As you reflect on the blessings God has given you this Thanksgiving, I’d like to invite you to thank Him for something many of us take for granted: the free-market economy. Most of the world has never had it, and in countries like ours, it is under siege.

From the early twentieth century to about a generation ago, the great threat to it was Communism. That brutal experiment, however, clearly failed.

But that didn’t leave our liberties secure. The newer threat is the environmental movement.

Thousands of regulations now strangle American freedom in the name of protecting the environment.

It’s one thing to point out that these regulations often do little if anything to protect the environment. In most cases, improvements in air and water quality and solid waste disposal were occurring well before the regulations were adopted, and in some cases the improvements actually slowed afterward.

But it’s much more important to show that the free market is morally superior to alternatives.

That’s something Barry Asmus and Wayne Grudem do brilliantly in their book The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution.

I can’t pass on all of their lesson to you right here, but here’s how they begin chapter 6, “The Moral Advantages of the System”:

While some people have raised moral objections to free-market systems, we think it is important to mention an alternative perspective: there are many moral advantages to free markets. …
As Christians, we believe that there is a sinful inclination to do evil in the heart of every person on earth (as well as, by God’s “common grace,” an opposite inclination to do good). …
Therefore, every economic system on earth has sinful people in it ….
[We are not] saying that free markets are the cure for every conceivable human defect. They do not eliminate stupidity, obliterate selfishness, eradicate greed, or control the behavior of companies to everyone’s satisfaction. Flawed human beings could never create a flawless system.

But, they go on to say, the free market provides a structure that encourages the suppression of sinful desires and the development and expression of virtuous ones. It promotes:

• Personal freedoms:
  • moral actions
  • abstract or spiritual pursuits
• Personal virtues:
  • integrity
  • truth telling
  • Accountability.
  • Earned success.
  • Restraint of selfishness and greed, indeed, their harnessing for good ends.
  • Wise use of the environment.
  • Personal charity
• Interpersonal virtues:
  • Meeting others’ needs
  • Prioritizing the wants of others
  • Treating others with humanity
  • Truly helping—not just intending to help—the poor
  • “Lesser virtues” like punctuality, courtesy, tidiness, and a job well done
• Society virtues
  • Peace and harmony
  • Fairness
  • Productivity

After discussing each of these moral advantages of the free market carefully, Asmus and Grudem address various moral objections that are commonly raised against it.

The lessons of this chapter will equip you to give a moral defense of the free market, and consequently a reply to those who want to impose debilitating restraints on it.

 

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