, 90 percent of the students in the class will see their score bumped up after the professor applies the adjustment.
Recent Comments