Sins in the market, conclusion

How do you reconcile your belief in unregulated free-market capitalism as a divine protection against tyranny, with the fact that so many of the most profitable commodities in a capitalist market are the ones that appeal to our very basest and most disordered desires (drugs, p&rn, etc.)?

It is true that there is a lot of money to be made in the market by catering to people's sinful desires. Christians are, of course, forbidden to be the ones to make this money.

But remember that many items are multi-purpose. A gun may be used to murder, or it may be used to hunt for food to provide for one's family. A pencil may be used to draw a pornographic drawing, or to write an evangelistic sermon. Radio may be used to play music advocating violence, or to preach the Gospel. The Internet ... well, you already know about the Internet.

People all the time use good things that God has created for evil purposes. The free market is one of them. Evil people may prosper in this world, but in the end, the pleasures of sin are only for a season. None of this is an argument for getting rid of the free market, especially since God commanded it.

How much do you trust God?

It's just that I think our families share some other things in common - things we aren't used to sharing with other people, LOL - that I was curious about why we came down differently on the free market. I look forward to being given something interesting to think about.

Christians disagree about a variety of things. One reason for this is that none of us perfectly understands the will of God, yet. No matter how long we keep studying and living the Christian life, we will always be learning. Hopefully we will always be willing to accept correction from the word of God, and willing to repent when we discover that we've been in error.

With that said, I want to reiterate that the free market is taught by and required by the word of God. When God said "Thou shalt not steal" -- that's a free market. That completely prohibits taxation as something Christians can engage in. (Note: I'm talking about requiring taxes of our neighbor, not talking about paying taxes.) As Walter Williams says, "He didn't say thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress.."

"Thou shalt not steal" means we practice charity, not socialism.

God said about property that while a man owns it, it remains his own, and if sold, the money remains under his control (Acts 5:4). Nowhere did He authorize us to make decisions for everybody's property, as a whole, rather than as individuals. Not even within the church, as evidenced by this passage.

Nor did God authorize us to govern other people. We may hold people accountable within the church, but if they choose to reject that accountability, the maximum judgment we are allowed against them is to put them out of the church, to "abandon them to Satan," and for those outside of the church, we can do nothing other than repeat the call of God (I Corinthians 5). And as I've said previously, the most effective power against sin is that call, not things we could do by taking away freedom.

Faith means "trust." The very word, pisteuo in Greek, is Greek for "trust." May I please encourage you to trust in God, to step out in faith and believe in His commands, even if you don't yet fully see how it could work? It worked for Abraham, who believed he would receive a multitude of descendants, even as he offered his only son on the altar (Hebrews 11:17-19).

Does the free market protect against tyranny?

How do you reconcile your belief in unregulated free-market capitalism as a divine protection against tyranny, with the fact that so many of the most profitable commodities in a capitalist market are the ones that appeal to our very basest and most disordered desires (drugs, p&rn, etc.)?

I wanted to comment on a misperception that I saw in this question. I don't believe in the free market as a divine protection against tyranny. It's more of a definition thing: tyranny is what you get when somebody takes away freedom. So the free market is what you get when there is no tyranny, at the moment. Freedom and tyranny are opposites.

I do believe the free market is divinely inspired, because God is the author of private property (Exodus 20). And I do believe that this free market has spectacular benefits in a lot of areas, chiefly that it satisfies the greatest value of human wants (including needs) possible in a world of scarcity. It is the only way to achieve the benefits of division of labor.

And it is the only moral way. Not having a free market means people exercising ownership rights over things that are not theirs, either by taking what is not theirs, or by telling them what they can and cannot do with it. It is to the Lord's glory that the only moral way to arrange human affairs is also the economically best way. It is to man's shame that we have so little trust in the Lord that we entertain the idea that other ways might actually outperform this one, and might therefore be worth trying. (If we have enough faith in the Lord, we will choose His way even when it looks to us like it doesn't work best, trusting that we are not seeing what He sees (I Corinthians 2)).

I have referred to a few of our institutions as protections against tyranny, but they are only partial protections. For example, democracy protects against tyranny by preventing the governing authority from taking some, but not all, actions which are offensive to the populace. Of course, democracy still allows plenty of tyranny. The people can vote to outlaw Jews, for example, or to educate each other's children. Separation of powers also helps to function as a check on tyranny, because an action is required to pass multiple checkpoints before it is put in force. However, one of the main reasons we have these imperfect safeguards is that rulers of centuries past learned that if they did not give the people some of what they were asking, the people would revolt. The rulers found they could take away much liberty, then give some back and claim that they were the source and guarantee of the rights and liberty, rather than its main oppressors. They found that they could take away much of the wealth of the people, then use it to provide some services and goods, claiming that the market would never provide these things and therefore presenting themselves as the "benefactors" of the people (Luke 22:25). As long as they gave the people enough to keep them happy, the vast majority of people would never entertain the idea that they might be better off without the rulers, and revolt would be staved off.

