Straightening Crooked Judgments

By the early 6th century B.C., the people of Athens were embarking on a course free of monarchy. Without a king, a maelstrom of ambition ensued. Plutarch tells us of a struggle between the people of the hills who clamored for democracy, and those of the urban valleys who sought the protection of an oligarchy. The universally admired aristocrat Solon, full of poetic sparkle, seized this deadlock to make promises of "straightening crooked judgments" and equal justice for all. Shouts of acclamation from rich and poor alike made him dictator for a year. Solon quickly took control over the city's olive oil producers and banned the selling of cereal crops abroad so that they could instead feed Athenians. It didn't matter to Solon whether or not this meant bankrupting the cereal farmers. Solon's most radical reform was the abolition of the commoners' debts. Not only usurers, but all creditors, saw their money forcibly disappear as it was redistributed to the poor. Abuse was rife. The annals tell us of several of Solon's friends who anticipated this policy by taking out loans to buy swathes of land in the very hours before debts were to be eradicated.

Several centuries later we can see Rome's reformers treading the same proverbial road to hell paved with good intentions. As the Republican armies haphazardly acquired lands abroad, and as the Equestrians and Populares sought more influence in government, the Senate became divided. A starry-eyed reformer named Tiberius Gracchus arose from among the governing class. Tiberius had traveled throughout the colonies and had come to identify the financial plight of farmers as Rome's greatest problem. Encouraged by two Greek scholars, Tiberius presented a proposal to seize the lands of Rome's noble families and spread them to the lower classes. The tribune Octavius became the voice of the aristocrats' furor at this blatantly unjust scheme. But democracy, then as now, knew no law. Tiberius simply held an unconstitutional election where the Roman mobs deposed Octavius. After even this, the measure was not to pass. Tiberius was killed by rioting senators; his brother Gaius followed him when he attempted to carry out the very same plan. Robbing the rich to give to the poor was something that Romans were not yet anesthetized to.

So much for the celebrated ancient reformers. To find an example of reform that was fair to all, regardless of the money they had or didn't have, it's necessary to look beyond the West. We now turn to the story of the exiles' return to Israel. Although the Israelites astonished their neighbors by reconstructing Jerusalem's walls, problems still abounded. The fields that had lain un-tilled for so long could not immediately bear a harvest. This plunged farmers into debt as they enslaved their children in order to get grain. The governor, Nehemiah, recognized the property of all men as sacrosanct. Instead of using his power to force the redistribution of weath, he relied on the Israelites' fear of the Lord to prompt their voluntarism. Nehemiah exhorted the noblemen to restore the fields, vineyards, sons and daughters that had been taken from the poor, lest they all become an object of scorn amongst their neighbors. As one, the nobility disavowed usury and restored what they had taken. Unlike Solon's bankrupting of Athens' creditors, or Tiberius Gracchus' socialistic seizure of private property, this manner of reform didn't entail taking at sword point from those who had in order to give to those who had not. It required a people who feared the Lord, and an understanding that only by encouraging man's free will, his voluntary effort, can good ever be done. Socialism knows no higher law than the here and now, and so it compels what is right. The fact that it creates poverty by grinding down the rich reminds one of Proverbs 12:10: "Even the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel."