Behold, the LORD thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged. And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. and the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe (Deut. 1:23-25).
The theocentric principle of this law is the omniscience of God, an incommunicable attribute. Men are not omniscient. They need means of increasing information. In this case, Israel needed spies. The spies would enter the land, evaluate its vulnerability to invasion, and return to speak accurately on God's behalf. They were to think God's thoughts after Him, as faithful representatives.
Moses here recounted the story of the exodus generation's rebellion against God's command that they immediately conquer Canaan. God gave the command, and the people did not initially reject it. Instead, they added a suggestion, namely, that they be allowed to gather information regarding the best route into Canaan for military purposes. Moses approved of this request. He selected a representative from each of the tribes to conduct the reconnaissance operation.
What appeared to be a sensible pre-war tactic turned out to be the first in a series of retreats. The nation did not want to challenge the residents of Canaan, but their leaders did not admit this in the early stages of the operation. Moses went on to recount the story of their rebellion, how the exodus generation and those men old enough in the next generation to have participated in the conquest had been prohibited from entering the land. Only Caleb and Joshua were excepted (Deut. 1:36, 38). They had shown resolve regarding the conquest; for this, they were spared the ignominy of having their personal inheritance in the land revoked by God. The next generation would inherit: "Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it" (v. 39).
God's negative sanction of disinheritance matched the nation's negative strategy of non-confrontation. He wanted Israel to disinherit the Canaanites; this negative sanction would have been a positive sanction for Israel. This was what economists call a zero-sum game: the gains of the winners are offset by the losses of the losers. Warfare has this characteristic. Israel wanted to avoid war; so, the spies recommended non-confrontation. This would have permanently disinherited Israel and permanently confirmed the continuity of inheritance in Canaan. Disinheritance is an inescapable concept. Either Israel would be disinherited or the Canaanites would be. By escaping the sanction of war, Israel wanted to escape war's negative sanctions. But this granted immunity to Canaanites. It also constituted a negative sanction against Israel's heirs. Ultimately, it constituted a negative sanction against God, who had promised Abraham that the fourth generation would inherit (Gen. 15:16). Had Israel's strategy of non-confrontation been allowed to stand, God would have been exposed before His enemies as one who would not or could not fulfill His promises.
A Matter of Strategy God had a strategy: the conquest of Canaan. This strategy was announced three times: to Abraham once and to Moses twice, at the beginning and end of the wilderness period. First, He had told Abraham that his heirs would conquer Canaan in the fourth generation after their descent into Egypt. This was Joshua's generation. Second, He told the nation to begin the offensive campaign (Deut. 1:21). This was their responsibility, God said, yet anyone who knew of the promise to Abraham would have known that this generation would not conquer. The only way for the third generation to participate in the conquest of Canaan was to surrender leadership to the fourth generation. Third, at the end of the wilderness period, God told Moses and Joshua that the conquest must begin soon. This was carried out under Joshua.
The conquest of Canaan was ethically and prophetically mandatory; the question was: Which generation would carry it out? Those to whom the command to march into Canaan was first given soon rebelled against this strategy. They rebelled, not by citing the specific details of the Abrahamic promise -- fourth generation, not third -- but by announcing that the Promised Land was not worth the military effort to inherit. "And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature" (Num. 13:32). In short, they tampered with the visible evidence. They said that this place could not possibly be the Promised Land of milk and honey. The land ate up its normal inhabitants; you had to be a giant to prosper.
The recalcitrant captains should have gone to Moses with this request. "Tell God that we are not ready to lead this campaign. He told our father Abraham that the fourth generation would conquer Canaan. We are not that appointed generation. We respect the details of His prophecy. We do not want to get ahead of God's prophetic timetable. We also do not want to get behind. We are ready to transfer leadership of the army of the Lord to our older sons, under Joshua's command." Had they put their request in terms of God's promise to Abraham, they would have demonstrated their commitment to His word. Instead, they tried to thwart His word by declaring the land unfit to conquer.
God's strategy was military conquest. The details of this operation were left to Moses and the captains of God's holy army. God did not tell them the best route into Canaan. He did not do their tactical work for them. He announced to Moses the timing of the conquest, but He left to Moses and his advisors the responsibility for implementing the general strategy.
Moses accepted the offer of the captains to allow spies to go into the land for reconnaissance purposes. This seemed to be a tactical matter. What he did not understand until after their return was that this request was not tactical; it was strategic. The generation of the exodus had no intention of risking their lives to conquer Canaan. God had spoken, but perhaps they could buy more time. The request regarding the tactical reconnaissance operation was their means of delaying the implementation of the mandated strategy.
