B/C DR. LUDWIG VON MISES FREDERICK NYMEYER, 16546 South Park Avenue, South Holland, Illinois, U.S.A. September 24, 1964 Prof. Frank H. Knight University of Chicago Chicago 37, Illinois Dear Professor Knight: I am a member of a Christian "seet, but concur with you (1£ this is your position): 1. That the "economics of rabbis, priests and preachers is presently penerally contrary to their alleged purposes; involves 1nconsistencies; manifests ignorance and sentimentality; and 2. That the Christian church has many moral blemishes on Lts record. I do not think that Christianity is nevertheless to be don- sidered as completely unhinged from economics or the Mont Pelerin Society. Let me call attention to an association between the two, as I see It. The cliche summarizing the creed of the Mont Pelerio Society is the "free market. The term is a slogan for all, and may be no more than that for some. illiam of Ocean deplored coining new terms for old ideas; his expression was Entia non sunt multiplicandum praster necessitatem. I think new terms are sometimes obfuscations, and maybe free market" falls under that condemnation, An analytic definition for "free market is that there is no coercion, fraud or theft to hamper relations and exchanges. These are condemned in the Decalogue under Commandments 6, 8 and 9. I think a market is "free" (practically ideally), if participants neither coorce or defraud by theft and deception. I concede that Mones's formulation in 1400 B.C. does not give. a claim to twentieth century affirmation that the free market is founded exclusively on encient Hebrew ethics, but the two are not hostile, nor unrelatables. I grant other folk have come to re fection of coercion, deception and theft as well as the early Hebrews, e.g., Cicero and Seneda. My point is that there is some contact between Christian ethics and the principles of the Mont Pelerin Society in the foregoing case. I think similar contacts exist on subjects such as Utilitarianism and Christianity. As I view them, Hume (earlier) and James Mill and Bentham and the younger Mill (later),