Why is Economics Relevant as a Discipline of Academic Study?
[This is part 2 of my posts with notes from my presentation at the 2009 TPA Homeschool Conference. The topic is Understanding and Teaching Your Children a Biblical View of Economics. Read Part 1 here.]We saw in Part 1 that economics deals with choices humans make in light of scarcity and that we are called to be stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us. Various sub-disciplines and schools of thought exist within economics, and our purpose now is to briefly examine why economics is relevant. Why should we care about economics, and why is it important?
From a biblical perspective, economics, in a nutshell, deals with wise stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to us. Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in his treatise, Human Action, “Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.”
Perhaps now more than ever, our world faces unprecedented challenges, economically and otherwise, as a result of God’s judgment for economic foolishness and disobedience to principles in His Word. There has never been a more exciting and important time to learn, understand, and apply distinctly biblical economics.
In our day, economics has largely been subverted as a tool for ungodly men to advance their agendas of power and domination within society (Mark 10:42).
- “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” –J.M. Keynes, an ungodly, humanistic economist
- “Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man.” –Henry Hazlitt, a free-market journalist and writer on economics
- “When economics becomes a branch of politics, it ceases to be economics and becomes messianic. It becomes an instrument of power whereby men play god and plan to use human beings as their raw material.” –R.J. Rushdoony, a Christian scholar and theologian
R.J. Rushdoony also wrote, “Economics deserves a place in the high school curriculum, not as a branch of civics or civil government, but as an independent law sphere.”
To elaborate on Hazlitt's statement from Economics in One Lesson, cited above, there are two primary reasons Hazlitt gives that economics is so haunted with fallacies: 1) the powers that be often have a vested interest in propogating economic nonsense (e.g., the "too big to fail" myth regarding financial institutions and manufacturing companies), and 2) we often ignore the long-run implications of economic policies and actions on the whole of the economy, choosing to focus instead on what is easily and immediately seen in the short-run for a smaller sub-set of the economy (e.g., Bastiat's "broken window" fallacy).
OUR THEME: Christians must study and advance a distinctly biblical view of economics to counter economic folly so prevalent in our day and to affirm Christ’s Lordship over this field.
In the next post, we will examine how economics can be taught from a distinctly biblical perspective.
posted by C.S. Hayden @ 10:40 PM
4 Comments:
Rushdoony-admiring site, TheAmericanView.com. Please visit us, comment.
John Lofton, Editor
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Thanks, Mr. Lofton. I don't get over to your site nearly often enough, but I really like it. Keep up the great work!
Why call J.M. Keynes "ungodly"? Is that assessment based on something in his personal life, or does it represent an appraisal of his economic theories, or both? If it is based on his personal life, what place does it have in a discussion of economics? If it is based on his economic theories, how are "distinctively biblical economics" advanced when his theories are attacked by way of his person?
Regarding Keynes, here is a link to a post I wrote in February that should help explain the connection between Keynes' ungodly lifestyle and theories: http://cshayden.blogspot.com/2009/02/carlos-lara-on-economic-crisis-part-1.html (follow the links to articles by Rothbard, Mises, and Hoppe).
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