My last article accidentally opened a window into a very confusing area of financial morality, and this area was rapidly and ably pounced upon by DavidtheBarbarian and Tenetur.
The thesis of that article is that the ideal money supply is such that an arbitrary population, after an arbitrary period of time, will have all their needs met and no money in reserve.
As David points out, there are very prudent reasons why one might want money in reserve–emergencies, insurance, long term future planning, and things like that. If we allow for that, then the money supply is not zero after some arbitrary period.
There are two approaches I can take to answer this. In the first, I could double down on the hard teaching, ignoring for a moment practical reality. In the second, I could refine my argument and try to determine what money supply is truly ideal.
The important question to both is this: How much should we worry about the future? The double-down response is “Not at all”; the refining response is “Some arbitrary amount”. We cannot go to the opposite extreme and say “Worrying about the future should be our sole focus” because then we fail to allow for any activity in the present.
The two possible responses seem to me to be mutually exclusive. I note in my previous article that the double-down approach should be undertaken prayerfully and under spiritual direction. But to a certain extent, so should the practice of saving. So should everything. If you are a parent with children, you could not neglect to plan for their future.
I think an error I made in the comments is to suppose that surplus ought to be given away instead of saved–as if that were the only alternative. Surplus ought to be committed to some purpose.
Imagine this: I chop down a tree. It gives me two cords of firewood–it was a big tree. If I am living for today, I will take the logs I need to keep my house warm tonight, and give the rest away to my neighbors. It is easy to imagine that I might need firewood for tomorrow too, and you can’t expect that I would chop down another tree only to take one part of the wood and give away the rest.
No, I would pick some arbitrary amount that would last me for some arbitrary period of time. I might be really concerned about how cold this winter will be, and keep all two cords. I might not be that concerned and keep only one cord. Lets say that it is February and I live in a temperate area and spring is right around the corner, so I make a prudential judgement that I need half a cord to last me to spring. I have 1.5 cords remaining. Ought I give that wood away? I could give some away–maybe my family lives close by, or close friends, I could take care of them. I could host a community bonfire, allow an opportunity for some fellowship. I could take that wood and go have a community bonfire in an area that doesn’t have much availability of wood. I could keep some of the wood and carve it into sculptures or plane it into planks and make furniture.
The point is: once my needs are met, now I can go about satisfying the needs of the community. The individualist utalitarians say that we should either keep all of it for ourselves or take just what we need for tonight. I think a way to reconcile this problem that would be good would be to say that all our resources must have a purpose, and once our needs are met we must see what we can do to satisfy the needs of others. This doesn’t have to be charity–it could be a creative, new use of the resource for which there is some demand. But the use must be towards some good.
Circling back to the question of, what is the ideal money supply. In a utalitarian world, the ideal money supply would be whatever amount results in needs being met and balances being zero after some arbitrary period of time. If we allow for future planning and provision of public goods to ourselves, our family, our friends, and neighbors–then there is no upper bound.
In fact–and this may be opening the door to a whole new line of thought–the money supply has two varieties, potential and kinetic money. Money that is being saved is potential, and has no limit. Money that is being used is kinetic, and must always be zero after some period of time. Money flows from the sovereign, is used actively until it ends up in someones savings. Money flows from Kinetic to potential, in other words.
In a Christian nation, a high level of money-wealth that has been built up means society gradually improves because it is implicitly being leveraged for the public good. In a selfish nation, a high level of money wealth that has been built up means social stratification occurs, because a few people are stockpiling sovereign money and so more sovereign money needs to be issued to meet the needs of the poor.
That is an interesting thought.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 
Once you have met your own needs, you do not turn to satisfying the needs of “the community.” You turn to satisfying the needs of the portion of the community that is too inefficient or improvident to satisfy its own needs. Your charity naturally makes that portion even less efficient, even more improvident, and even larger than it was before. As St. Augustine taught, where scripture cannot be taken literally, it should not be taken literally.
It is wrong to suppose that beggars follow Christ’s teaching and make no provision for the future. A beggar has a plan and his plan is that “the community” shall work to keep him alive. If the the rain fails to water the lilies in the field, those lilies accept the future that God has made for them. This is to say they wither and die. Most of the men and women who say they “put their trust in God” are really banking on the work of other people.
Charity means love and is therefore a mutual relationship. If I conduct myself so improvidently that you must give me my dinner, I have shown no charity towards you. I would say that it is an act of charity not to become a public charge, and that charity therefore requires one to either provide for the future or quietly accept the consequence of improvidence.
