Liberating Planet Earth

I’%e Liberation of th Economy 123
go to take away all property and interest that any man bath either
in land by inheritance, or in estate by possession, or in anythhg
else. . . .“4
Two centuries later, Karl Mam concluded much the same, except
that he favored the abolition of the property qualification for
voting, precisely because it would destroy private property: “. . . the
state as a state abolishes @ivate propeny (i.e., man decrees by political
means the abolition of private property) when it abolishes the
pro@ny qualification for electors and representatives. . . . Is not
private property ideally abolished when the non-owner comes to
legislate for the owner of property? The @o@rty qudj$cation is the
last political form in which property is recognized.”s
Democracy would be safe if men understood that it is immoral
to vote other people’s wealth into their pockets, and ifthgv obged th
commandnumt not to steal. There will come a day when the law of
God that is in the hearts of Christians will be in the hearts of all
men (Hebrews 8:8-11), and they will not misuse their democratic
rights. Until then, sin will continue to lead men to vote for socialism,
fascism, and communism.
The State as a Protector
All property is God’s. He has established rules for the exchange,
transmission, and development of this property. Theft is
explicitly prohibited. God’s law provides us with the case laws that
enable us to define theft Biblically. For example, it is not theft if a
traveller picks an apple from a tree and eats it as he goes along the
road (Deuteronomy 23:2425). Furthermore, it is theft if the
owner of an agricultural property does not leave fallen ffuit on the
ground for gleaners (Deuteronomy 24:19). The Bible is our standard
of what constitutes theft, not the British economist Adam
Smith or Karl Marx.
The civil government is required by God to serve as the pro-
4. A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty (London: Dent, 1938), p. 53.
5. Karl Marx, K)n the Jewish Question” (1843), in T. B. Bottomore (cd.),
Karl Marx: Ear@ Writings (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), pp. 11-12.