Since the free market makes it possible to provide for all kinds of services, it does make it possible to provide for protection against tyranny, like any other service. Just as you can today hire a security guard, even though the state tries to provide some security for you, under a truly, 100% free market, you could contract with a service to provide your security. These services would look a little bit like our governments, in that they are organizations formed to secure our rights (this is what Thomas Jefferson said was the purpose of government, in the Declaration of Independence). But unlike our governments, they would be prohibited from just assuming control over everybody in a region, potentially taking away their rights, by virtue of the fact that competing services would exist, and those services would be out securing the rights of their "citizens" against any other group that started encroaching. One of the real problems of government is that rather than allowing this need to be met on the free market, where all needs are best met (most economically), we've instead socialized this process. We know socialism is a horrible way to provide food. It's also a horrible way to provide security. Or anything else.

Freedom also helps perpetuate itself because a taste of freedom makes people discontent with tyranny. This is one reason the United States revolted against Great Britain: a century of "salutary neglect" got the colonists used to enjoying the benefits of their liberty, and they got upset when moves were made to take it away.

But the important thing is not that the free market provides some protection against tyranny. It's that if you don't have a free market, you have tyranny.

Sins in the market

How do you reconcile your belief in unregulated free-market capitalism as a divine protection against tyranny, with the fact that so many of the most profitable commodities in a capitalist market are the ones that appeal to our very basest and most disordered desires (drugs, p&rn, etc.)?

As long as this world lasts we are going to be struggling with the problem of sin. And the solution to sin is always going to be Jesus Christ. "There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12) Jesus is the sacrifice for sin, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (John 1:29) Moreover, those who receive Jesus will have God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit living within them (John 14:23), which is how they will begin to have the power to resist sin, by virtue of the fact that over time they will become more and more like Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29).

God's word has been sent out into this world with this purpose, and it will not fail (Isaiah 55:11). God's power to save is the Gospel, a message -- not force (Romans 1:16).

Any other proposed solution to the sin problem will be substandard. God's word is more powerful than all the other solutions we can imagine. It is more effective to preach God's word to a sinner than it is to force that sinner to stop his sin. We can change a man's outward behavior, but it is God's word that reaches the heart. Moreover, a sinner who stops sinning is still not saved. His guilt will only be taken away by Jesus. Until then, "all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment" (Isaiah 64:6). His garments are dirty, and ceasing to apply more dirt will not make them cleaner. He needs to be cleaned.

Government is not the solution to the sin problem. It will not work because it can only affect outward behavior. It will not work because it cannot reach the heart. It will not work because it cannot atone for sin. And it will not work because it cannot accomplish a transformation of a person's character into the image of Jesus Christ.

But even more specifically, this avenue is forbidden to us. I Corinthians 5:10-13 prohibits us from executing judgment against those outside the church. We're not allowed to interfere with the behavior of those people. We're required to allow them to go on their way, abandoning them Satan, with the hopes that the destruction of this world will inspire them to seek salvation in Christ. More on this later this week, I hope.

But the free-market is not the solution to this either. The free market is simply the way God has mandated for us to handle property. He mandated this when He commanded "Thou shalt not steal," and He confirmed it when He taught through the apostle Peter that property belongs to its owner, to be done with as the owner (not the electorate) wills (Acts 5:4).

That does not mean the free market solves all our problems. It just means that it's the best way we can live in this fallen world. The free market will not eliminate scarcity, but it has been proved to achieve the best allocation of our scarce resources in order to meet the most wants. Thankfully the free market allows us to use our time, property, and other resources to bring about true change through the preaching of the Gospel, using the power of Jesus Christ to transform people's wants. When the market is not free, the interference constitutes economic waste. That's waste that could be put to better use. And without freedom, people have the right to vote on whether or not we can share the Gospel, how we can share it, and what portions of it we can share.

For whatever reason, God gave us liberty to sin. And He does not empower us in any passage of Scripture that I am aware of to take that liberty away from anyone else.

Question Saturday

Welcome to my first question Saturday. Surely after all I've said some readers have some questions, or even some challenges. Comment on this post to let me know what you'd like me to answer, and next week I'll provide my responses.

BTW, if you happen to see this post after Saturday, you can still comment on it to ask questions.