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At the heart of the Christmas story rests some
important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of
wealth in society.
Let’s begin with one of the most famous
phrases: "There’s no room at the inn." This phrase is often
invoked as if it were a cruel and heartless dismissal of the tired travelers
Joseph and Mary. Many renditions of the story conjure up images of the couple
going from inn to inn only to have the owner barking at them to go away and
slamming the door.
In fact, the inns were full to overflowing in the
entire Holy Land because of the Roman emperor’s decree that everyone be
counted and taxed. Inns are private businesses, and customers are their
lifeblood. There would have been no reason to turn away this man of aristocratic
lineage and his beautiful, expecting bride.
In any case, the second chapter of St. Luke
doesn’t say that they were continually rejected at place after place.
It tells of the charity of a single inn owner, perhaps the first person they
encountered, who, after all, was a businessman. His inn was full, but he
offered them what he had: the stable. There is no mention that the innkeeper
charged the couple even one copper coin, though given his rights as a
property owner, he certainly could have.
It’s remarkable, then, to think that when the
Word was made flesh with the birth of Jesus, it was through the intercessory
work of a private businessman. Without his assistance, the story would have
been very different indeed. People complain about the "commercialization"
of Christmas, but clearly commerce was there from the beginning, playing an
essential and laudable role.
And yet we don’t even know the
innkeeper’s name. In two thousand years of celebrating Christmas,
tributes today to the owner of the inn are absent. Such is the fate of the
merchant throughout all history: doing well, doing good, and forgotten for
his service to humanity.
Clearly, if there was a room shortage, it was an
unusual event and brought about through some sort of market distortion. After
all, if there had been frequent shortages of rooms in Bethlehem,
entrepreneurs would have noticed that there were profits to be made by
addressing this systematic problem, and built more inns.
It was because of a government decree that Mary and
Joseph, and so many others like them, were traveling in the first place. They
had to be uprooted for fear of the emperor’s census workers and tax
collectors. And consider the costs of slogging all the way "from
Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of
David," not to speak of the opportunity costs Joseph endured having to
leave his own business. Thus we have another lesson: government’s use
of coercive dictates distort the market.
Moving on in the story, we come to Three Kings, also
called Wise Men. Talk about a historical anomaly for both to go together!
Most Kings behaved like the Roman Emperor's local enforcer, Herod. Not only
did he order people to leave their homes and foot the bill for travel so that
they could be taxed. Herod was also a liar: he told the Wise Men that he
wanted to find Jesus so that he could "come and adore Him." In
fact, Herod wanted to kill Him. Hence, another lesson: you can’t trust
a political hack to tell the truth.
Once having found the Holy Family, what gifts did
the Wise Men bring? Not soup and sandwiches, but "gold, frankincense,
and myrrh." These were the most rare items
obtainable in that world in those times, and they must have commanded a very
high market price.
Far from rejecting them as extravagant, the Holy
Family accepted them as gifts worthy of the Divine Messiah. Neither is there
a record that suggests that the Holy Family paid any capital gains tax on
them, though such gifts vastly increased their net wealth. Hence, another
lesson: there is nothing immoral about wealth; wealth is something to be
valued, owned privately, given and exchanged.
When the Wise Men and the Holy Family got word of
Herod’s plans to kill the newborn Son of God, did they submit? Not at
all. The Wise Men, being wise, snubbed Herod and "went back another
way" – taking their lives in their hands (Herod conducted a
furious search for them later). As for Mary and Joseph, an angel advised
Joseph to "take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt." In
short, they resisted. Lesson number four: the angels are on the side of those
who resist government.
In the Gospel narratives, the role
of private enterprise, and the evil of government power, only begin
there. Jesus used commercial examples in his parables (e.g., laborers in the
vineyard, the parable of the talents) and made it clear that he had come to
save even such reviled sinners as tax collectors.
 And just as His birth was facilitated by the owner
of an "inn," the same Greek word "kataluma"
is employed to describe the location of the Last Supper before Jesus was
crucified by the government. Thus, private enterprise was there from birth,
through life, and to death, providing a refuge of safety and productivity,
just as it has in ours.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr
www.LewRockwell.com
Llewellyn H. Rockwell,
Jr. is founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises
Institute in Auburn,
Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty.
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