Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000403A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is the program bringing you 00:30 news, views, analysis, and insight 00:32 on the religious liberty situation in the US 00:35 and around the world today, yesterday, 00:38 and perhaps even tomorrow. 00:40 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:44 And my guest on this program is Elijah Mvundura, 00:49 an old hand at this program by now. 00:51 We filmed a few previous programs. 00:53 You're also a well-established author 00:55 and in particular for Liberty Magazine articles. 00:59 And I've learned that 01:01 you're very perceptive on many levels 01:03 and... 01:04 Thank you for that. 01:06 Not just on religious liberty, 01:07 you've got a pretty good hold on economics. 01:10 But, of course, money based on many things 01:13 including civil liberties, money matters. 01:17 The world is in a pretty bad pass today, 01:19 even though a lot of it passes for normalcy 01:21 because I don't think 01:23 things have been fixed up since 2008, 01:25 which was shaping up to be another Great Depression. 01:28 How is that working out? 01:29 And how that might... 01:31 What's happened since then be relating to civil 01:34 and religious liberties in your mind? 01:36 Yes. 01:39 In our past segments, we've spoken of how God 01:43 used to be the foundation of liberal society. 01:49 But the actual fact is that since the 19th century, 01:52 the foundation actually became economic prosperity. 01:58 Basically, since World War II, 02:01 our freedom has really been based on Pax Americana, 02:06 the economic expansion 02:07 that occurred during World War II. 02:09 The European economies had failed, 02:11 and America basically... 02:12 I think we're aware of the Marshall Plan 02:13 and all that. 02:15 So that most of the freedoms 02:17 that we have enjoyed is not so much 02:19 that people actually understand the concept of freedom, 02:22 but it's because of the material prosperity 02:24 that did not make them... 02:26 It's a low stress situation. 02:27 Yes, yes. 02:28 And there's no need to challenge the people's... 02:31 The system because it was working well. 02:32 Freedom of religion, freedom of movement, and so on. 02:35 Yes. 02:36 So we're able to flourish in these religions 02:38 because the economy was going well. 02:40 And now that the economy has been failing, 02:43 suddenly all these demons are coming out of the closets. 02:45 Yeah. 02:47 And we must not forget 02:48 that it was the collapse of German economy 02:52 that actually gave the rise to Hitler. 02:55 Hitler did not just come from Norway, 02:57 it was when the Germans had lost all hope, 03:01 and they wanted a savior, 03:03 and Hitler appeared as a savior 03:05 who would not only be able to resurrect the economy, 03:09 I know that a lot... 03:10 We could go further back, it was the massive debt 03:12 that led to the collapse of the economy. 03:14 Yes. 03:15 Which led to Hitler. Yes. 03:16 And I know, of course, no wonder why, 03:18 that's why because of that economic context, 03:21 that's why a lot of people have been speaking 03:22 about the rise of fascism in America 03:25 and then the other people have been comparing 03:30 Trump to Hitler. 03:32 And I think... 03:33 You know, on the face of that, it's a foolish comparison. 03:34 But some of the dynamics 03:37 in both cases are eerily similar, 03:39 and that's why the discussion. 03:41 Yeah, the dynamics are similar, but we need to be able... 03:44 Anyway, let me go back again to the... 03:45 I want to go back a little bit on the economic crisis 03:48 that one of the reasons again we have the problem 03:51 beside the fiscal policies, 03:53 the past monetary policies and the like, 03:56 one would almost say to the exhaustion of ideologies. 04:01 Let me say that most of our modern institutions, 04:04 whether it is our modern democracy and the like, 04:06 most of the foundations were build in the 19th century, 04:09 neoclassical economics 04:12 was ironed out in the 19th century, 04:14 but neoclassical economics is what got us 04:17 into the Great Depression, that will cause the market... 04:20 It's self-regulating, you don't have to control it, 04:22 you've got to cut business and the like. 04:24 Well, something that... 04:26 Since you're talk of economic theory and that, 04:29 it seems to me, you know, 04:30 money's been around forever 04:32 and the barter system first, 04:33 then Roman coins, and Greek coins, 04:34 and all of that. 04:36 But the economy as we know it today 04:37 doesn't go any further back than the mid 1700s. 04:41 The stocks, and bonds, 04:42 and the investments, and all of that. 04:44 Yes, yes. 04:45 That's not an old thing at all, and it started very rockily, 04:49 the South Sea's bubble and a few other things 04:51 where fortunes were made and then lost in an instant. 04:55 And we've had several cycles like that 04:56 since people don't realize 04:57 that in many ways, well, money seems real. 05:01 And, of course, the dollar is only paper now, 05:03 it's not gold or a standing. 