1. In my reading today of Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt argues against tariffs and in favor of imports. According to Hazlitt, tariffs increase prices, meaning that consumers have less money to put into the economy. Consequently, while tariffs appear to be preserving jobs, the high prices that they create hinder consumer spending and thus the creation of other jobs.
Moreover, Hazlitt thinks that imports to America are good because the importers are receiving American dollars when we buy their products, and they can then use those dollars to buy American products. I’m not sure what monetary exchange was like when Hazlitt was writing. He talks as if American dollars can only be used in America—unless you find someone who’s willing to exchange those American dollars for another currency (and then you’d have to pay that person for this transaction, Hazlitt states). But, when I went to Israel, I exchanged my American dollars for shekels. There was an office that did that. Consequently, if an importer makes American dollars through his imports, why can’t he exchange those dollars for other currency? He’s not limited in where he can spend his money!
Hazlitt continually returns to a supply-side model (if that’s the right term for it): if consumers have more money, then they can spend it, and that creates more jobs, as companies produce the products that people are buying. High prices and high taxes hinder this process, Hazlitt continually argues. But he’s assuming that this process will create American jobs, as if it’s self-contained in America. (I know, my characterization isn’t totally accurate, for he does defend free trade.) But, if the goods are being produced in another country, such as China or Mexico, then our consumerism isn’t creating jobs in America, but elsewhere.
Am I right on this? Or wrong?
2. I started J. Randall Short’s The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King David. I knew Randall at Harvard Divinity School. Randall’s argument is that the History of David’s Rise, which is contained in I Samuel 16-II Samuel 5, was not a court document defending and justifying David’s rise to the throne, against charges that he usurped the Israelite monarchy illegitimately. (Or maybe Randall thinks that it was that, but it shouldn’t be read primarily as such. I’m a little unclear on this so far, but things may become clearer as I continue through the book.) Rather, Randall views it as “dramatically representing to YHWH’s covenant-community His mysteriously and wonderfully surprising election and confirmation of ‘the least’ as YHWH’s beloved” (5).
Today, I read some of Randall’s critique of P. Kyle McCarter’s treatment of I Samuel 16-II Samuel 5. McCarter, like Randall, believes that part of I Samuel 16-II Samuel 5 asserts that God exalts the “least”. McCarter refers to the David and Goliath story. For McCarter, this (or at least the Deuteronomistic contribution to it in the days of Josiah) was intended to comfort Israel in her own state of political weakness. But McCarter excludes that from the History of David’s Rise, maintaining that the Dtr David and Goliath story came later. My impression (which could be wrong) is that McCarter really wants to present the History of David’s Rise as a justification for David’s ascent to the monarchy, and so he excises from that History parts that he believes would speak to a later time: when Israel is weak, beset by aggressive foreign powers. Randall, however, includes the stuff about God’s exaltation of the “least” in the History of David’s Rise.
I’ll see how this plays out, and I apologize for any misrepresentation on my part of people’s positions.
3. On page 223 of A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66, Benjamin Sommer disputes Charles Torrey’s contention that Isaiah 40-66 and 35 “were written in Jerusalem near the end of the fifth century B.C.E…” Torrey argues that Isaiah 54 could not have been written during the Babylonian exile, for it exhorts Jerusalem to expand on all sides. For Torrey, that presumes that Jerusalem is already existing and needs to expand, not that it hasn’t been rebuilt yet. That would fit Israel’s post-exilic period, not her exilic period.
Sommer counters, however, that Isaiah 54 is responding to Jeremiah. Jeremiah said that Jerusalem would be unable to expand her tent, but Second Isaiah affirms that she will. Sommer states, “The rhetoric here does not concern adding to already existing territory but reversing an older trope.”
For me, the notion that Second Isaiah was composed in exile (or, when I was more conservative, was prophetically addressing Israel in exile) was obviously true. God is telling Israel that her exile will come to an end through his instrument, Cyrus, and he exhorts her to join him in what he is doing. But I wonder how Torrey would read the passages that seem (to me and to others) to convey this message.
Also, when does Sommer believe that Isaiah 40-66 was written? He doesn’t believe in Third Isaiah.