Magic, Envy, and Economic Underdevelopment; G. North

This article has been adapted from a longer piece appearing in the ]aurnal of Ch'r;st;an Re construction, Box 368, Woodland Hills, Cali fornia 91365. GARY NORTH Magic, EnV¥ andEconomicUnder ~INCE the great depression of the 1930's, and especially since 1945, the concern of concerns among orthodox Keynesian planners has been economic growth. Believing they had created Western prosper ity, they thought to export it to underdeveloped lands through massive giveaways. At some undefined point, these so-called "transfer payments" would enable the recipient nations to become productive. "Primitive" cultures could then become "modern." But a major question still con fronts the historians and econo mists: what factors contribute to economic growth? Why do some societies grow steadily, seemingly as a result of their own people's efforts, while others stagnate, de80 1975 MAGIC, ENVY, AND ECONOMIC UNDERDEVELOPMENT 81 Examples of significant attitudes, be liefs and modes of conduct unfavour able to material progress include lack of interest in material advance, com bined with resignation in the face of poverty; lack of initiative, self-reli ance and a sense of personal responsi bility for the economic fortune of one self and one's family; high leisure preference, together with a lassitude often found in tropical climates; rela tively high prestige of passive or con templative life compared to active life; the prestige of mysticism and of renunciation of the world compared to acquisition and achievement; ac ceptance of the idea of a preordained, unchanging and unchangeable uni verse; emphasis on performance of duties and acceptance of obligations, rather than on achievement or results, or assertion or even recognition of personal rights; lack of sustained curiosity, experimentation and inter est in change; belief in the efficacy of supernatural and occult forces and of their influence over one's destiny; in sistence on the unity of the organic universe, and on the need to live with nature rather than conquer it or har ness it to man's needs, an attitude of which reluctance to take animal life is a corollary; belief in perpetual re incarnation, which reduces the signifi cance of effort in the course of the present life; recognized status of beg gary, together with a lack of stigma in the acceptance of charity; opposi tion to women's work outside the household. (pp. 78-79).

These attitudes are primarily religious in nature. They are not easily changed, and dollars alone, even billions of dollars annually, are not likely to alter them signifi cantly. A nation dependent on an other nation's largesse is still caught in the trap of the ,occult. The increased wealth is 'not a product of the recipient nation's planning, conscientious men. It therefore will not teach men that wealth stems from moral action and obedience to basic principles of conduct. The presence of atti tudes such as those described in Bauer's summary are the sign of "primitivism." Primitive external conditions that persist in a culture through countless generations are a sign of cultural degeneration the wrath of God (Deuteronomy 8; 28). Bauer's favorite example of a population that has pulled itself up by its own· bootstraps, without foreign aid, natural resources, or a system of massive central plan ning, is that little piece of rock south of China, Hong Kong. Free trade, open entry to occupations, low taxes (until quite recently), the right of profit, and an atti tude favorable to growth have combined to produce an economic miracle. Even the Japanese can not compete with them; American capitalists long ago began scream ing about the ':unfair competition"

- read: effective competition - of 82 THE FREEMAN February the inhabitants of this bit of rock. But Africa stagnates, with its un told mineral wealth, or even de clines economically. The Unheavenly CUy Edward Banfield's gem of a book, The Unheavenly City (1970), earned him the wrath of most of the academic profession, as well as the students of Harvard University. So continuous and bitter was the student opposition that Banfield finally left "scholar ly" Harvard for the University of Pennsylvania. What was the cause of such an outcry? Simple: Banfield had concluded that the economic backwardness of the ghetto is primarily the product of the chosen style of life of the ma jority of those who live in the ghetto. Most crucial, argues Ban field, is their conception of the fu ture: they are present-oriented. They want immediate gratification. They want excitement - "action" - to brighten their otherwise dull lives. They want no part of the white middle class and its world of plodding stability. Present-ori entation is the key to understand ing the concept of "lower class,"