Rule by Committee God announced the strategy. The task of the supreme commander is to design a military strategy. Military strategy is focused on a narrow goal: victory or stalemate, never defeat. This is why warfare lends itself to the establishment of a supreme commander. The society agrees on the fundamental goal: the avoidance of defeat. Because there is this unanimity of opinion and a narrowly defined performance standard, it is possible for a central planner to design a strategy. A military strategy lends itself to unitary decision-making. A senior representative of the nation must devise a wartime military strategy. The nation's other representatives may approve or disapprove of the strategy; they may or may not be able to veto it if they do not approve. Lower-level representatives also affect strategy through approving or disapproving something that the senior representative has submitted for consideration. A committee cannot effectively design a strategy. The committee's division of labor is valid for counsel but not for innovation.
The Bible recommends a multitude of counsellors.
Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety (Prov. 11:14).
Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established (Prov. 15:22).
For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety (Prov. 24:6).
The larger the multitude of counsellors, the less likely that they will be able to devise an alternate strategy. The larger the group, the less likely the agreement. A strong ruler knows that he is far less threatened by a large group of advisors than a small group. It costs too much for the members of a large group to combine against him. There are many competing strategic details to resolve, many competing egos to assuage. The Bible recommends a multitude of counsellors; it does not recommend a multitude of strategists. This system is designed to increase the wisdom of the decision-maker and at the same time strengthen his authority.This process of centralized strategic planning through diversified counsel is clearly true of military matters, but it is also true of economic organizations. Counsel is not the same as strategic decision-making. Devising a corporate strategy is the responsibility of one person who has been delegated the authority by the owners to represent the corporation. He is held responsible by owners or whoever is legally represented by this supreme commander. This is not true of counsellors. When asked, counsellors raise objections, comment on risks, suggest alternatives, and generally enable the commander to count the costs of his strategy. They do not design a strategy.
Jesus used the analogy of military strategy to describe personal decision-making. "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply [it happpen], after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage [ambassador], and desireth conditions of peace" (Luke 14:28-32). We are to count the costs before we begin the action. Counsellors help us to estimate costs more accurately.
Committees can veto plans; they are rarely able to establish plans. The voices of the members are not unified. The division of intellectual labor produces cacophony in a committee. The unitary design needed for a successful strategy does not come from a committee. Folk wisdom understands this: "A camel is a horse designed by a committee." The division of intellectual labor does not produce a unified design because none of the committee's members is willing to take final responsibility for a strategy created by all the other members.
The supreme commander trusts his own judgment more than he trusts the judgment of a committee. He relies on a committee to suggest several alternatives; he does not rely on it to produce a strategy. He refuses to be held responsible for a strategy designed by competing men who in turn will not take personal responsibility for the committee's collective decision, if any. He understands that committees can sometimes veto a strategy; they can select someone to design a new strategy; but they cannot devise a strategy.
To Veto God
Israel's spies attempted to veto God's announced strategy, but they proposed no agreed-upon alternative. God had announced the overall strategy and the timing. Any attempt on the part of the captains or the spies to thwart that strategic plan was a form of rebellion. God did not ask the Israelites to accept or reject His strategy. He allowed them only to seek out information which would have enabled Moses to design tactics to implement God's overall strategy.
The committee of spies returned to give an account of Canaan that was at odds with everything God had told them. Only Caleb and Joshua publicly defended the basis of God's strategy, namely, the vulnerability of the Canaanites to immediate invasion. "If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey" (Num. 14:8). For his public defense of God's strategy, Joshua was appointed by God to succeed Moses and to direct Israel's inheritance: "But Joshua the son of Nun, which standeth before thee, he shall go in thither: encourage him: for he shall cause Israel to inherit it" (Deut. 1:38). He and Caleb could have led the army to victory 40 years earlier than they eventually did.
Had the spies been allowed to speak authoritatively for Israel, God would have executed the entire nation (Num. 14:11-12). Canaan would have remained occupied by the Amorites indefinitely. That is, the Amorites would have inherited the inheritance which God had promised to Abraham's seed. It was this possibility that Moses raised in his debate with God: God's vow to destroy the Amorites would not be fulfilled; so, His enemies would mock Him (vv. 13-16). God heeded this warning (v. 20). God then applied negative sanctions. The spies had sought to veto God's strategy, but God vetoed them. He executed them on the spot with a plague (v. 37).
