THE INDIRECT METHOD

I was sent an e-mail recently where the writer calls himself a Christian agrarian. He believes that he has come up with a system that will overcome inflation. He is blinded by not understanding things spiritually. His example sounds good but it is a version of the direct method which is inefficient in supplying our needs. He thinks that all he has to do is go out to the chicken coop and get some eggs and if he has excess eggs, he can use those to barter.

We live in a complex economic age and barter is a primitive system of exchange. What this Christian agrarian is proposing is a return to the past. He is as all visible thinkers are, tied to the past. They are not forward looking. He is proposing the destruction of the division of labor. The division of labor is based upon a common medium of exchange that we call money. Money allows us to be free from the limitations of barter.

Visible thinkers look longingly backwards to what they think is a simpler life. Actually, past life was not easier, it was hard and arduous. The complex life we live in today is a simpler life than in the past. Today, there is less manual labor and more mental labor. Machinery allows man to build bigger institutions quicker and at less cost than his manual labor can. Manual labor without machinery is using the direct method. The Christian agrarian is proposing a system of poverty. Those who are past oriented are lower class. The future oriented are upper class.

The future belongs to those who believe in looking forward. The Christian agrarian is not relevant. Anything he says can be disregarded. While he may be able to eat eggs, is he also going to make his own shoes? His solution is to go barefoot, that is the direct method right out in the open. Who is going to make his clothing and provide other needs that he has? If he is going to be doing it all himself, he is going to run out of time and energy and he is going to be poorer.

The Christian agrarian does not understand economics nor the indirect method. The indirect method of production as defined by Bohm-Bawerk is using our minds to solve economic problems before going about working on them directly. In other words, the indirect method is another way of saying that the spiritual precedes the physical or the law of cause and effect. The indirect method is a complex way of thinking but one that delivers the goods.

A recent example of the direct method versus the indirect method was in trying to catch a cat to give to a family. We have been feeding feral cats for quite a few years. We are preparing to move and my wife wanted to see that two of these cats have a good home. A widow lady wanted two cats. I told her that we could get them for her. My wife and I tried to capture one of the cats using the direct method that is catch the cat and put her into the cage. We tried this method twice and failed twice.

My daughter had a better plan. Her plan was an indirect method. If animals are blinded they will not fight. This is the reason that a horse has blinders on him. What she did was to put an old t-shirt over the head of the cat so that the cat could not see the cage. The cat did not fight her and she was able to put the cat easily into the cage. When the widow lady arrived with her daughter, she did not think that we got the cat but I told her to look in the cage and there was the cat.

The indirect method worked where the direct method failed. While this example deals with catching a cat, the indirect method works in every situation where it is tried. The indirect method delivers the goods, the direct method is severely limited. The direct method leads to viewing the world with doom and gloom whereas, the indirect method allows us to overcome difficulties. The indirect method is used to fulfill the dominion mandate. The indirect method allows us to subdue the earth.