not present income. Present in come can rise later; it can be sup plemented by income from other family members. But present-ori entedness is internal. There is no imposed solution possible: no school program, with its system of endless written exams; no job training programs, that in 1967 were costing $8,000 per enrollee; no system of rehabilitation for hardened criminals. The problem is spiritual, moral, and cultural. White money changes only the lev el of activity in the -ghetto, not its general direction. 1 Both Bauer and Banfield have struck at the very heart of modern economic Liberalism. The simple world of environmentalism is a myth, they have concluded. So many dollars per capita of wealth redistribution on the part of civil governments mean nothing. The key is internal. White middle class bureaucrats, armed with their dol lars and their survey forms, do not and cannot change anything. The old routine of "find a problem, cure a problem" is too simplistic; money and more public education are insufficient. White middle class bureaucrats have tried to trans form men's lives and cultures by spending other people's money. It has been dollar diplomacy of the grossest kind: the attempt to buy people's minds. And it has failed, and failed miserably. The policies of Liberal reformism have consti tuted a massive, endless failure.

The operating presupposition of their programs has been external environmentalism, and that prin ciple is totally false. The problems 1975 MAGIC, ENVY, AND ECONOMIC UNDERDEVELOPMENT 83 are moral not external. The slums are in people's hearts. Thus, con cludes Nisbet in his lively revie\v of Banfield's book, the old formula of Liberal bureaucracy has to be changed, from "Don't just sit there; do something!" to "Don't just do something; sit there !"2 Educational Opportunity Corroborating evidence has been produced in the field of public edu cation. James S. Coleman super vised a major study of educational opportunity in the United States back in the mid-1960's. One esti mate has placed it as the second most expensive social science re search project in our history. Nat urally, the Federal government funded it. The result was a lengthy report: Equality of Educ'ational Opportunity (Government Print ing Office, 1966). The data were startling. School facilities for black and white children, in any given region of the country, are about equal within that region, and equal in almost every statistically measurable respect. Per capita student expenditures are about the same. So is teacher training. The results have been studied by a number of scholars, and their col lective conclusions have been pub lished. 3 The primary conclusion of the Coleman Report and those studying its figures is simple: there is no measurable impact that public schools have had on elimi nating or even modifying com parative achievement among stu dents. Furthermore, the data indi cate tha t no known changes in school inputs - teacher salaries, more expensive facilities, bigger school libraries - are likely to have any significant effect on student output. As the editors have writ ten, "the central fact is that its findings were seen as threatening to the political coalition that spon sored it."4 Understandably, it was ignored as long as possible.

What factors are important, ac cording to the Coleman Report? Primarily, family inputs. Innate ability, peer group pressures, and community standards are also im portant. In short, there is no sign that anything short of radical re construction of the whole society would change the learning patterns of students, and there is no guar antee that even this would do any thing but lower all performance to the least common denominator. Once again, the simplistic envir onmentalism of Liberal reformism has been thwarted, this time by its own methods of investigation. This, of course, has had no mea surable effect in the calls for ever higher public school budgets. Now the reformers are convinced that public education has to start ear lier, "before the lowered level of competence sets in.";) If a century 84 THE FREEMAN February and a half of coercive public educa tion has failed to meet its promised goals, then there has to be more of it. All facts are interpreted in terms of the religious presupposi tions of the investigators.