05:06 The whole system is a construct. 05:08 Yes, it's a construct. 05:10 It's as much philosophical 05:11 as the philosophy that we talk about. 05:12 Yes, yes, yes. Yes. 05:14 But the institutionalization of all those things 05:16 that you're talking about, economics as a discipline, 05:18 it images actually in the 19th century. 05:20 Yes, yes. 05:22 The science of economics. 05:23 Yes, it is science of economics, 05:25 even the science of sociology, 05:26 but the whole idea was that 05:28 the market is self-regulating. 05:30 And that gets us to the Great Depression. 05:34 The Great Depression proved 05:35 that the market is not self-regulating. 05:37 I won't to go into some of the theories 05:40 that preceded this whole idea of... 05:42 But it seems me, and I will get into a little bit of theory. 05:46 Things like buying futures or derivatives 05:50 which can magnify the gain or the risk 05:53 are like nuclear bombs aimed at the system. 05:55 Yes. 05:56 Where in the old days, you know, in prehistory, 06:00 you know, the trading ship goes down, 06:02 and the merchants ruined, 06:03 and the town might suffer a bit. 06:05 Now not only is there 06:07 that immediate loss like if IIG, 06:11 whatever it is, 06:13 the insurance company that was going down in 2008. 06:16 The whole deck of cards not only collapses, 06:19 it just blows up and like the shockwaves 06:21 from an atomic weapon everything goes. 06:23 Yes, yes. 06:25 Let me give a context to that 06:26 because as I was saying neoclassical economics 06:28 gets us to the Great Depression. 06:30 And after the Great Depression, 06:31 the person who was able to analyze 06:33 the causes of the Great Depression 06:35 and trying to offer a solution was Keynes. 06:38 So we have this whole Keynesian economics after World War II. 06:42 And, of course, Keynes one of... 06:43 To put it in simple terms, Keynes said, "You know what, 06:46 you need to balance demand and supply, 06:47 when there is a lack of demand, 06:49 the government is supposed to borrow. 06:51 And even if it means that there is debt, at least, 06:55 you know, finance, put money back into the economy, 06:57 stimulate the economy 06:58 even if people have got to dig useless things, 07:01 let them dig it so that you can stimulate the economy." 07:04 But by the early '70s, 07:07 this whole thing of debt, financing, 07:09 and the like had caused high inflation. 07:12 And, of course, it was also affecting the... 07:14 That's why you have neo-monetarist theory. 07:17 The whole idea that, you know, I think it is Milton... 07:20 Is it Thomas Friedman? 07:22 Thomas Friedman, yes. 07:23 I thought it was Milton. 07:25 Yeah, it was Friedman. 07:26 Yes, Friedman. Yes. 07:28 And he came up with the monetarist theory 07:29 that actually you need to control the money supply. 07:32 If you control the money supply, 07:34 then everything else solves itself. 07:35 It, of course, deregulates the economy, and true enough, 07:38 a lot of regulation had actually 07:40 stifled employment and the like. 07:42 And they could say that after cutting through, 07:44 at least, from the gold standard, 07:45 money and how much you print. 07:47 Yes. 07:48 So with Reagan and Thatcher, their economic theories... 07:52 their economic theories were actually inspired 07:54 by Milton Friedman, the monetarist theories, 07:56 the supply side economics, and all that. 07:59 And, of course, that deregulation, 08:00 the supply side economics is what got us, 08:05 one could say, to the 2008 collapse, 08:09 and what was very interesting 08:10 after the 2008 financial crisis 08:13 is that most of the Keynesians were coming out of the closet. 08:16 And that was I think Krugman, Paul Krugman in New York Times, 08:20 they're all speaking about stimulating the economy. 08:22 And that was the whole idea 08:23 behind Obama stimulating the economy. 08:26 But what I want to get here is that economics 08:27 has come actually full circle. 08:29 Yeah. 08:30 We started with neoclassical economics, 08:32 and that's exactly Friedman was simply actually 08:35 recycling the principles of neoclassical economics. 08:38 And now with this, during Obama's time, 08:41 they were back to Keynesian economics. 08:43 And so some of the problems 08:46 that we're having in the economic arena 08:47 is that the economists themselves 08:49 have run out of solution. 08:50 And one of the problems is that economics has become 08:54 more mathematical and there's econometrics 08:57 with all these quantitative methods. 08:59 And they've lost the human dimension 09:04 to these economic problems, 09:05 you know, people can do their quantities 09:07 and all the like. 09:08 And that's why even the people who have been winning 09:10 the Nobel Prize in economics, 09:12 it has been in the behaviorist economics and the like, 09:16 who are trying to capture the human dimension 09:19 on economic ideas. 