After having sucked the joy out of classic Christmas films by over analysing them on two separate occasions (here and here), it seems only right that we go back to where it all began and have a look at the economics of the Nativity.
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
Here we see the enormous power of the State in action. The rulers wanted to increase the amount of money they raised through taxation and so demanded that their subjects return to their ancestral home, which we can see could often be arduous and costly.
Thankfully our current system doesn’t require people to travel to a different town or city in order to be taxed and thankfully it is far less corrupt. However, the State still does exercise its monopoly on violence by extracting money from citizens. These taxes place a significant financial burden on people and businesses both in the paying of the taxes themselves and the time and money spent in complying with them.
Taxes are essential if we want properly functioning public services but the government should make tax reform a priority. It should simplify the tax system and introduce radical change from taxing the earnings of hard working people and productive industries towards one which taxes the accumulated and often unearned wealth instead.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
This part of the Nativity is interesting for two reasons, namely because of what it teaches us about the treatment of unmarried pregnant women and the planning system.
On the first point, it is intriguing that Mary and Joseph were not staying with any of Joseph’s relatives who you would assume were living in Bethlehem. This could be because they assumed that Joseph had got Mary pregnant before marriage or that Mary had been unfaithful to Joseph. Either way, they did not approve and so treated the couple harshly.
We still have a moralistic approach to welfare with the idea of the deserving and the undeserving poor, with many people in receipt of benefits treated as if their condition is a moral failing on their part. For example, in a futile and cruel attempt to reduce the welfare bill, the government introduced the two child limit for benefits. This hasn’t achieved its attended aim, it has simply pushed families deeper into poverty.
The government should introduce a much more generous child benefit allowance so that every child can have a good start in life and that their families do not need to suffer. The government should also look at liberalising the childcare system and providing more financial support to allow parents, especially mothers, to return to the labour market. This would be good for women, good for families, and good for the economy.
As for the planning system, it is clear that demand has outstripped supply in Bethlehem. Now the census did probably represent a significant supply side shock and so we shouldn’t expect the town to have been able to normally accommodate so many people, but it’s clear that something prevented the town from responding to the shock. For example, an entrepreneurial inn keeper would have surely tried to add an extension to his inn for the census but for some reason they clearly didn’t. It is probably safe to assume that this was either banned by the local authorities or would have incurred extra tax.
We see a similar thing in the UK today. The planning system is often gamed by rent-seeking NIMBYs who prevent things such as homes, wind turbines, nuclear power plants, solar panels, and transport infrastructure from being built. Even if developers get permission, complying with planning regulations is often incredibly costly. The end result is that we have failed to build enough of the stuff we need. As a result productivity is hampered and economic growth is sluggish. Save for a handful of rent seeking NIMBYS, we’re all much poorer as a result.
The government needs to liberalise the planning system and relax rules about what can be built and where. In particular we need to start building more homes in and around our major cities, including on the green belt. It will face a great deal of opposition so will need to be strong and crush the NIMBYs.
We should also introduce a land value tax (LVT). I go into greater detail of the benefits of a LVT here, but in short it would not punish businesses or individuals from improving their property and would incentivise landowners to sell their unused land to developers or allow homes to be built on it. We should scrap business rates and council tax and replace them with a LVT.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
I find it interesting that Luke tells us that the first people to learn of the arrival of the Messiah are not the political or religious elite, but a group of shepherds. I think we tend to have a romantic view of shepherds, especially if you took part in a Nativity play as a child (coincidentally, I played Herod… twice). In reality shepherds were rough people (they had to protect sheep from wild animals) and were often treated as outcasts.
The way that working class people are portrayed by the media is very different. They are often cast as lazy, feckless, unintelligent, and sometimes even criminal. I disagree with Owen Jones on many things but his book Chavs did a great job at showing how working class people are demonised in the UK by politicians and the media. Contrast this with the Gospel of Luke who has a group of working class people not only being the first to learn of this momentous news, but are also cast in a good light as they go to visit the stable.
The media needs to do a much better job at representing the lives and experiences of working class people. The government should also radically reform welfare by scrapping Universal Credit and replacing it with a Universal Basic Income.
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.
Finally, we need to talk about immigration. We can see from Matthew’s account that the infant Jesus and his parents had to flee to another country in order to escape from a child murdering tyrant. There are many people who profess to be followers of Jesus but who demonise the desperate people seeking refuge in our country. They should probably take some time over Christmas to see if they can reconcile these two things.
The people arriving in the UK in dinghies are clearly desperate and it’s a dangerous journey which nobody should be forced to make. The government should open up many more legal routes for people to be able to claim asylum in the UK.
The government also needs to liberalise the immigration system. The UK has a relatively liberal system when it comes to high skilled immigration (although it could be better). However, we need far more low skilled immigration. Opening our borders will plug gaps in the labour market, increase productivity, and boost economic growth.
Thanks for reading. I might write something in that period betwixt Christmas and New Year but I’ll most likely be in a food coma.
Merry Christmas. Thank you.
P.S. The subtitle and cover photo are from AD/BC: A Rock Opera. It’s an excellent parody of Jesus Christ Superstar and well worth a watch this Christmas.