Envy P. T. Bauer mentioned the be lief in occultism as one of the cul tural· forces of economic retarda tion. Helmut Schoeck, the sociol ogist, has explored this in greater depth. His monumental study, Envy, has been conveniently ig nored by most scholars. The facts he presents, however, are extreme ly important. His basic thesis is straightforward: envy against the wealth or achievements of others reduces the ability of indi viduals to advance themselves eco nomically. Envy is not mere jeal ousy. It is not wanting the other man's goods for oneself. It is the outright resentment against any one even possessing greater wealth - the desire to reduce another person's position even if thisre duction in his wealth in no way improves the position of the envi ous person. Nowhere is envy more devastating in its effects than in so-called primitive cultures. If a person or his family get ahead of the accepted tribal mini mum, two very dangerous things can easily take place. First, he will be suspected of being a wizard or a witch (which can be the same thing) . Second, he can become fearful of being the object of the evil magic of others. As Schoeck writes, "the whole of the litera ture on the subject of African sorcery shows the envious man (sorcerer) would like to harm the victim he envies, but only seldom with any expectation of thereby obtaining for himself the asset that he envies - whether this be a possession or a physical quality belonging to the other ."6 Under standably, this envy is present only where there is close soC'ial proximity between the envious and the envied. It is always considered very difficult to bewitch a stranger with any success. 7 The efficacy of demonic magic is strong in these non-Christian cul tures. The fear of magic is perva sive. Thus, the threat of its use against the truly successful man causes men with talents to con ceal them from their fellows. Men become secretive about what they own. They prefer to attribute any personal successes to luck or fate, both impersonal.

Institutionalized envy . .. or the ubi quitous fear of it, means that there is little possibility of individual eco nomic achievement and no contact with the outside world through which the community might hope to pro gress. Noone dares to show any thing that might lead people to think 1975 MAGIC, ENVY, AND ECONOMIC UNDERDEVELOPMENT 85 he was better off. Innovations are un likely. Agricultural methods remain traditional and primitive, to the detri ment of the whole village, because every deviation from previous prac tice comes up against the limitations of envy.8 Furthermore, Schoeck writes, "It is impossible for several fam ilies to pool resources or tools of any kind in a ... common undertak ing. It is almost equally impossible for anyone man to adopt a lead ing role in the interests of the vill age."9 While Schoeck does not dis cuss it, the problem of institution alized envy and magic for the es tablishment of democratic institu tions in primitive cultures is al most overwhelming. Once a chief's link to authority is destroyed, who is to lead? If a man cannot point to his family's long tradition or authority or semi-divine status as ruler, who is to say who should lead? Whoever does proclaim him self as leader had better be pre pared to defend his title from envy and magic. In a culture in which the authority of tradition al rulers has been eroded by West ern secularism and Western the ories of indi vid ualism and democ racy, the obvious alternative is power.

Perhaps most important as a retarding factor is the effect that envy has on men's concept of time. "In a culture incapable of any form of competition, time means nothing."lo Men do not discuss their plans with each other. Shared goals, except of a traditional na ture, are almost absent in magical societies. "Ubiquitous envy, fear of it and those who harbour it, cuts off such people from any kind of communal action directed to wards the future. Every man is for himself, every man is thrown back upon his own resources. All striving, preparation and plan ning for the future can be under taken only by socially fragmented, secretive beings."ll Is it any won der, then, that primitive cultures stay primitive, despite massive doses of foreign aid - state-to sta te aid? Schoeck does not exag gerate when he concludes: As a system of social control, "Black Magic is of tremendous impor tance, because it governs all inter personal relationships."12 The Conditions for Growth The concept of general economic growth was not present in the pag an cultures of antiquity. It was only in Judaism and Christianity that such a view of life could flourish, precisely because econom ic growth was understood person ally and culturally: it is the prod uct of outward response to basic ethical requirements. Magical manipulation of the environment was rej ected officially as an ille86 THE FREEMAN February gitimate form of economic prac tice. Prayer to a personal Creator by the humble believer is legiti mate; ritual offerings to polythe istic deities or impersonal forces was outlawed. It is not ritual ac curacy that God requires, but a humble heart and obedience to ethical laws (Micah 6 :6-8). Chris tiani ty and Judaism prohi bited envy and jealousy. Men are not to covet their neighbor's goods (Ex odus 20: 17), nor are they to envy the prosperity of the wicked (Proverbs 24 :19-20).

