Read on Twitter
Some thoughts:
1.) I think helping Christians understand economics is a good thing.
2.) I think this has a few serious flaws, most of which are the result of treating questionable assumptions as given fact. Short thread to follow. https://twitter.com/luxfredom/status/1349132669125160960
1.) I think helping Christians understand economics is a good thing.
2.) I think this has a few serious flaws, most of which are the result of treating questionable assumptions as given fact. Short thread to follow. https://twitter.com/luxfredom/status/1349132669125160960
The first flawed assumption is found right in the first paragraph, and it’s an errors that I think weakens the whole foundation. The author explicitly assumes scarcity, but I would posit that scarcity is an assumption that everyone, but especially, Christians should resist.
I think Christians affirm that God is a God of abundance (not in the prosperity gospel way). But I also think abundance is an observable reality. It’s not that there isn’t enough to go around, it’s that the great abundance is hoarded by a select few.
The article seems to assume, at least implicitly, that western capitalism and economics are identical. This can be seen in the emphasis on GDP as a measure of economic health and “jobs” as a necessary component of that. But there are good reasons to question those assumptions.
To be fair, the author does acknowledge that GDP doesn’t tell the whole story, but at this point he whispers what needs to be shouted. The vast majority of new wealth goes to those are already super rich. This is a feature, not a bug, of the system he takes as given.
