Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2013

14 | Cedarville Magazine cedarville.edu/mba Now enrolling the inaugural class starting fall 2013! Equipping Christian Leaders online MBA C E D A R V I L L E U N I V E R S I T Y Johann Sebastian Bach was a devout Christian and prolific genius. He wrote a cantata for every week of the Church calendar; they fell off his pen. When he was asked, “Why do you write music?” he replied, “I write music for the glory of God and the enjoyment of man.”That is earned success. Your life is an instrument for God’s glory. It has nothing to do with money. It doesn’t matter how you count success — saving souls, cleaning up the environment, or teaching kids to read. If you compare two people who are precisely the same age, race, sex, religion, and have the same level of university training, and both say they have earned their success — even if one person earns eight times what the second person earns — they are equally likely to say they are happy about their lives. Free enterprise offers a system where you can match your skills with your passions and keep the rewards. You may object, saying, “Earned success sounds great, but can everybody get it? We don’t all start from the same place. Some people are born rich, smart, and beautiful; others not so much. You can’t convince me free enterprise is a moral system until you can convince me that it helps the poor.” The Opportunity to Succeed Since 1970, the percentage of the world’s population that lives on less than $1 a day has declined by 80 percent. What caused that, the fabulous success of the United Nations?The international monetary fund? The World Bank? U.S. foreign aid? No, no, no, and no. Globalization, free trade, entrepreneurship, rule of law, and property rights — the American system of free enterprise — has pulled billions of people around the world out of poverty. Someone in China is sending her child to school for the first time. Someone in sub-Saharan Africa is not burying a baby. Free enterprise is the only choice for a Good Samaritan, as far as I’m concerned. That is the best moral case for the system we can make. When we weaken it and roll it back in America, we will be a little poorer, perhaps inconvenienced, but someone in the world, unseen and unheard, will die. Those are the stakes. Free enterprise is the greatest antipoverty achievement in the history of humankind. There’s still too much poverty around the world and in America, and I urge you to dedicate your life to eradicating poverty. Perhaps, like me, you consider yourself a Matthew 25 Christian — when you invest wisely, work hard, andmake good decisions, you deserve your reward. But this chapter with the parable of the talents concludes with the admonition that whatever we do for the “least of these” we do unto Christ (Matt. 25:40). What does the little girl in the car need? She needs relief, and she needs opportunity. I believe we need a safety net, even from the government, for the truly indigent. But she also needs opportunity and human dignity, and only the free enterprise system will make that possible. Arthur C. Brooks is President of the American Enterprise Institute and best-selling author of The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise . View a video of his complete American Dream Conference remarks at cedarville.edu/americandream . Free enterprise is the greatest antipoverty achievement in the history of humankind