Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 2

Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 2

Thomas Allen

Negro Voting

Edmonds reveals the low opinion about Blacks held by the typical Republican. He quotes an 1880 issue of the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, which he describes as one of the boldest Republican organs that frankly betrayed its party’s real feeling toward the Negro race, “As an office seeker, the negro [sic] has more brass in a square inch of his face, more rapaciousness for office, than his barbarian masters ever dared to possess. The Southern brigadier wants office and place, but he is willing to fight for them, or vote for them; at the drop of the hat he will shoot and cut for them; he does not whine like a whipped cur, or demand like a beggar on horseback, as the nigger does. Let the nigger first learn to vote before he asks for office. The brazen-jawed nigger is but a trifle less assuming, insolent and imperious in his demands than the lantern-jawed brigadiers; the educated nigger is a more capacious liar than his barbarian masters ever were, or dared to be.

“The greatest mistake the Republican party ever made was taking the nigger at a single bound and placing on his impenetrable skull the crown of suffrage. It is a wrong to him and to us to let him wield the ballot. The nigger is necessarily an ignoramus. The free nigger, we repeat, is a fraud.” (p. 220.)

(The reason for giving the Negro suffrage was to maintain Republican political power. Thus, the reason for the fifteenth amendment, which gave Black males the vote, was to maintain Republican control in the North. This amendment only applied in the Northern States; the Negro already had the vote in all the defunct Confederate States when this amendment was ratified.)

Grant’s Drinking

About Grant’s alcoholism, Edmonds writes, “From early manhood General Grant was afflicted with the drink disease.” (p. 221.) Then he quotes Wendell Phillips, insane hater of the South, and General Don Piatt, an abolitionist (p. 221).

“Phillips said: ‘Grant can never stand before a bottle of whiskey without falling down.’

“General Piatt, in ‘Memories of the Men Who Saved the Union,’ says: ‘Grant’s habit of drink lost us thousands and thousands of patriotic lives. The attempt to conceal this is not only pitiable, but hopeless.’”

Continuing, Edmonds writes, “The terrible slaughter of Union soldiers at Cold Harbor was charged to Grant’s drunkenness. Major-General Wm. F. Smith, in a confidential letter to Senator Foote, July 30, 1864, states that soon after Grant had taken a pledge to drink nothing intoxicating, he (Grant) called at his (Smith's) headquarters, and asked for whiskey, and drank so often he went away drunk, and General Butler saw him. A short while before this Grant had written to Washington asking that General Butler be relieved from that department, because he (Grant) ‘could not trust Butler with the command of the troops in the movements about to be made.’ Instructions were sent to Grant to remove Butler. Butler heard of this and hurried to see Grant. General Smith wrote Senator Foote that he heard direct from Grant’s headquarters, and also from another source, that General Butler threatened Grant that he would expose his drunken habits if the order was not revoked. The order was revoked, and Butler remained in command, although Grant had said he was unfit to be trusted.” (p. 221.)

Some English Views of Reconstruction

Edmonds quotes two English historians on their views of Reconstruction (p. 238).

“Percy Gregg, the English historian, in his history of the United States, says: ‘The reconstruction policy was at once dishonest and vindictive. The Congressional majority (Republican) were animated not merely by selfish designs, but by rabid hatred of the South’s people which had fought so gallantly for what the best jurists of America believed to be their moral and constitutional right.’

“Another English writer of great eminence, Anthony Trollope, was in this country during the reconstruction period, and wrote of it thus: ‘I hold that tyranny never went beyond this. Never has there been a more terrible condition imposed upon a fallen people. For an Italian to feel an Austrian over him, for a Pole to feel a Russian over him, has been bad indeed, but it has been left for the political animosity of the Republicans of the North — men who themselves reject all contact with the negro — to subject the Southern people to dominance from the African who yesterday was their slave. The dungeon chains were knocked off the captive in order that he may be harnessed as a beast of burden to the captive's chariot.’

“We will give another passage from Gregg, the English historian: ‘The devastation of the Pallatine [sic] hardly exceeded the desolation and misery wrought by the Republican invasion and conquest of the South. No conquered nation of modern days, not Poland under the heel of Nicholas, not Spain or Russia under that of Napoleon, suffered from such individual and collective ruin, or saw before them so frightful a prospect as the States dragged by force, in April, 1865. under the “best government in the world.”’ (Page 375, Gregg's History of United States.)” [Palatine was a territory in Germany that lost about 90 percent of its population during the Thirty Years War.]

