Problems are for Solving

Book Review

I recently finished The Law by Frederic Bastiat. It was first published in French in 1850. Bastiat, nearing the end of his life, wrote several polemics against the socialist revolutions that were going on in France.

The copy I had was translated and reprinted in the U.S. by the Foundation for Economic Education, and was given to me a few years ago by my father-in-law. It’s a fairly heavy read, though it’s short so it doesn’t take that long.

Bastiat is arguing against social engineering, or as he puts it, using the law for plunder. Whether it be plunder for this cause or that cause was no matter to him—he believed that man should not be deposed of his property without just cause and the cause of engineering a socialist (or any other) economy was not just.

He uses the United States of that day as an example of how liberty can triumph and a free economy produce better justice over the long term and a greater level of equality. The same economic battles that raged in France in the mid 19^th century have been going on here since FDR.

Who should control resources? Why?

Bastiat makes a great argument for a free economy rather than one that is fascist or socialist and it’s only 75 pages long.

When we are blessed with luxuries like cell phones, high speed internet, second cars, etc., we tend to be prone to take them for granted before too long.

While I don’t recommend him without exception, my friend R.C. Sproul Jr. wrote an article a couple of years ago entitled Entering Normal that I still believe to be one of his most insightful articles yet.

We get used to those things that are profound blessings and then forget to give thanks for them. I had a wonderful discussion with a friend at lunch today about this truth. I try to remind myself every day when I step into the shower to thank God for my water heater. When I get into my car to drive to work to be thankful that I have yet another that my wife can use if she needs it. Or to give thanks for having shoes on my feet at all, let alone the Birkenstocks that are so comfortable to be in!

We, as idolatrous humans, lose sight that all these things and more are gifts from God. And when we lose sight that they are gifts, we don’t give thanks.

So today, even though it’s not Thanksgiving yet, count your blessings. Thank your Creator for the things He has lavished upon you and be grateful for all He does. And give thanks above all that He sent His Son to die for poor sinners like you and me.

I wrote earlier about last month’s game night. We had it later in the month last month because the normal Friday (3^rd Friday) was my anniversary.

Game night for May is tomorrow–May 19^th. It’s at 6:00 PM at my house and supper is provided and children are welcome. My home is in the University East neighborhood. If you’re interested in coming (it’ll be fun!) you can contact the game night organizer here.

We do this every month (and I’ll post stories about it so you can get a glimpse of it) on the third Friday–so even if you can’t make it in May, let us know and we’ll make room for you another month. See you at the gaming tables!

I know this is the third post today, but they’re all short.

I started a new book today. My wife picked up Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death at I Know You Like A Book in Peoria Heights. I’ve added it to the “Current Reading List� that I recently figured out how to put in the sidebar.

I’ve wanted to read this for a while and am glad to have my own copy. I’ll have a review posted when I’m finished with it.

I’ve been playing Amun Re on line at SpielByWeb and I’m trying to get better at it. Seth taught me the game at game night a few months ago.

So far my results have been mixed. By “mixed� I mean three differing results:

· Distant last place

· Not so distant last place, and

· Next to last place

I have yet to finish in the top two, but when I win a game I’ll post a link.

I live in the 2^nd district of Peoria. I have a councilwoman whose national politics seem (from a private conversation we had months ago) to be as different from mine as night and day.

Because of things like this, I wouldn’t even dream of running for her seat. Her local politics are well in line with what I would have in the city government and I’m glad that she represents my district. She is all about community. We don’t have to agree on everything to agree on what’s important for Peoria.

Councilwoman Van Auken—keep up the good work. May we see a sense of community return to and grow in our fair city. May our local businesses prosper and may we help one another to prosper by frequenting those local businesses.

(BTW, I wrote yesterday about shopping locally and some of the reasons I think it’s so important.)

About a year ago I was reading a blog post at Dry Creek Chronicles and had a conversation with two friends about why I don’t shop at Wal-Mart anymore.

