If you can grasp Part 1 from yesterday, then you are in a position to understand why we reject Western style free market capitalism and libertarian philosophy. Everything in the West presumes a fundamental orientation on the individual. Even when you read about communism or communitarian philosophy, it presumes the individual. Again: There is a place for the individual in divine revelation, but that place is not as the foundation for everything.
All economic and political choices must assume divine revelation, and must assume the heart-led orientation, all aimed at benefiting the tribe across multiple generations. We do not want a free market, where anything goes. We want a market that is consistent with revelation. There are things we will restrict, regardless whether there is a demand. Selling the wrong thing will afflict future generations and take away from their shalom.
There’s nothing wrong with automation to reduce the cost of production. However, it requires first that you plan for a way to employ all of those whose jobs are automated. If the market cannot absorb the extra labor, you sin by pushing ahead in a heedless reach for profit. This doesn’t require stagnation in old technology; it requires thinking wisely about whether there’s anything to actually gain for the tribe and future generations. The tribe comes first; profits are not our God.
Thus, the proper motivation for automation is to bless the folks doing the work. You should advance technology to make life better for them, so the first jobs to automate are the ones the workers would rather not do in the first place. Automation should be motivated by reducing the mind-numbing repetitive tasks. Automation should not put profits first.
This is why revelation forbids impersonal ownership of capital. It’s just a nasty form of slavery by taking away from the workers the personal link of human concern for their welfare as exercised by a real boss with a vested interest. Selling stock makes profit alone your boss. Forming a corporation to reduce individual risk is an idea from Hell. Without individual risk, there is no moral care for the people involved.
Indeed, if capital was personal property only, the owner seeking to bless his extended family household would tend to hire from among them first, and treat them better in the first place. In such a society, mistreating workers hired from anyone else’s extended family would be unacceptable, as well, because families would seek each others’ welfare as the means to long term stability for everyone. This would be in the owner’s best interest, too.
Again: Reality would support this. There would be some blessing immediately, but the effort to bless beyond oneself is always in our best interest, as well. You are accountable to God for how you use your assets.
This is why I side more with anarchist capitalists (some of them) more than libertarian ones. Anarchism is neutral towards how things might be done, whereas libertarianism is usually antagonistic towards collective entities. I guess they have a good reason to be, but I would still reject their idea.
Same as anything else — the only collectivism they know about is the Germanic socialist one. That in turn is a modern secular version of the Germanic tribal society, not at all like the one in the Bible.