Not So Random Quotations

Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist:

– “He [Lincoln] is a first-rate second-rate man; that is all of him.”

– “Mr. Lincoln is a politician; politicians are like the bones of a horse’s fore shoulder; not a straight one in it.”

– “The Constitution is a mistake! Tear it to pieces! Our aim is disunion!”

– “The Republican party is in no sense a national party. It is a party of the North, organized against the South.”

– “We confess that we intend to trample on the Constitution of this country. We of New England are not a law-abiding community. God be thanked for it! We are disunionists; we want to get rid of this Union.”

William Lloyd Garrison, a New England abolitionist:

– “The Republican party is moulding public sentiment in the right direction for the dissolution of the Union.”

Rev. Andrew Forbes:

– “There never was an hour when this blasphemous and infamous Union should have been made; now the hour must be prayed for when it will be dashed to pieces.”

Parson Pryiic, a red hot Republican:

“A dissolution of the Union is what a large portion of the Republicans are driving at.”

William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State:

– “Our Constitution is to us of the North a great danger. The Southerners are using it as a shield.”

– “Only a despotic and imperial government can subjugate seceding States.”

– “The attempt to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war.” 

Ward H. Lamon, Lincoln’s self-appointed bodyguard:

– “As a people, Lincoln thought negroes would only be useful to those who were at the same time their masters, and the foes of those who sought their good.”

– “Lincoln always contended that the cheapest way of getting rid of the negro was for the Nation to buy the slaves and send them out of the country.”

– “He [Lincoln] never at any time favored the admission of negroes into the body of the electors in his State, or in the States of the South.”

General Don Piatt, an abolitionist:

– “Lincoln well knew that the North was not fighting to free slaves, nor was the South fighting to preserve slavery.”

– “I found that Mr. Lincoln could no more feel sympathy for that wretched [Negro] race than he could for the horse he worked or the hog he killed.”

Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio:

– “There is really no Union now between the North and the South. I believe no two nations on earth entertain feelings of more bitter rancor toward each other than these two peoples.”

Senator Stephen Douglas:

– “The fact can no longer be disguised that many Republican Senators desire war and disunion under pretense of saving the Union. For partisan reasons they are anxious to destroy the Union. They want this done without holding them responsible before the people.”

the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, a Republican newspaper:

– “The Stalwarts do not care a fig for the Constitution, and will trample it under foot today as did Lincoln and the Union hosts from ’61 to ’65.”

an Iowa editor:

– “Abraham Lincoln kicked the Constitution into the Capitol cellar, and there it remained innocuous until the war ended.”

Judge Yaples, in the Cincinnati Enquirer of 1880:

– “Republican hate is grounded on the fact that the people of the South will not join the Republican party.”

Unknown:

– “The people of Raleigh, N. C, were astonished to find that Sherman’s army were Christian gentlemen.”

George Edmonds:

– “The underlying cause of every conflict between man and man, tribe and tribe, country and country, has been on the one side a craving for power, on the other side an effort to escape that power.”

– “So long had the gospel of hate been preached, those New Englanders had come to hate the South so venomously they wanted to force her out of the Union she loved.”

– “All abolitionists believed in the right of secession. All hated the Union and wanted to break it to pieces.”

– “Before the South seceded, the foremost men in the Republican party openly maintained the right of secession.”

– “Lincoln was the first President who usurped the power to rule the American people.”

– “The whole reconstruction period was a deadly war on Southern people, and the more base and cowardly because waged on unarmed men and women.”

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 1.

More Southern articles.

Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 1

Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 1

Thomas Allen

Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-1865 (Memphis, Tennessee: A. R. Taylor & Co., 1904) by George Edmonds is an excellent book and worth reading. Edmonds reveals the real Abraham Lincoln before he was deified.

Before Lincoln’s deification, most Republicans, including his cabinet, did not respect him, and many despised him. Further, they perceived him as incompetent, opportunistic, and indecisive and as a political hack and a politician in the worst sense of the word. Fame was what Lincoln wanted. Assassination was the best thing to ever happen to him, for it brought him the fame for which he lusted and his deification.

