The Economy Of the Saints

 by Joe Siano

Per Mises,  human beings take “deliberate action in “an attempt to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory one. We call such a willfully induced alteration an exchange.” (Human Action, p. 97; p. 9)

It is an “exchange” because the acting person invests time, effort, or treasure to affect improvement in condition.

An exchange is “profitable” when the acting person achieves the desired outcome.

“Profit” may be defined three ways.

An accounting profit is a simple calculation, typically expressed in monetary terms.  Let’s say a person invests $100,000 of his own money in a business and ends with $110,000.  We can say that he made a $10,000 accounting profit.

If we analyze the same from an economic profit perspective, we may discover that this person:

1. Might have put the same $100,000 in a 5% CD and made $5,000 with no risk or effort.
2. Put in 100 hours of labor to make this investment work.  If his labor is worth $50 an hour – he invested $5,000 of his time that he might have spent working for another employer.
3. Realized an economic profit is $0 because he could have achieved the same result by putting his money in the bank while working for someone else.

Then there is psychic profit which is subjective and cannot be measured in dollars.  The rewards of psychic profit are feelings of accomplishment, good conscience, and self-worth.

The following are bright stars in the constellation of heroes who sacrificed dearly for psychic profit – for truth, justice, and liberty. 

• The Founding Fathers put all on the line by signing the Declaration of Independence.  They pledged “To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes, And Our Sacred Honor.”
• Whistleblowers Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning sacrificed their freedom to expose the crimes and duplicity of the warfare state.
• Democrats Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard courted scorn by debunking their party’s orthodoxies and sacred cows.
• Ron Paul was subjected to ridicule and contempt by fellow Republicans for his steadfast commitment to fiscal responsibility, sound money, and opposition to illegal/unconstitutional war.
• “Mr. Republican”, Senator Robert Taft, forfeited party leadership and a presidential nomination for his refusal to endorse American participation in the European War of the 1940s and in Korea during the Cold War.
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn endured incarceration and exile for opposing Communism in his beloved homeland.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man of God and of peace, paid the full Cost of Discipleship by giving his life in a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler.

One woman’s life journey vividly exemplifies the renunciation of earthly rewards for psychic gain.

Edith Stein was a thoroughly modern woman.  Independent and strong-willed, this daughter of an Orthodox Jewish family declared herself to be an atheist at 15.

Returning to Mises, he maintains that “Economics, as a branch of the more general theory of human action, deals with all human action, i.e., with man’s purposive aiming at the attainment of ends chosen, whatever these ends may be.” (Human Action, p. 880; p. 84)

Stein took purposeful action, she made deliberate “exchanges” focused on psychic profit. It might be said that she ascended Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Stein grew up in a comfortable “bourgeois” household.  Her physiological needs for food, safety and shelter were secure.  She had the love and support of a large family (11 kids!) and, like a modern woman, felt no need to marry to validate her self-worth.

Edith spent her young adult years pursuing Maslow’s fourth level of need – Esteem – prestige, professional advancement, and the admiration of her peers.  She invested her all in attaining advanced degrees, scholarly publishing, and building an academic career.  This was particularly daunting in the university world of early twentieth-century Germany where women were unwelcomed.

Yet she prevailed and thrived.  Then tossed it aside.  She made a deliberate but costly exchange to ascend to the level of Self-actualization.                              

Stein, the Jewish, atheist, and careerist, experienced a profound and radical spiritual conversion.  She discovered ultimate truth and meaning in the words of her fellow Jew, Jesus of Nazareth.  She followed Jesus all the way to becoming Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a vowed Carmelite nun.

Sister Teresa made a deliberate and mindful economic transaction.  She exchanged all that was valuable to Edith Stein - career, possessions, professional recognition, status, and independence – to find interior peace and meaning beyond the things of this world.  True psychic profit

As a Jew, and then as a Catholic, Stein became a double enemy of the Third Reich.  The Nazis gassed her at Auschwitz.    The former Edith Stein is now venerated as Saint Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

She went from being a “modern” woman to being an eternal woman.

This is the economy of the saints.  They go all-in because truth matters.  They do the right thing, cost be damned.  They seek the higher ground.

Vanity of vanities!  All things are vanity! (Ecclesiastes 1 2)

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?  (Matthew 16 26)

 

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The Laborers in The Vineyard - An Austrian Reading

God, Guns and Misplaced Faith

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