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John Wesley and economic initiative
By Joseph Slife

Browsing through a recent edition of the Wesleyan Christian Advocate, the newspaper of the North and South Georgia Annual Conferences, I was surprised to learn that "John Wesley believed that most of the economic problems of the day were caused by a growing disparity between the rich and the poor."

This belief, the article noted, was stated by Mr. Wesley in a December 1772 letter to the Lloyd's Evening Post, a London newspaper.

I read further: "Wesley felt the cure was to repress 'luxury, either by example, by laws, or both'. While he lamented high taxes upon the poor and middle class, he called for additional taxes on luxury items such as horses and carriages.. In short, Wesley called for higher taxes upon the wealthy and laws that would prohibit the wasting of natural products."

I don't like being a cynic, but I was suspicious. Somehow this seemed a bit too convenient. Here (or so it appeared) was "theological cover"-from the founder of the Methodist movement himself!-for those in the current political climate who advocate stepped-up redistribution of wealth from high-income members of society to people with lower incomes.

Surely no one can doubt Mr. Wesley's concern for the poor. He exerted himself mightily to assist them and bring improvement to their lives. But, having read quite a bit of Mr. Wesley's writings, I could not recall any place where he intimated that general economic ills were caused by income disparity, nor could I recollect any argument he made in favor of reducing taxes on one group and raising them on another.

I did what any suspicious yet open-minded person would do. I found the full text of Mr. Wesley's 1772 letter to the Lloyd's Evening Post and read it. The entire letter gave quite a different impression than what is quoted above.

Employing a rhetorical approach similar to his preaching style, Mr. Wesley laid out his case regarding the economic ills of the day in precept-upon-precept fashion: "Why have [so many in England] nothing to eat? Because they have nothing to do. They have no meat, because they have no work. But why have they no work?.Because the person who used to employ them cannot afford to do it any longer. Many, who employed fifty men, now scarce employ ten. Those, who employed twenty, now employ one, or none at all."

Why was unemployment high? Because businesses had "no vent for their goods." Why was that? Because food prices were so high "that the generality of people are hardly able to buy anything else," he wrote.

But why were food prices so high? A key reason, Mr. Wesley argued, was that immense quantities of "breadcorn" were being "consumed by distilling" alcoholic beverages. He noted that the abundance of land used to grow wheat for distillation had reduced the acreage available for other crops (while also driving up prices for many other wheat-based products).

Next, Mr. Wesley decried the government's unwillingness-for financial reasons-to discourage the consumption of alcohol. He noted that sales of that "deadly poison" were bringing in "large [tax] revenue to the king." Indeed, the government's overwhelming desire for tax revenue was having perverse effects throughout the economy, he observed.

"[W]hy is it, that not only provisions and land, but well-nigh everything else is so dear [i.e., expensive]? Because of the enormous taxes which are laid on almost everything that can be named. Not only abundant taxes raised from earth, and fire, and water; but, in England, the ingenious statesmen have found a way to tax the very light!"

Never one to diagnose a problem without offering a solution, Mr. Wesley put forth a series of "plain and direct" suggestions for improving the economic health of the nation. He hinged his argument on the need to drive down agricultural-commodity prices. Resultant lower food costs would increase discretionary income and stimulate appropriate consumption of other consumer goods, thus creating economic growth and increasing employment.

The key to driving down commodity prices, and setting in motion these other positive economic results, was "prohibiting forever that bane of health, that destroyer of strength, of life, and of virtue, distilling. Perhaps this alone will answer the whole design," Mr. Wesley wrote. (In another part of the letter, he argued that more family farms and fewer farm "monopolies" would help drive down food costs, as well.)

In general, John Wesley urged eventual tax reductions-conceding, however, that servicing the nation's large national debt made the continuation of certain taxes a necessity. As for tax increases, he suggested that the government could make up revenue lost from prohibiting distilling with an additional tariff (of 10 pounds) on "every horse exported to France" and a hike in the property tax on horses in England used to draw "gentlemen's carriages." (He also believed these particular taxes would reduce the number of horses being raised, thus driving down the cost of oats.)

While Mr. Wesley did decry "the amazing waste" of food by some wealthy people (which contributed to food scarcity problems for others), there is nothing in his letter that suggests, as asserted in the Advocate article, that he believed "most of the economic problems of the day were caused by a growing disparity between the rich and the poor."

Indeed, the assertion seems to put the cause and effect backward. Mr. Wesley saw income disparity as a result of a problem-laden economy, not the cause. Improve the economy, he argued in his 1772 letter to the Lloyd's Evening Post, and the lot of the poor would improve along with it.

Joseph Slife is a certified lay speaker in the North Georgia Conference.
He blogs at MethodistThinker.com.



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