Edmonds shows that the founding principles of the Republican Party were hatred of the Constitution and Southerners, disunion, and the concentration of political power in the federal government. Being a White man’s party, the Republican Party had little use for Blacks — free or slave. 

He discusses the hatred of the South that many Republican leaders possessed from Lincoln’s War to 1904 when he published his book. This hatred of the South still exists today albeit in a milder form when conservatives, e.g., Beck and Coulter, express it. This hatred reveals itself in the left’s destruction of Southern culture, history, and memorials with the support of scalawags including most Southern Republican and Democratic governors, and the complacency of most conservatives.

The following are some excerpts from his book.

Comparison of Buchanan with Lincoln

Edmonds quotes the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, 1879, which fearlessly propounded Republican doctrines, “No reasonable man will say that President Buchanan was wrong when he said that the North had no constitutional right to coerce seceding States, but what of that? Up jumped Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter, and kicked the Constitution into the Capitol cellar, and called for 75,000 armed men to march down and conquer the South, and when the 75,000 proved not enough, the rail splitter called for more, and more, until he had over 2,000,000 armed men, and he sent ’em down to burn and pillage, to kill, conquer or annihilate traitors to our glorious Union, the Constitution all the while in the Capitol cellar." (pp. 23-24)

About Rebellion

Edmonds writes, “The history of man’s struggle for freedom shows that rebellions have won for mankind all the freedom they possess. Did ever any ruler on earth, of his own will, loosen his grip on the liberties of those he ruled? Every inch of liberty the English-speaking people now have was gained by rebellions. The colonies of ’76 won freedom by rebellion. Rebellion means resistance to lawful rule. George III was the lawful King of the Colonies. At no period in the existence of this Union has one State or group of States held lawful rule over any other State or group of States. The most stupendous falsehood ever told on this continent is the falsehood that the Southern people rebelled. There can be no rebellion except against lawful rulers. The Republican party of the 6o’s was guilty of the monstrous crime of usurping the power to rule the Southern States. Not only did Republicans pour out the virulence of hate on the South’s men, her women came in for a share, and a large share they received.” (p. 245)

Lincoln’s Response to Medill’s Protest to Lincoln’s Order for More Troops

About Lincoln rebuking Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune and Republican politician, when he protested Lincoln ordering more troops from Chicago, Edmonds cites Ida Tarbell, who wrote a biography of Lincoln. Miss Tarbell relates what Medill told her about this incident, “In 1864 when the call for extra troops came, Chicago revolted. Chicago had sent 22,000 and was drained. There were no young men to go, no aliens except what was already bought. The citizens held a mass meeting and appointed three men, of whom I (Medill) was one, to go to Washington and ask Stanton (the War Secretary) to give Cook County a new enrollment. On reaching Washington we went to Stanton with our statement. He refused. Then we went to President Lincoln. ‘I cannot do it,’ said Lincoln, ‘but I will go with you to Stanton and hear the arguments of both sides.’ So we all went over to the War Department together. Stanton and General Frye were there, and they both contended that the quota should not be changed. The argument went on for some time, and was finally referred to Lincoln, who had been silently listening. When appealed to, Lincoln turned to us with a black and frowning face: ‘Gentlemen.’ he said, with a voice full of bitterness, ‘after Boston, Chicago has been the chief instrument in bringing this war on the country. The Northwest opposed the South, as New England opposed the South. It is you, Medill, who is largely responsible for making blood flow as it has. You called for war until you had it. I have given it to you. What you have asked for you have had. Now you come here begging to be let off from the call for more men, which I have made to carry on the war you demanded. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Go home and raise your 6,000 men. And you, Medill, you and your Tribune have had more influence than any other paper in the Northwest in making this war. Go home and send me those men I want.’