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The biggest innovation I took from your article on the parable of the good Samaritan was that our neighbor is not one who we help, but one who helps us. The Good Samaritan, in your article, is a good man precisely because he gives when it is not necessary for him to give; precisely because he gives when the Jew in the ditch has been so uncharitable in finding himself in the ditch, relying on random public aid to lift him out; precisely because the Jew in the ditch despises the good Samaritan and thinks the Priest and Levite are good men.
Your choice of word, “improvident” is a good one. We should conduct ourselves as if there is room for providence in our lives. When things are going well in our lives, it is less because we have worked especially hard–most of the time we haven’t–but because God in his providence has decided to bless us for the time being. When things are not going well in our lives, it is more because we have been especially neglectful–most of the time this is true–and God in his providence has declined to bless us with material goods. Maybe God even does this to humble us and teach us that there are Samaritans out there who are willing to give even when we uncharitably find ourselves in need of a helping hand.
The point is that God is the author of all fortunes, and the Samaritan didn’t care one bit whether the Jew in the Ditch ought to learn a lesson about self defense, ought to take his lumps and find a way to get back up, or ought to think higher of the Samaritan. The Samaritan helped the Jew in the Ditch because the Jew was in the ditch. We shouldn’t examine the fortunes of people we decide to help–we should just help. Maybe people who need help are as uncharitable as you say–in prayerful consideration, one need not help them. I believe, and in this article I encourage, that it is better to risk a careless association with a good Samaritan.
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I think a man beaten and robbed by a band of brigands deserves charity, as do windows, orphans, blind men, cripples, and so forth. In the case of the man who is beaten and robbed, however, one might be a little less generous if he came to grief through his own gross folly, or in the course of a very risky attempt to obtain a large personal profit. A person who intends to keep the profit of a risky venture, if it goes well, cannot justly socialize the costs of that venture, if it goes badly. We must never forget that charity can do good for one person only by denying that good to another, and that those who say “give till it hurts” generally don’t hurt themselves.
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I disagree that goods are mutually exclusive. There is a community multiplier effect that cannot be quantified, and giving someone something certainly does not leave another worse off than before. The idea you’re talking about is opportunity cost, and that is an economics concept that doesn’t really apply to giving your time, treasure, and/or talent away for altruistic ends.
We don’t have to let perfect be the enemy of the good. It is better to do something than to do nothing, it is better for that something to be optimized for maximum impact, but even if it is not, it is not wasted or poorly deployed. The parable of the Samaritan was an answer to a question asking for clarification of what it means to love our neighbor, and the full rendering of that commandment is to “love our neighbor as ourselves”.
I don’t disagree with you that people must suffer the consequences of their own gross folly, but I think it can at least be said to be uncharitable to presume that recipients of charity need charity because of some gross folly. Christ calls us to do good, and it is good to give. Maybe other people don’t give properly, but that doesn’t mean you and I can’t at least try to do better.
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I don’t understand why opportunity costs do not apply in this case. If I am doing one thing, I am not doing a very large number of other things. If I give a dollar to one man, I am not giving that dollar to a very large number of other men. I understand that it is impossible to calculate and maximize the impact of one’s charity, but do not think it is saintly to disburse scarce time and money indiscriminately. I don’t mean to be uncharitable, but simply giving is very often the opposite of good. It may make the giver feel good, but it will in many cases do the recipient real harm.
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I agree with you–indiscriminate giving can do real harm. I don’t think I have been advocating for that, if I have it is because of careless language for which I apologize.
Opportunity cost shouldn’t apply because it is altruism. You are giving away money and not getting anything material in return–economically speaking, there are a million ways you can use that altruism dollar better. Even leaving it in a savings account earns interest. When we decide to give, we should disregard consideration of other uses of what we give, because we are addressing a “here and now” need, right in front of us. To continue the firewood analogy, if I decide to give half a cord of firewood to my neighbor who I know needs it, that is a good thing to do. It does not mitigate how good that is to know that there are half-frozen waifs somewhere in the community that need it more. If you DID know, you could make the choice to go give the wood to the half-frozen waifs and set up a bonfire for them. That would also be good. But in ignorance of a distant need, it does not diminish the good deed to give wood to your neighbor. Furthermore, you are not making the half-frozen waifs worse off by giving that wood to your neighbor.
If we are going to do works of charity, the important thing is that we do them, the second most important thing is that we do them effectively. I say again, let’s not let perfect be the enemy of the good.
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