The most comprehensive of all colonial American Puritan trea tises was Rev. Samuel Willard's Compleat Body of Divinity, the largest book. ever published in Puritan days (1726). It was a compilation of Willard's sermons on the larger catechism, which took him twenty years of Sunday evening services to finish. The section on the Eighth Command ment, the prohibition of theft, contained a comprehensive critique on envy. Willard denied that we are hurt by our neighbor's ad vantages. (This fallacy has been called by Mises the Montaigne dogma, i.e., the belief that in an exchange of goods, one man's gain is the other's loss. It was a basic error of economic mercantilism, which was a prominent philosophy in Willard's day. Mises correctly argues that this doctrine is at the bottom of all modern theories of class confiict. 13 ) Envy, Willard continued, feeds on grief. It leads to mischief. It is utterly unrea sonable, hate without a cause. It is an affront to God, for God has set men up for His purposes; envy is an affront to God's purposes and glory in this world. Further more, it despises God's gifts. It leads .to covetousness (j ealousy, in Schoeck's use of the term).

Men should not be tempted to take revenge on those who are more prosperous than they are. 14 With preaching like this, men found it difficult openly to envy or covet their neighbor's prosperity. The fruits of men's personal labor could be safely displayed. It would pay men indi vid ually to plan for the future, both individually and in groups. The free market could flourish because the ethical sup ports so fundamental for its ex istence were provided by Chris tian preaching and laws against magic. Sack to Magic? Magic again is coming back into the thinking of Western men. By abandoning the belief in a Creator God and a world of personal law, modern man has been thrown back into the grim polarity of the classical world: blind impersonal fate vs. blind impersonal chance. 15 R. C. Zaehner is quite correct in 1975 MAGIC, ENVY, AND ECONOMIC UNDERDEVELOPMENT 87 beginning his study, Zen, Drugs and Mysticism (1972) ,with an analysis of the philosophy of the biologist, Jacques Monod (Chance and Necessity). Man is alone in an infinite world, simultaneously de termined by and subject to total randomness. This is all the prom ise of science holds for man: an endless, meaningless process of determinism and indeterminism.

Men seek to escape this world by means of mystical illumination (meditation, drugs, alpha-wave machines) or by means of power from below (magic and revolu tion). A world without God is a world without meaning. It is a world ripe for the Satanic religion of magic. From an economic point of .view, we already have a widespread phi losophy of envy present in indus trial societies. If magic is rein troduced to the West, then cultural degeneration is assured. Modern society is not some autonomous mechanism. It needs ethical and philosophical support. We should heed Schoeck's warning: "The primitive people's belief in black magic differs little from modern ideas. Whereas the socialist be lieves himself robbed by the em ployer, just as the politician in a developing country believes him self robbed by the industrial coun tries, so primitive man believes himself robbed by his neighbor, the latter having succeeded by black magic in spiriting away to his own fields part of the former's harvest."16 Modern secularism and socialism threaten us with eco nomic reversal-the kind of di sastrous reversal promised. by God in the 28th chapter of Deuteron omy. Magic and envy, whether secular or animistic, are equally primitive. I) - FOOTNOTES1 Edward C. Banfield, The Unheavenly City: The Nature and Future of Our Urban Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1970). A second edition, The Unheav enly City Revisited (1974), answers his critics politely.

2 Robert A. Nisbet, "Urban Crisis Re visited," Intercollegiate Review (Winter, 1970-71), p. 7. Cf. Christopher De Muth, "Banfield Returns," The Alternative (Nov. 1974). 3 Frederick Mosteller and Patrick Moynihan (eds.), On Equality of Educa tional Opportunity (New York: Random House, 1972). 4 Ibid., p. 28. 5 Ibid., p. 49. 6 Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969), p. 37. 7 Ibid., p. 40. 8 Ibid., p. 47. f} Ibid., p. 48. 10 Ibid., p. 41. 11 Ibid., p. 50. 12 Ibid., p. 52. 13 Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (3rd ed.: Chicago: Regnery, 1966), p. 664. 14 Samuel Willard, A Compleat Body of Divinity (New York: Johnson Re prin ts, [1726] 1969), pp. 750-52. 15 Charles Norris Cochrane, Christi anity and Classical Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, [1940]), pp. 156-60. IG Schoeck, Envy, p. 41.