“Medill says that he and his companions, feeling guilty, left without further argument. They returned to Chicago, and 6,000 more men from the working classes were dragged from their homes, their families, forced into the ranks to risk limbs and lives in a war they had no part in making, while the men that forced that war on an unwilling people remained at home in comfort and safety, and made enormous fortunes by the war.” (p. 162)

To this, Edmonds adds, “Is it any wonder educated workingmen often become anarchists and hate all governments?” (p. 163)

Lincoln on Courts

About Lincoln’s preference for using military courts instead of civil courts, Edmonds writes, “Daniel Webster objected to military courts because, as he said, ‘military courts are organized to convict.’ The so-called humane Lincoln objected to civil courts because one member of the jury might be more ready to hang the panel than to hang the man! Lincoln seems to assume that men arrested by military officials must be guilty, therefore should have no chance of escaping conviction by trial in a Civil court. Lincoln also objects to civil courts because they only convict on charges of crime well defined by law. Military courts convict on the most frivolous pretexts, or no pretext at all. The chief thing necessary to military conviction is that some man in high place should desire the man to be convicted and put out of his way. In the Albany address reference was made to the suspension of the habeas corpus. To this Mr. Lincoln replied as follows: ‘The suspension of the habeas corpus was for the purpose that men may be arrested and held in prison who cannot be proved guilty of any defined crime.’” (p. 212)

Continuing, Edmonds writes that the above declaration is not Lincoln's worst. Then, he quotes Lincoln’s comment to the Albany committee of Democrats, “Arrests are not made so much for what has been done as for what possibly might be done. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by arrest, imprisonment, or death) he is sure to help the enemy.” (p. 212).

Then, Edmonds writes, “Is it any wonder under rulings like this that 38,000 arbitrary arrests threw 38,000 innocent men and women into American bastiles [sic] to languish for months or years, and many therein to die?” (p. 212.)

Moreover, Edmonds writes, “Under Lincoln’s definition silence became an act of treason. A man with a sore throat, unable to talk aloud, if he happened to be present when the Lincoln Government was discussed, was liable to arrest and imprisonment in the most distant fortress in the land.” (p. 212).

Next, Edmonds quotes Lincoln writing, “Much more if a man talks ambiguously, talks with ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’ he cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by imprisonment or death) this man will actively commit treason. Arbitrary arrests are not made for the treason defined in the Constitution, but to prevent treason.” About this quotation, Edmonds comments, “That is to prevent the sort of treason never before known on earth — the treason of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘ands’ — the treason made and invented by Abraham Lincoln, the first President of the Republican party.” (pp. 212-213.)

Seward’s Character

To describe the character of William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, Edmonds quotes General Piatt, a personal friend and great admirer of Seward, “Seward began life as a school teacher in the South. He had been treated with condescending indifference by the unenlightened masters, which treatment he never forgot. Seward looked down on the white men of the South in the same cynical way that he did upon the slaves. He had no pity for the slaves, and no dislike for the master. He was a great favorite with the last named. He had contempt for them, which he concealed as carefully as he did his contempt for the United States Constitution. Seward had trained himself to believe that worldly wickedness indicated ability. He thought to be bad was to be clever. He thought that devotion to wine, women and infidelity gave proof of superior intelligence. He affected a wickedness he did not feel, because such wickedness, in his estimation, was good form.” To this description, Edmonds asks, “Was it spite that made Seward so vindictive toward the Southern people?” (p. 158)

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 2.

More Southern articles.

Mosaic Economics

Mosaic Economics

Thomas Allen

In Moses the Economist (1947, Editor Ben Williams, Reprinted 2009, American Christian Ministries), C.F. Parker gives his understanding of Mosaic economics as described in the Pentateuch. Some of his descriptions and my comments follow.

– Value. Parker believes that the value of the labor used to provide a product or service determines its value. (Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx held this view.) The opinion of the consumer is irrelevant. Thus, if the labor value of a product is $100 and the consumer values it at $50, the product cannot be sold for $50. To sell it for $50 would cheat the workers of their due wages and would be an ill-gotten gain for the consumer, who has cheated the workers out of part of their wages. For the product to sit on the shelf and deteriorate is better than selling it for less than $100. How the workers are better off losing $100 by the product deteriorating to worthlessness than losing $50, Parker does not explain.

Like most people, he has the cost of labor and materials determining the selling price of the product backward. The cost of labor and other inputs to produce a product does not determine the selling price of the product. The marginal consumer does. What the consumer is willing to pay for a product determines the cost of the labor and other inputs in the production of the product.

– Taxes. Farmers bear the primary burden of funding the government. They pay 10 percent of their crops and increase in herds to the government. (If their herds decrease, does this the government reimburses them for 10 percent of their loss — probably not.) However, they pay their taxes in products and livestock instead of money.