I explained to my friends that it’s about community. When I shop at Walmart, I am not encouraging the local economy. My products are made in China or shipped in from Chile, and the employees that are serving me are making minimum wage (if I get served at all—you can get in and out of many stores now without having to interact with a person with the “self-check� lanes). Very little help to the local economy.

I contrasted that with my own vision of how a local economy used to work (as I understand it) and how it could work again. I would like to open a restaurant when my boys get older. A restaurant is one of those businesses that depend upon local business. People rarely drive 100 miles to come to your restaurant—no matter how good the food is. If I go into the local hardware store where I’m waited on by the owner or one of his workers that gets paid well above minimum wage, I am investing in my restaurant. These guys now have more money than that Wal-Mart employee to spend, and more incentive to spend it locally (because they survive the same way—from local business). If they choose to buy their groceries from the last independent grocer in town instead of the big chain, they continue the chain of dollars and interdependence that makes for a community.

If all of these workers decide to “save money� by shopping at Wal-Mart they may someday find that Wal-Mart and those companies like it are the only employers left in their city.

There are other reasons I don’t shop at Wal-Mart, but they are not germane to the topic today.

The blog at DCC, however dealt with the other side of this. We have very few self-owned businesses left in our nation. What we have is joint stock corporations, predominately made up of passive investors. Saenz traces the history (in brief) of this development and ends up being unsure of what he should think of it. He references two books, Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver and The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea.

I don’t want to repeat the content of Rick’s post here, but I wanted to add something to it. The key to the joint stock corporation is the limited liability of the investor. The investor doesn’t have control over the corporation and so his liability is limited to his investment. Meaning if the corporation commits a great crime due to negligence of the managers or whatever his other personal assets cannot be touched.

I am convinced that this is unethical. At present, I can form a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) that only is me, or a few investors who do have control over the corporation. That means if I open a restaurant as a LLC and then food poison several hundred people in a given night all I can lose is the restaurant. None of my own assets can be touched, no matter whether that is just or not. The litigiousness of our society notwithstanding—I find that to be over the top. I do something wrong and the person to whom I did it wrong has little to no recourse against me, the person who did something wrong. That’s because it’s not actually the person me who “did the wrong� but the corporation me who “did the wrong.� And the “corporation me� has a special get out of jail free card from the government called LLC. I file chapter 7 and I go home and my house and savings are untouched by my negligence.

This too, works against community. If I am not responsible for the consequences of my actions then my incentives to run my restaurant well are diminished. The system also favors heavily the giant corporate structure of the fast-non-food restaurants rather than the local guy who is running the restaurant in order to feed his family and to serve his community.

Businesses should exist, not merely to make profit, but to serve. And when one provides a legitimate service that people need and are blessed by then making a profit comes easily.

As Christians we need to reconsider this recent innovation called the corporation. And as we strive to form communities we need to think about how to depend upon one another rather than big corporations whose self-interest is not tied to the local community.

This is another post from my old blog, written May, 2005.  

Recently on the short drive to church and back, and I was listening to Gene Edward Veith’s lecture, Pop Goes the Culture. He was talking about pop culture and how our entire American way has slid into pop.

No longer is there a consistent folk culture—culture that is regional and personal and not aimed at profit—in our country.

I’ve written elsewhere about some thoughts about opening a restaurant as a family business. As we’ve thought about a restaurant we’ve been considering how it can be an encouragement to local community and folk culture rather than an obstacle to it.

One thing that we want our restaurant is to be is a gathering place. In days gone by, there were public houses that served food and drinks—and they were more than the bars and restaurants of today. Certainly in a pop, non-Christian culture there are bars that people go to in order to gather. Having been a part of that culture for a long time I can tell you that the location was an inhibiter to the “gathering.�

When we gather together we ought to be able to converse. This means that loud music is not to be a part of the ambience of a gathering place. The room also ought to be designed so that conversation can be easily overheard across the table without being easily distracted by the conversation across the room. In some gatherings, though, a conversation might take place across a room between two friends who (either serendipitously or by prior arrangement) find themselves gathering in the same place.

