The Economy’s 3 Essential Ingredients from Crossway on Vimeo.

Crossway has the latest video with a taste of what you’ll find in my new book, Economics: A Student’s Guide. This one deals with the three basic types of economic resources:

There’s a tendency to identify the economy with what we do with our money, and that’s understandable, because money is easily counted. We know how much of it there is, and we know who has what (to some extent). You can actually create mathematical formulas, and economists have done a great deal of good service by doing mathematical study of how people use their money. But…it’s a little like looking for your car keys under the street lamp because the light is better there, even though you dropped them down the street. A focus on what can be easily counted, measured and mathematically analyzed can distract us from realities that are just as important, but are not so easily counted. We might even think the model we develop for looking at things that are easily counted can then be mapped onto everything else and become a master metaphor.

In the 1970s, a prominent economist shocked the world by publishing a scholarly article in which he analyzed decisions about marriage choices in terms of a competitive market for attractive mates—as if people were competing for marriage partners the way Coke and Pepsi compete for customers. It’s a deeply shocking article. It’s not wrong for economists to think about things other than money. It’s important for economists to think about things other than money! But they shouldn’t transfer the system for thinking about money as the master metaphor for thinking about everything.

Invest your time in letting me know what you think!

Crossway’s got the scoop on today’s podcast, with yours truly:

I think the root of the matter is this: modern socialism and communism didn’t exist in the ancient world, and the essence of these systems is essentially eschatological—that we can build heaven on Earth by rearranging economic systems. Socialism and communism begin with the assumption that human problems can be solved if we can just force the economic structures into the right shape. I mean, this is why they’re built on force. That’s their fundamental principle. Whereas the early church trusted God to solve their problems. They weren’t trying to force anybody’s system into the right shape because they knew that you can’t save people by forcing social systems into the right shape. So I think the fundamental difference here, in my mind, is more eschatological. Where are you looking for your salvation? Is it to God or to some political movement?

And I think we can say that, but I want to stop and put a big warning marker on this. This passage in Acts is not there to supply free marketers with a talking point against socialism. That is not why is there. It’s there to summon us to radical generosity. I think we should be asking not only the question Is socialism biblical?, but also the question, Do we in the church today practice the radical sharing…that clearly characterized the early church and was so important that Acts highlights it in this dramatic way? Acts really emphasized that this is important.

In the podcast we also canvassed lots of other subjects:

If you think that people who have wealth got it through illegitimate means, you’re going to be mortally offended at inequality, even distinct from the question of whether the poor are doing well or not. But if you think that people generally make wealth through legitimate means, then you’re not going to be concerned about income inequality.

The example one friend of mine uses is JK Rowling. JK Rowling became a billionaire by writing a book. And by writing this book she entertained millions of people, and she sold intellectual property rights to movie companies, which then entertained millions of people, and that’s all she did. I mean, she literally just she wrote some books and she became a billionaire. And she did not take that money away from anybody. She didn’t steal it. Nobody is worse off because she’s better off. She produced something that had value to people and people said, Yes, I’ll pay $20 for a copy of that book. Yes. I’ll pay $20 for a ticket to that movie.

But to the extent that you think the wealthy are less like JK Rowling and more like Carlos Slim…who became wealthy by leveraging personal connections with the Mexican government—he got telecom contracts that were handed to him by his political connections, he was able to make a ton of money because he knew the right people and because the system was corrupt, he owns the New York Times because he had this inside track—now, if you think that most wealthy people are like Carlos Slim and they made their money through corrupt connections with big government, then you’re going to be concerned about income inequality. If you think that most of the wealthy are like JK Rowling who made their money by doing honest labor, then you’re going to be less concerned about income inequality.

And the thing is, I can tell you both stories.

Yes, it’s another taste of what’s in my new Crossway book Economics: A Student’s Guide.

For more on the early church and our modern questions about property rights, see this from TGC.

My latest Thorns & Thistles column is up at TGC today, in which I consider whether remote workers are ethically obligated to put in a 40-hour week if they can meet their employer’s expectations in fewer hours:

If the workweek can legitimately be shortened to 40 hours, obviously it can legitimately be shortened again—at least for those able to deliver a valuable work product to a willing employer in fewer hours. In other words, if we fuddy-duddies condemn today’s whippersnappers for not living up to the standards we were taught, what’s to stop the 19th-century fuddy-duddies from rising up and condemning us as whippersnappers for failing to live up to the even stricter standards they were taught?

No need to spend 40 hours composing your reply, but let me know what you think!

Christian Economics 101 from Crossway on Vimeo.

Another video from Crossway that gives you a taste of what’s in my new book, Economics: A Student’s Guide:

There’s a created intention for the economy that it be a web of love and service where people are taking good care of each other through their work, but it’s also a place where greed and pride and sloth and envy and all the other sins are very much a presence, and are even incorporated into the institutions that we participate in. So in one sense, our daily participation in the economy is really a front line in the holy war between good and evil in our universe – which is a little bit different than what you get from an economics textbook.

The book is a highly accessible introduction to the history of Christian thought about economics, and what it means for us today.

In other book news, I was humbled to learn that my other book on economics this year, The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We’re All Dead, has been downloaded 2,891 times from Amazon. It’s a scholarly book, not a beach read, so that’s a lot more than I would have expected. Thanks to all who read it – and for everyone else, you can rent it on Kindle for $30!

Why Giving 10% Isn’t Enough from Crossway on Vimeo.

It’s my year to hawk books! No shame in that, though – books are an essential part of natural and supernatural life.

I’ve got a new book coming out that provides an accessible and useful introduction to the history of Christian thinking about economics – Economics: A Student’s Guide. Today Crossway releases the first of a series of short videos that give you a taste of what’s in the book. My favorite moment from this video:

Not long ago, I was in a church in which the pastor said, “You should give money to the church because God wants you to use some of your money for his purposes.” I sat there just dumbfounded that a pastor in a pulpit would say God wants you to use some of your money for his purposes. I shared that with an ethics professor friend of mine and I asked, “What does one say?” and he said, “Rend your garment.” So I wish I could go back and just stand up in the pew and rend my garment in outrage at this limited view of what we’re made for.

More to come!

More ambitious readers may be interested in my other new book on economics this year, coauthored with Victor Claar: The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We’re All Dead from Palgrave Macmillan. It’s a deep dive into the moral worldview that has predominated in mainstream economics – with big implications for our economies and cultures – since the invention of macroeconomics in the Keynesian Revolution.