Gary North
This book provides an economic analysis of Exodus 20: the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments are most famous economically for this phrase: “Thou shalt not steal.”
In modern times, defenders of the so-called Social Gospel — in fact, a statist gospel — have re-defined this commandment: “Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.” An example of a contemporary Social Gospel evangelist is Jim Wallis: //www.garynorth.com/public/department61.cfm.
The other nine commandments are also relevant to economics. In this book, I consider all ten.
The book is divided into two sets of five laws each: priestly laws (1-5) and kingly laws (6-10). These are sometimes called the two tables of the law. This is a mistake. They are a single table of laws. There were two copies, each with 10 laws. One stone copy was for the Israelites. The other was God’s copy. They were like copies of a contract. Each party got one.
The Ten Commandments uphold private property. This galls the Social Gospel crowd. This is why they talk endlessly about the prophets, who preached little on economics, while avoiding Exodus 20.
I titled the original edition The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments (1986). I title this volume Decalogue and Dominion. The overall set on Exodus is titled Authority and Dominion.
Click HERE to view and download the PDF for vol. 2.
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