We hope to accomplish this by having a dining room and one or two other “gathering� rooms (for lack of a better term at this point). One might have the feel of a living room while the other might give the impression of a smoke filled bar (but without the alcohol and tobacco, though maybe with a pool table). Some people prefer to gather over a pot of freshly brewed tea around a coffee table and others might prefer to stand kibitzing over a tall table laden with appetizers. And neither of these ought to distract the families and couples having a quiet dinner over a table in the main dining room.

We have some other goals for the restaurant that I’ll write about later. I’ll give you some topics here, mostly to remind me later:

Restaurants as an expression of local culture

Restaurants as a service to the local community

Restaurants as a culinary treat

Restaurants as tools in relationship building

There may be others, and as we continue to plan out this project—you’ll get to see it play out.

I was pointed to this quote that will make many a neo-Puritan shudder, from Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, Book IV, chapter 10, section 30 (emphasis mine):

But as there is here a danger, on the one hand, lest false bishops should thence derive a pretext for their impious and tyrannical laws, and, on the other, lest some, too apt to take alarm, should, from fear of the above evils, leave no place for laws, however holy, it may here be proper to declare, that I approve of those human constitutions only which are founded on the authority of God, and derived from Scripture, and are therefore altogether divine. Let us take, for example, the bending of the knee which is made in public prayer. It is asked, whether this is a human tradition, which any one is at liberty to repudiate or neglect? I say, that it is human, and that at the same time it is divine. It is of God, inasmuch as it is a part of that decency, the care and observance of which is recommended by the apostle; and it is of men, inasmuch as it specially determines what was indicated in general, rather than expounded. From this one example, we may judge what is to be thought of the whole class—viz. that the whole sum of righteousness, and all the parts of divine worship, and everything necessary to salvation, the Lord has faithfully comprehended, and clearly unfolded, in his sacred oracles, so that in them he alone is the only Master to be heard. But as in external discipline and ceremonies, he has not been pleased to prescribe every particular that we ought to observe (he foresaw that this depended on the nature of the times, and that one form would not suit all ages), in them we must have recourse to the general rules which he has given, employing them to test whatever the necessity of the Church may require to be enjoined for order and decency. Lastly, as he has not delivered any express command, because things of this nature are not necessary to salvation, and, for the edification of the Church, should be accommodated to the varying circumstances of each age and nation, it will be proper, as the interest of the Church may require, to change and abrogate the old, as well as to introduce new forms. I confess, indeed, that we are not to innovate rashly or incessantly, or for trivial causes. Charity is the best judge of what tends to hurt or to edify: if we allow her to be guide, all things will be safe.

From the Archives, April, 2005

So I’m riding home from work listening to an older Mars Hill Audio Journal (#64 from September/October 2003) and I hear an interview with Dr. Jeremy Begbie regarding his book, Theology, Music and Time.

In the interview (and I presume the book) he talks about how theology and music relate to one another—and especially within the context of time. During the interview Begbie speaks to Myers of chord progression and resolution. At one point, as a way of illustration, he plays what I think is a V⁷ chord which he says leaves us waiting for the resolution in the I chord.

I wasn’t sure I understood much of what he was talking about but he gave examples of how this resolution is put off and delayed in particular musical pieces (like in Fur Elise by Beethoven) and how the delay of this resolution makes the resolution even sweeter. He also talked about the presupposition of the V⁷ where the musical piece starts with the I chord in the pattern home, away, home again. This is the pattern of most western music.

I will want to talk to my friends Aaron, Anthony and Steve about this lecture and have them listen to it (they’re real musicians compared to my own amateur interest in the topic) and see if we can start a discussion that will fill out some of what Begbie was talking about for our own edification.

I hope to write more about this in a later after talking with my friends and listening to the interview again.