To provide additional revenue (taxes) for the government, Parker extends this principle to manufacturers. Through some convoluted reasoning, he concludes that the use of tools powered by steam or electricity produced by coal, petroleum, natural gas, uranium, water, and now wind and solar makes their products equivalent to agriculture. Consequently, manufacturers would pay the government 10 percent of what they produce. Thus, applying the agricultural equivalency, an automobile manufacturer would give the government 10 percent of the cars and trucks that he produces. A spark plug manufacturer would give the government 10 percent of the spark plugs produced. In like manner, a toy manufacturer would pay the government 10 percent of the toys that he produces. And, likewise, for other manufacturers.

However, if furniture manufacturers or seamstresses used no power tools in producing their furniture or apparel, they pay no taxes. Yet, if they use power tools, such as electric saws and drills and electric sowing machines, they pay 10 percent of their products to the government.

Providers of services are exempted from taxation. For some strange reason, Parker puts miners, who extract God-given ore from the ground, in the nontaxpaying category. Although he is unclear whether extractors of petroleum, natural gas, and coal pay taxes or not, he seems to place them in the nontaxpaying category.

Parker does not address solar and wind energy because when he wrote his book, they were not used to produce electricity, although the wind was used to grind grain, pump water, and move ships. However, based on his agricultural principle, since God provides the wind and sun, people who use them to produce electricity should give the government 10 percent of the electricity that they produce.

– Land. Parker is a proponent of the jubilee where all land returns to the original owner every 50 years. For the Western Hemisphere, this means that all land return to the Indians (who gets the land of the extinct Indian tribes?). Or, it returns to the monarchs of Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Russia. If the principle of the right of conquest, the land belongs to whoever conquers it, is applied as it is applied to the Israelite’s conquest of Canaan, then the aforementioned monarchs are the original owners since the land was conquered for them and in their name. Consequently, the Indians have no claim. (See “Jubilee” by Thomas Allen.)

– Usury, Loans, and Debt. Of course, charging interest including fees, which is interest by another name, on loans is prohibited. Moreover, all debts are canceled after seven years —not seven years from when the loan is made but a fixed calendar seven years for all loans. Thus, a loan may be canceled a year after it is made. (See “Questions for Anti-Usurers” by Thomas Allen.)

If all debt is canceled every seven years, then all paper money and its electronic equivalent including checkbook money become void every seven years. These types of money are obligations, i.e., debts. Parker seems not to recognize this cancellation of credit or representative money, which he believes is real money like full-weight gold and silver coins. His confusion about money derives from his belief that money is a mere token. (See “What Is Money?”,  "What Are the Functions of Money,” and “What Is the Difference Between Commodity and Fiat Money” by Thomas Allen)

Although Parker does not realize it, his anti-usury stance if carried to its logical conclusion forbids farmers from saving part of their crop as seed for the next season. Deciding how much to consume now and how much to save for future consumption involves interest, usury.

Furthermore, even the holdings of Social Security, of which Parker approves, would cease to exist every seven years because they are obligations (debts) owed to the participants.

– Money. Further, Parker has little understanding of commodity money, e.g., gold and silver, and a commodity monetary system, e.g., the gold standard. He believes that the monetary commodity has a different value, usually, a lower value, from the commodity stamped as a coin. Under a true commodity standard, the commodity has approximately the same value as an equivalent weight of the commodity when stamped as a coin. Money has value in and of itself that is independent of any image, words, or numbers stamped on it. The weight of the commodity in the coin is what gives it value and not what is stamped on it. (If the monetary value of a currency exceeds the commodity of which it is made, as with paper money, it represents real commodity money and is, therefore, an obligation to pay real commodity money, i.e., it is a debt payable in real commodity money.)

If he had looked in Genesis, he would have found the attributes of real money, which are quantity, a measure of weight, and substance. According to Genesis 23:16, Abraham bought a burial plot. He paid 400 (quantity) shekels (measurement of weight) of silver (substance). All commodity money has these three attributes, which makes money more than a mere token.

Therefore, a token even if used as a medium of exchange is not Biblical money. When used as a medium of exchange, token money represents money and passes the obligation to pay real money from one person to another. When the seven-year debt cancellation comes, token money becomes a canceled debt, and the person holding it is cheated out of whatever value it had as a medium of exchange.

Nevertheless, Parker is correct about money itself not being wealth. However, the gold in a gold coin is wealth as gold bullion. (See “What is the Gold Standard?” by Thomas Allen.)

– Banks. Banking as known today would cease to exist. People who wanted to save their money in a secured vault would have to pay someone to protect their money in a vault.

As for checking accounts, people would have to pay a depositary to hold their money against which they could write checks. They may also have to pay when a check is cashed or money is transferred from one account to another account. A return to yesteryear where bill collectors visited people’s houses or businesses to collect payment may return. Most likely, people may have to visit centralized offices to pay their bills as that would be the cheapest way of making payments.

– Wages. According to Parker, people should be paid according to their effective endeavors. Also, he seems to argue for a wage system that is akin to what progressives promote from time to time. Some governmental bureaucrats establish a relative pay scale for each type of job based on their opinion of its importance and on the labor required for that job. 

Nevertheless, he maintains that workers who work more efficiently acquire more wealth than less efficient workers. The incompetent and slackers become impoverished. He is a proponent of meritocracy in the workplace, which the free market generally provides when the government does not interfere with employment.

According to Parker’s understanding of Mosaic economics, wealth is fixed and is the aggregate of the rivers, lakes, oceans, soil, plants, animals, atmosphere, and the like. Wealth has nothing to do with human intelligence in organizing and using these resources. Thus, African countries rich in resources should be wealthier than Singapore, which is extremely poor in natural resources, but most are not.

– Stocks. Corporations with publicly traded stock would cease to exist under Parker’s Mosaic economics. Paying dividends on stock is outlawed because the owner of the stock did not earn the money. Moreover, one could never sell a stock for more than he paid for it because that is ill-gotten gain. Likewise, apparently, one could never sell a stock for less than what he paid for it because that would be an ill-gotten gain for the buyer. 

– Abundances and Scarcities. Buying items such as generators and food in a region of plenty and selling them in a region of want because of a natural disaster, war, or otherwise at a price above what existed before the disaster is forbidden. One must sell the item at the predisaster market price. (Higher prices mean stronger demand relative to the supply and are a signal for more supply. By fixing prices, Parker denies this signal. He appears to have a great deal of confidence in the integrity and the subjective opinions of governmental bureaucrats to move products from a region of abundance to a region of scarcity. He seems to want to eliminate the free market.)

Moreover, in a region that has an abundance of agricultural products, he would prohibit selling the products below the pre-abundant price. To do so would cheat the farmer. Apparently, the farmer and presumably the consumer benefit more from the excess crops rotting away than from selling them at a lower price.

– Selling Used Items. Selling a used product, including antiques and old masterpiece paintings, for a profit is forbidden. One cannot sell a used product for more than what he paid for it (or the original price if the original price is lower). Consequently, if a person inherits a painting, jewelry, furniture, or anything else whose original price is unknown, he cannot sell it.

Moreover, stamp and coin collecting as an investment would cease to exist. One can never sell a stamp or coin for more than its face value.

– Insurance. Private insurance is verboten. Nevertheless, Parker accepts governmentally run Ponzi schemes like social security, which is often called insurance.

– Conclusions. If implemented, Mosaic economics, as Parker explains it, would be detrimental to today’s economy. A small minority of the country, the farmers and manufacturers, bear the tax burden; the remainder remains untaxed. This dearth of taxes does keep the government small and, therefore, limited. The government could not make up for the shortfall by deficient spending as the cancellation of debt every seven years and the illegality of charging interest would prevent most people from lending to the government.

Further, his explanation of money is flawed. Also, his requirement for governmental price fixing is highly destructive and would create continuous surplus and shortages. He asserts that the value or price of labor in producing and distributing products fixes their value or price; the subjective opinion of the consumer, i.e., what the consumer is willing to pay for the product is irrelevant in fixing its value or price. His demand to abolish interest would cause the consumption of capital until society reverts to the hunter-gatherer stage. (See “Usury” by Thomas Allen.) 

Moreover, Mosaic economics, as Parker explains it, relies heavily on the wisdom, integrity, altruism, and near omniscience of governmental bureaucrats. Although historically and biblically, governments have been much more doers of evil than doers of good, Parker displays a childlike trust and confidence in governments always being doers of good.

Parker is convinced that Mosaic economics as he understands it will eliminate poverty. However, instead of making the country prosperous as he claims, his proposals would impoverish the country.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More economic articles.