Last day of the conference, and it’s a good thing too: I am soooo tired. Let’s look at what I learned today, shall we?
Again, started with Mass in the EF; Fr. Z had to leave, so we had a priest from Poland Italy pray the Mass. Wonderful.
My first class today was on the nature and function of money. Money is not imposed upon us from on high. Rather, it develops organically. All economic systems start with trade, that is, the basic bartering of goods. But this isn’t the most efficient way to trade: there needs to be a double-coincidence of need (i.e., both parties need what the other has), and the properties are usually indivisible (i.e., you can’t give a horse’s foot to get an egg). So, different common commodities began to be used, usually in the form of precious metals. Eventually, one becomes predominant (though other currencies may still exist) for reasons of the best portability, divisibility, and homogeneous quality (i.e., each piece of currency is roughly the same; cf. with bartering, where the quality of the goods must be taken into account in every transaction, while with good money it can be assumed). Furthermore, money allows for the further division of labor because price is able to quantify and objectify labor; price also helps with a more accurate determination of cost-accounting. Paper money originated as bank-notes. You would make a deposit to keep your money safe, and use the bank notes as currency. [Incidentally, this is where loans begins; bankers don't want that money just sitting around, and so they loan it out to people, which also helps the banks make more money. The problem arises, however, that very often banks cannot meet their deposits. This day, most banks keep about 5% of their total holdings on hand! Wow.] At some point, government intervenes and demands a monopoly on the printing of money. My lecturer looked at this as a bad thing, but I’m not so sure. He argued that government has no right to the ownership of money (true, strictly speaking; but there was no discussion about the benefits of such a policy). In fact, when government takes over money, they generally seek policies which decrease the value of money (i.e., mixing base metals with precious metals, clipping coins, printing more notes). Unfortunately, the lecturer ran out of time, but he also discussed how money is eventually destroyed: it becomes so under-valued that people begin to use other currencies again. And the cycle repeats (at least, I think that is what he would have got at). There was lots of depressing talk in this class; the lecturer believes that within the year, we are going to see hyper-inflation in America. All that bail-out money that went to banks to be loaned out is not now being used totally because most investors are not investing. It’s only a matter of time before investors become confident again and start borrowing, which will result in the release of that pent-up money, resulting in massive inflation (or so the argument went).
My next class was also pretty depressing, concerning the problems that arise from the social market (or what we in American call the welfare state). The lecturer was from Austria, and so is intimately familiar with these problems. America, you ain’t seen nothing yet. What problems does a massive, bureaucratic, welfare state cause? Declining fertility rates, declining moral values, increased cost of living, various price controls on goods, pay-as-you-go pension systems (i.e., Social Security), and mandatory state education. The end result: the soft despotism which Tocqueville worried over. He did note that the systems themselves were unsustainable and that they would have to change (or would simply collapse); the only question is at what cost? Yeah, nice cherry picture: think Paris in the summers of 2005 and 2006.
The final lecture was on the critiques of capitalism from the traditional-values contingent. They point to the despicable state most of modern culture is in and blame capitalism. In fact, the lecturer argued, this is due to the values supported by modernity, which has little use for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Capitalism is only a tool. Capitalism is not consumerism, which is the mistake most cultural critics make. Capitalism is a free market supported by the rule of law with robust property laws, which also has a certain optimism about improving the human condition through enterprise and savings. Consumerism is based on an adolescent view of freedom, where anything I want goes, lacking all restraint. Thus, the solution to the ugliness of modern culture is not to turn away from capitalism and towards government (which is what many of these critics suggest, as if government can somehow bring about a “nice” culture), but rather to return to the values which support the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. This was a pretty good lecture.
After that, we had some faculty panels, where we got to pick the brains of the various lecturers. The panel I attended had discussions on just war theory, Islamic science and rationalism, the economics of hope and change, and how to engage those who disagree with you. Very lively.
Finally, we had Fr. Sirico’s closing lecture. Most conferences see a precipitous decline by the time the last lecture rolls around; but not at Acton: Fr. Sirico’s closing lecture on piety and technique is the crown jewel of the conference. Telling us about his life, he then exhorts us to live out the principles we support and learn about at this conference. He noted that we are at a time when these values will be challenged in just about every area we will go; but we must persevere. Piety (or good intentions), though important, is not enough: if we believe that the principles and techniques we support are true, then surely we must preach them and argue for them strenuously. It was a wonderful lecture, and I can’t possibly do it justice here.
And so Acton University 2009 draws to a close. We will all leave tomorrow, hopefully a little wiser and better able to engage the current culture and offer it real change. I pray that’s the case.
