Review: The Christian Case for Free Markets

Mere Economics makes a religious argument for private property and free exchange.

Mere Economics argues that the economic way of thinking is not merely reconcilable with Christianity, but that "economic principles follow from Christian doctrine." Academic economists and devout Christians Art Carden and Caleb S. Fuller systematically dispel the "folly masquerading as wisdom" that claims their faith is incompatible with support for free markets.

The authors explain that profit is the offspring not of avarice but of prudence. Profit lets us determine how best to serve our neighbor by signaling when we're producing more wealth than we're consuming—and when we aren't. Wealth, unless ill-gotten, does not represent domination over other men; it represents man's dominion over the earth, allowing him to satisfy the demands of Genesis 1:28.

Carden and Fuller explain that price gouging laws are knowledge embargoes that "bear false witness," thereby preventing us from knowing which of our neighbors are most in need of assistance. Especially important to today's policy debates is the lesson that trade is not zero-sum. It is a cooperative enterprise that enriches both parties. Miraculously, parties to a trade generate value not by being the best, but by doing what they do best.

Carden and Fuller explain the inherent instability of price-fixing cartels, the ephemerality of monopolies in a free market, how incumbents use regulation to insulate themselves from competition, the negative-sum nature of theft (as it forces resources to be redirected from production to protection), and the importance of well-defined property rights to achieving socially optimal levels of pollution (hint: not zero!).

Mere Economics shows the theological and cardinal virtues prized by Christians require private property and free exchange to know "what other people want and when we have chosen wisely."

Comments

[Untermensch]

One can argue that free markets are what Christians *should* support based on non-biblical grounds, but it’s a fundamentally unserious argument to say that the Bible makes any such claim. Usually such claims point to a few of Jesus’ parables with selective readings, but ignore the overwhelming evidence of the rest of the texts the Bible contains. From the very cursory and breezy summary here, I have no reason to believe this argument is any better.

This absolutely sounds like a case where the authors are trying to make Christianity work with their academic viewpoint and so wresting both it and their academics into rather tendentious positions that aren’t supported by the data.

In doing so they are following a long tradition in European Protestantism that serious Biblical scholars agree is an imposition on the Biblical text. I’m oversimplifying the complex relationship between the Bible and capitalistic interpretations of it, but they are definitely reading into the Bible, not out of it.

Are they right about what Christians *should* think and do? This is nominally a libertarian site, so axiomatically the answer is probably yes, but an honest account would have to acknowledge that the Bible in no way gives a positive answer to that question and in fact is pretty strong in stating the opposite (inasmuch as the Bible speaks with a single voice about anything, which isn’t really the case).

[Mother's Lament - (Sarcasian Meanister of Foreign Affairs)]

Exactly.

Christianity doesn't have an economics plan because the focus is generally spiritual and the 'life to come' rather than temporal. It's about advice to the individual rather than nations.

This is not economic advice in any way but is about as close as the New Testament gets to it (thanks, online concordance):

“If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

"Tell people who are rich at this time not to become egotistical and not to place their hope on their finances, which are uncertain. Instead, they need to hope in God, who richly provides everything for our enjoyment. Tell them to do good, to be rich in the good things they do, to be generous, and to share with others."

"Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

"But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

"And he went on to say to them all, “Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be.”

"Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands—all that you can hold. The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you.”

"Stay away from the love of money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never, never fail you nor forsake you.”

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."

"For the love of money is the first step toward all kinds of sin. Some people have even turned away from God because of their love for it, and as a result have pierced themselves with many sorrows."

[Rossami]

Yeah, you're probably right. But it's a nice counterpoint to the endless diatribes about how Christianity and the Bible "obviously" declare that capitalism must be evil and socialism/communism/other-doctrine-of-your-choice must be right.

[mad.casual]

And also a fair/welcome turning point from the *COMPLETELY* *BATSHIT* *INSANE* takes from Nick Gillespie and cohort, fretting out loud about "What if Christians were to adopt or take over capitalism?" and "The Good Samaritan would've deplatformed COVID-deniers on Facebook to protect the 1A too!"

[Untermensch]

Those are also reading into the text rather than out of it. I’ve had this argument with a friend who says that the Bible is obviously on board with socialism (by which he means state welfare socialism) but who gets mad when I ask him where it calls for a state bureaucracy that makes decisions for people.