As is so often the case, ten of the spies had a hidden agenda. It reflected the nation's hidden agenda, which became clear only in retrospect: to avoid military conflict with Canaan. To conceal this agenda, they recommended the reconnaissance. God knew their agenda, yet he did not tell Moses to call a halt to the reconnaissance. He allowed Moses to approve the spies' tactic. Moses would learn soon enough what the spies' hidden agenda was. The spies' report discouraged the nation. "And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, he hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there" (Deut. 1:27-28).
The committee's report had undermined the Lord's recently announced strategy: to invade Canaan immediately (v. 21). Moses could not persuade them to believe God (v. 32). The authority of the committee's majority report was overpowering when combined with the fears of that generation, fears which the people had repeatedly expressed to Moses. The spies had corroborated what the nation had feared: the Promised Land was filled with giants. Despite the fact that God cut down all of the nay-sayers on the committee, the people did not change their minds regarding God's strategy. The majority report had truly spoken for them judicially. Only Moses' intercessory prayer had saved them from God's wrath.
Sovereign Counsellors The people who are represented by the decision-maker are sovereign over him. They have the authority to thwart their economic and political representatives. God holds them responsible for what their leaders do.(1) This is why biblical law places centralized military decision-making authority into the hands of one man. The people can see who is responsible for making plans. This is much less true when committees make the plans. Members of committees hide from the sovereign people. They seek to avoid the limelight. They seek to transfer responsibility by spreading it among many others. When things go wrong, a committee is like a circle of men, each pointing to the man next to him. "He did it. Blame him."
Does this biblical structure of authority imply central planning? In military matters, yes. In military affairs, the decisions of the strategist have the characteristic of being all or nothing. A mistake can lead to national defeat.(2) What about economic planning? Is it also to be centralized? Within one firm, yes. The owner or senior manager has to be held accountable. Accountable to whom? First to the share owners, but finally to the consumers. The share owners are legally sovereign; the consumers are economically sovereign.(3) There has to be a central officer who announces the company's general strategy. In a profit-seeking enterprise, the primary strategy is to make a profit. The company's general rules and compensation schemes set the boundaries of profit-making efforts. These are announced and enforced by central management. Senior managers allow lower-echelon managers and salesmen to apply the general rules to specific cases, where central management does not have immediate access to local information.(4)
For the owners to exercise legal sovereignty, managers must be under the control of the owners. Owners must be allowed to replace managers. This is why it is important for business law to allow proxy fights and corporate take-overs. If the diversified owners of shares of the company are not allowed by existing management or the civil government to throw out the existing management, then the authority of the owners is thwarted. Government regulations that prohibit "predatory corporate raiders" subsidize the existing managers, increasing their immunity by profit-seeking share owners who would prefer to sell at a profit to raiders who see ways of increasing the market value of the company's assets and shares.(5)
Consumer Sovereignty
In a free market economy, the ultimate institutional sovereign is collective: consumers. Their individual decisions to buy or sell produce a collective result: an objective array of prices. Their decisions also produce profits or losses for specific sellers. So, final sovereignty in a free market is diffuse. The free market allows buyers and sellers to come together and make individual exchanges voluntarily. Because ownership is diffuse, sovereignty is diffuse. Because accurate knowledge is diffuse, ownership is diffuse, for people specialize in those productive services that they understand best and therefore possess a comparative advantage. The free market rewards the pooling of accurate knowledge through the price system. The competitive bidding of buyers against buyers and sellers against sellers produces an array of publicly available prices. These prices convey information to other buyers and sellers. They also convey motivation for sellers to meet the demands of consumers on a cost-effective basis.
In a free market, the goals of asset owners are complex and shifting. The operations of a free market are not like a military campaign. In a military campaign, the goals of citizens are highly focused: the avoidance of defeat, preferably through victory. The narrow focus of this common goal mandates central planning by a supreme military commander. Military victory through the concentration of specific military forces is very different from economic victory, which comes mainly through the pooling of highly diffused knowledge -- the most valuable economic resource -- through a system of rewards and punishments, i.e., profit and loss.
In a free market, the consumers are a multitude of counsellors. Sellers must meet consumer demand profitably, or else they will go out of business. The counsellors possess legal authority: the legal right to buy or refrain from buying. They also possess economic authority: they own an asset (money) that they can use to buy other assets. The opinions of these counsellors can be ignored by sellers, but always at a price: reduced sales, reduced income. Thus, senior decision-makers in profit-seeking firms must take seriously the opinions of consumers, whose counsel has money attached to it.