09:20 And I think that, to me, we have a crisis on all levels, 09:25 that our science have displaced the human, 09:28 we displaced God, 09:29 but there is one philosopher, 09:33 German philosopher who says actually, 09:35 the medal of God... 09:36 God cannot be medaled, 09:37 the medal of God actually leads to the medal of men. 09:41 So much that the things that we mourn 09:46 about the alienation and the like. 09:48 If we don't have a sense of God 09:50 who gives us the dignity to men, 09:52 even our policies become inhuman, 09:54 and I think that the economic policies 09:56 that do not take into consideration, 09:58 the human dimensions. 10:00 That people are revolting 10:01 and looking to Trump to solve 10:03 is because the human dimension has been lost. 10:05 Well, also, the economic policies 10:08 are more and more reverting to the Robert Barron era where, 10:14 under the guise of monitoring it, 10:16 it's being constantly harvested for a certain class. 10:20 And even the bailout in 2008 10:25 benefited certain businesses unto this day, 10:28 quantitative easing, trillions of dollars, 10:30 invisible dollars with no laying 10:32 or guarantee behind them, 10:33 just numbers placed in the bank's vaults. 10:36 That's not egalitarian or necessarily 10:38 purely any policy. 10:40 That's policy run amok to serve 10:42 the interests of a certain faction. 10:44 The connection that I tried to make years ago 10:46 in an article that I wrote was in Revelation 10:49 where it talks about, 10:51 you know, you can argue the particulars of the system, 10:53 but it's a great mercantile system 10:57 of the whole world is meshed in, 11:00 and then it says in one hour all of this wealth disappears, 11:04 and the merchants still are minting 11:05 that their wealth disappeared in one hour. 11:07 And especially, if you take it prophetically, 11:10 you know, that's a very short but quantifiable period, 11:13 a few days. 11:15 And I can remember as the stock market, 11:16 you know, collapsed 1,000 this day 11:18 and 500 the next day, and... 11:21 it's you're off the cliff. 11:22 Yes. 11:23 And I think we got a foretaste 11:26 of what clearly will happen at some future point, 11:31 probably sooner rather than later 11:32 because they haven't fixed anything 11:34 of any substance since 2008. 11:36 No, no, no, no, no. 11:38 And among other things, 11:39 and while we're talking about it here, 11:41 will precipitate great stresses in society, 11:44 civil liberties already are at stress because of it, 11:47 and religious liberty, 11:49 and self-determinism is going to be a great threat. 11:52 You're very, very right because when people are hungry, 11:55 they go to the extremes and they look for a savior, 11:59 and this is I think where we need 12:00 to be able to look at these things 12:02 from an apocalyptic perspective. 12:04 Yeah. 12:05 If the material foundations of society undermine... 12:07 Marx was indeed into something. 12:09 The material foundations of the economy 12:11 actually supports these all other superstructures. 12:15 If people... 12:16 I've seen it in Zimbabwe. 12:17 Yeah, you know, 12:19 what was the maximum inflation that Zimbabwe experienced? 12:20 Ooh! 12:21 It was in trillions of dollars. The percent inflation. 12:24 Yes, there were million dollar bills. 12:26 I remember... 12:27 Yes, someone told me that I was talking to a Zimbabwean. 12:30 If I had remembered, I would have come up with 12:32 one of the bills it was... 12:33 Yeah, they said you would get your pay 12:35 and you would literally run down the street 12:37 to spend it as you ran, it was disappeared. 12:40 You know, my father was a building contractor, 12:43 and he had investments, 12:44 when that Zimbabwean dollar collapsed, something... 12:47 his investments that were worth 12:50 more than a quarter of a million dollars, 12:52 they actually became useless, 12:54 completely useless. 12:56 Insurance at the things. 12:58 And this is exactly what gave rise to Hitler 13:00 because the middleclass, 13:01 when it was gutted out by the Great Depression, 13:04 they wanted somebody to serve them. 13:07 And so it is very, very scary, so people need something. 13:11 But this is why belief in God is very, very important. 13:16 I remember the Psalmist, I think is that 49 or so, 13:20 the Lord is our refuge, 13:21 we'll not be scared even if the mountains 13:23 is the present help in time of trouble, 13:25 even if the mountains sink into the heart of the sea, 13:29 we will not be afraid. 13:31 And I think this is why 13:32 the reading of Book of Revelation 13:34 is very, very important because it says, 13:36 "Even if the world around you collapses, 13:39 you can still have faith in God." 13:41 Absolutely, and that's a wonderful assurance. 13:43 We all need faith for the future. 13:45 And the future for us is a few moments away, 13:48 but we're going to take a break, come back, 13:50 and we'll continue this discussion of the economy 13:54 and the ramifications for religious freedom. 13:56 Yes. |
Revised 2018-09-27