The New Testament definitely, at least after Paul, calls for a sort of voluntary communalism, but that is a far cry from any modern political system and trying to argue that it supports socialism or capitalism is completely anachronistic.

The Prophets of the Hebrew canon and Jesus were *super* critical of people who hoard wealth and take advantage of the poor. They would be horrified by an Elon Musk-type figure.

Christian arguments for capitalism do engage the Bible and rely on selective doctrines, but they arrive at a conclusion Jesus would have denounced. So they are in the awkward place of having to rely on Jesus to support the opposite of what Jesus taught, which was actually pretty standard economic understanding of the time.

Would Jesus, if teaching 2,000-ish years later, advocate for Christianity? Perhaps, but let’s admit that is fundamentally a question of speculative fiction.

[AT]

Well, duh.

Mere Economics argues that the economic way of thinking is not merely reconcilable with Christianity, but that "economic principles follow from Christian doctrine."

I don't know why you think that's so groundbreaking, Captain Obvious - unless you've been wholly ignorant of Christianity until now.

Sound and Valid principles, economic or otherwise, are derived from Christian doctrine because Christian doctrine comes directly from God Himself - God who is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

(*edit - well, Catholic doctrine does, at least. I can't speak to all the protestants who just kinda make up their own Christian doctrine as they go, trying to couch it in self-interpreted scripture to sound reasonable.)

Any economic theory not based on that - like communism and socialism, for example - is man placing himself above God. They are the ONLY kinds of people who make "claims their faith is incompatible with support for free markets."

It's no different than the heretics in rainbow robes declaring a luciferian message that Jesus supports/encourages homosexuality, transgenderism, divorce, abortion, or whatever other progressive "values" they try to mask in Christianity; a morality they intentionally oversimply to have the singular moral obligation of "just be kinda nice to each other."

Man's God-Given Rights are Life, Liberty, Property and the Pursuit of Happiness. OF COURSE this means that's the case for free markets, insofar as they're aimed at that function. But "free" doesn't mean untampered by Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. (If your "free" market is, for example, encouraging something destructive like prostitution - and we know quite decidedly where He stands on that - then it's being manipulated and abused, the same way the rainbow heretics do it.)

Free markets are the only kind that make the guarantee of our God-given rights possible on Earth. Christians don't despise wealth - wealth but one of many vehicles by which the duty of the Christian on Earth can be carried out. I mean, just look at Joseph of Arimathea.

It's what the Christian DOES with the wealth that matters - and that is measured very simply by asking this one single question: is it for God's glory, or one's own?

[mad.casual]

I don't know why you think that's so groundbreaking, Captain Obvious - unless you've been wholly ignorant of Christianity until now.

Welcome to "Reason" [drink] Magazine. Where they play dumb/Devils' Advocate about anything and everything so much that they may, in fact, be completely and demonstrably ignorant of both Christianity and Capitalism in the next several hours, if not minutes.

[Untermensch]

This is a perfect example of reading into the text. You only assert this because you have a prior commitment to principles of capitalism. But if you did not, you would never read the Bible and arrive at capitalism from the text itself. Your reasoning here is identical to the person who says the Bible advocates for the modern welfare state because they also have a prior commitment to their position.

It’s a specious argument either way and neither position engages with the text in its own terms, but rather uses the text instrumentally to provide divine imprimatur to a position that in no way derives from it.

I’m not arguing against capitalism, or even the notion that it is the best way achieve goals of fairness and justice, but the Bible doesn’t make that claim in any way. And if it doesn’t, all you’re doing is asserting that God wants what you want. That’s a standard rhetorical move, but one that will convince only those already convinced, because the textual evidence doesn’t support it.

The honest answer would be “the Bible doesn’t actually state what I believe and I believe it based on other evidence”.

[AT]

You'll note that I didn't say "capitalism" even once.

I said that sound/valid principles comes directly from God - just like everything else - and that the Rights of Man are best guaranteed in any nation-state by not straying from them.

[CrazyDiamond]

One day at least in every week
The sects of every kind
Their doctrines here are sure to seek
And just as sure to find!

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Anyone who believes in an imaginary fairy who created the world in a week and smites his enemies (mostly gays, minorities, and women who refuse to get pregnant) is no one I want making or judging economic theories.