Lew Rockwell's article, The Sinful State, deserves a place in the panthion of Libertarian Classics

[I'm sorry. Just as I was about to post, my wife pointed out that there was a German version of Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS. Hilarious! (It's even funnier when you understand what the subtitles leave out. To paraphrase Lu Mises, learn German!)]

Anyway, I pulled out my copy of Carl Menger's Principles of Economics [or better, use this link to The Mises Institute's Carl Menger page, where you can download the whole book], for a little Saturday afternoon reading, when I discovered that I had marked my page with a printout of Rockwell's great article. I was even more astounded that I hadn't finished reading it and that it says, quite succinctly, things that I have been mulling over for several years. It's one of those things I have a hard time deciding what not to quote, but it opens,

Hardly anyone talks of the table of virtues and vices anymore – which includes the Seven Deadly Sins – but in reviewing them, we find that they nicely sum up the foundation of bourgeois ethics, and provide a solid moral critique of the modern state.

Now, libertarians don't often talk about virtues and vices, mainly because we agree with Lysander Spooner that vices are not crimes, and that the law ought only to address the latter. At the same time, we do need to observe that vices and virtues – and our conception of what constitutes proper behavior and culture generally – have a strong bearing on the rise and decline of freedom.

Okay, skip to this bit:

Usually it [Capitalism] is used to describe people who have an affection for hometown, faith, and family, and a suspicion of lifestyle experiments and behaviors that skirt commonly accepted cultural norms. But those who use the term derisively are not generally appreciative of the extent to which bourgeois ethics make possible the lifestyle of all classes, including the intellectual class.

The bourgeoisie is a class of savers and contract keepers, people who are concerned for the future more than the present, people with an attachment to family. This class of people cares more for their children’s welfare, and for work and productivity, than for leisure and personal indulgence.

Unfortunately, I have to admit to having breached these values many times myself. I'd like to, here, once and for all, blame my faults on someone else, and thereby stake my claim to the status of Victim: of "Liberal" government education. At UM-Duluth, I was taught to be a libertine: to neglect all concerns about the future and indulge my short-term pleasure-seeking urges.

This instruction wasn't overt, but one who is attuned to undercurrents would catch it. There was definitely overt disapproval expressed, by many of my professors, for Free Markets and traditional families, though, for the most part their disapproval was expressed in vague platitudes.

Libertinism is seductive to anyone who isn't well versed in moral training, particularly those, like myself, who think they are.

Back to Rockwell:

The virtues of the bourgeoisie are the traditional virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Each has an economic component – many economic components in fact.

Prudence supports the institution of saving, the desire to get a good education to prepare for the future, and the hope to pass on an inheritance to our children.

With justice comes the desire to keep contracts, to tell the truth in business dealings, and to provide compensation to those who have been wronged.

With temperance comes the desire to restrain oneself, to work before play, which shows that prosperity and freedom are ultimately supported by an internal discipline.

With fortitude comes the entrepreneurial impulse to set aside inordinate fear and to forge ahead when faced with life's uncertainties. These virtues are the foundation of the bourgeoisie, and the basis of great civilizations.

But the mirror image of these virtues shows how the virtuous mode of human behavior finds its opposite in public policies employed by the modern state. The state sets itself against bourgeois ethics and undermines them, and the decline of bourgeois ethics allows the state to expand at the expense of both freedom and virtue.

One day I need to write a long essay on how my government education undermined my morality at each of these points, but for now, I should just insist that you read Mr. Rockwell's article. He continues to discuss each of the Seven Deadly Sins and how special interest groups influence the government to promote each and every one of them.