The Bible exhorts decision-makers to seek a multitude of counsellors. In economic affairs, this means that they must seek out representatives whose opinions reflect the opinions of the consumers. This is why statistical sampling techniques are widely used by businesses. This is also why such techniques are used by politicians seeking election in a democracy.
In a free society, the counsellors are sovereign, either as consumers or civil voters. They bring sanctions, both positive and negative, through money or votes. Decision-makers must pay attention to counsellors when the counsellors are armed with such sanctions. The counsellors possess lawful authority. In the free market, as in a representative democracy, the biblical principle of a multitude of counsellors is greatly honored through appropriate systems of sanctions.
In an unfree society, central planners strip consumers and voters of any meaningful authority. The result is always the same: reduced wealth. This is why socialism always impoverishes all but the senior politicians and their favored counsellors. After the fall of Communism in the late 1980's in Eastern Europe and in the USSR in 1991, citizens of the formerly Marxist tyrannies learned how just far behind the capitalist West they had been. Their richest leaders were poor by comparison to the West's middle class, a fact that the leaders had learned at the 1980 Olympics, which were held in Moscow. Visitors from the West were visibly far richer than the Soviet tyrants. This huge disparity of wealth could no longer be easily ignored in the USSR. The Communist leaders' wealth was a joke; they were being laughed at by the West. The West's political conservatives could dismiss the USSR as nothing more than "Bangladesh with missiles."(6) This condescension by the West broke the tyrants' confidence in the benefits the Communist system had produced for them. Within a decade, European Communism was abandoned in a series of bloodless coups. European Communist parties changed their names.
Western college professors were the last to learn. As late as 1989, the world's most popular college-level economics textbook still asserted: "The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive."(7) Within two years, the Soviet Union no longer existed. It had visibly collapsed economically by 1989 and politically in August of 1991.
Conclusion God was Israel's strategist. Moses was His mouthpiece, His chief of staff. When the spies attempted to replace God's strategy with their own, they became rebellious. They attempted to usurp a degree of authority that did not belong to them. Rather than remaining content with gathering information useful in the implementation of God's strategy, they tried to replace that strategy. He brought judgment against them individually and against the nation that consented to their report. The ten spies died immediately; the generation died off, one by one, over the next four decades.
Devising a strategy is not a project for a committee. A strategist is wise to consult committees and people with expert knowledge, but the vision and integration required for a successful strategy are not provided by committees. Those who make up a committee are not individually responsible for the outcome of a strategy to the degree that a supreme commander is. To match personal responsibility with strategy, a society or an organization must place one person in charge. Two captains of equal rank cannot successful command a military unit. Two admirals cannot direct a ship. The centralization of strategic authority is inevitable. Committees can implement strategies; they cannot design them. Hierarchy is visible and legal in a military chain of command.
In a free society, wise rulers seek out counsellors who reflect the opinions of citizens and consumers, who exercise control through the authority to impose sanctions: votes or money. This is what public opinion polls are market research are all about: seeking out representative counsellors who can serve as surrogates for the society's final counsellors, the people. In an unfree society, rulers strip the people of the authority to impose meaningful sanctions. God brings such societies under judgment. He strips economic planners of the ability to gain accurate information.(8) The citizens of such societies withhold accurate information and their productive efforts from the rulers. The familiar phrase of workers in Soviet Russia is representative: "The government pretends to pay us, and we pretend to work."
Footnotes:
1. Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 4.
2. Even here, the Mosaic law divided national authority. Both a civil representative and then two priests had to blow the pair of trumpets: first the civil ruler, then the priests (Num. 10:2-9).
3. On the distinction between legal sovereignty and economic sovereignty, see ibid., pp. 436-39. Owners tell managers what to do; consumers tell owners and managers if what was done was profitable.
4. Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1944), pp. 31-36.
5. Henry G. Manne, Insider Trading and the Stock Market (New York: Free Press, 1966), ch. 11.
6. Richard Grenier's phrase.
7. Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, Economics (13th ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989), p. 837. Cited in Mark Skousen, Economics on Trial (Homewood, Illinois: Business One Irwin, 1991), p. 214.
8. Ludwig von Mises, "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" (1920), in F. A. Hayek (ed.), Socialist Economic Planning (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, [1935] 1963), ch. 3.
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