Introduction to Part 4
Updated: 1/13/20
Christian Economics: Teacher's Edition
Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666 (Revelation 13:16–18).There have been many theories about what this passage is all about. Theologians debate endlessly about whether this is historical, prophetic, or symbolic. But one thing is clear: the mark of the beast has to do with controlling people’s access to the free market. There is no open entry. This is an economy that denies the authority of a free market. There is no free market apart from open access: the legal right to bid. This description of the beast’s power over access to the market is meant to be fearful. It is a matter of life and death. This civil government has the mark of tyranny.
The mark of the beast is economic. This was understood in the first century A.D. The author of this epistle understood that his readers would recognize the nature of tyranny in this description. Tyranny culminates in controlling people’s access to the market. But what about lesser interventions by the state into the market’s process? We can legitimately describe them as pre-tyrannical.
With respect to auctions, there is a widely known phenomenon as rigging the auction. This means tampering with some aspect of the bidding process before the bidding begins. This rigging influences who will offer the highest bid and thereby purchase the item. The auction may appear to rest on open entry and high bid wins, but the highest bid is the result of pre-auction manipulation.
No auction can function apart from its supreme principle: high bid wins. No one would attend. Yet there is hostility, sometimes intense, against the allocation principle of high bid wins. Whenever critics undermine this principle, auctions cease. We do not hear the crucial word: “Sold!”
In Part 4, I discuss how the state rigs the auction. Sometimes its rules against the principle of high bid wins undermine the auction. Sales diminish. Sales take place increasingly in illegal markets, sometimes called the black market. In other cases, voters demand that certain practices cease. When enforced, these rules alter the bidding process. This in turn alters the winners and losers in the various auctions, market by market. Fewer people participate. Sometimes fewer sellers show up to offer things for sale. Sometimes fewer buyers show up. The outcomes of the auctions are no longer those that would have resulted from an auction process in which there was open entry, unlimited bidding, and competitive auctions.
When analyzing the many possible ways that the state rigs the auctions, remember this. They all in some way modify the governing rule of the auction process: high bid wins.
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