Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2013

16 | Cedarville Magazine GOD’S ’ W hen some people think of “capitalism,” they think of robber barons in waistcoats and top hats smoking cigars and standing on the masses of poor whom they exploited to make their millions. But we could reasonably substitute the more accurate and less loaded term “economic liberty,” the economic system whereby people seek provision for themselves and for those in their care under laws that govern their free exchange of labor and goods and in the legal security of the gain they accrue. There are twoways of seeking prosperity: plunder and production. Plunder (theft, freebooty) is obviously wrong, though it’s not obvious to everyone. Plunder, by its nature, is competitive. One person’s gain is another’s loss. You have an iPod, I don’t. I take your iPod. I have an iPod, and now you don’t! But when people seek their prosperity through production and exchange, there is a harmony of gain. To be sure, producers are self-seeking, but they seek their gain only by paying sympathetic attention to their neighbor’s needs. For example, Ray Kroc saw that with the wider use of the automobile, Americans needed to get their food faster and simpler. He got rich, and we got yummy fast food. Sam Walton got rich providing low-cost goods under a big roof to ordinary people in small towns. It is true that production can at times also resort to plunder, such as when it markets adulterated food and unsafe products and when it subjects employees to unsafe working conditions to increase profits by reducing costs. For this reason, government regulation is necessary. It’s a form of policing the economic streets to prevent commercial mugging. Production creates wealth, and that makes it profoundly Christian. When God created man, He charged him with the creation mandate: “take dominion over the earth.” God created man from the dust of the ground. (Notice that the ground was dusty and useless). Then He placed man in the garden. Adam thus knew the dusty wilderness as well as the fruitful garden. And God told him both to cultivate the garden and to rule the earth. That is, Adamwas to bring out the wealth potential of the garden and to do the same with the wilderness of the world so that the rich and godly garden would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14). Everyone who works and who makes work — entrepreneurs, producers, laborers — is engaged in that enterprise of unfolding the latent wealth in God’s creation, and as such they are a blessing to their neighbors and their descendants, whether rich or poor. Henry Ford’s assembly line systemmade cars available to ordinary people and provided (through related companies and industries) good jobs for countless people worldwide. When people do this worshipfully, out of love for God (which Henry Ford did not), they by D.C. Innes Prosperity by Production (or Plunder) D.C. Innes and Lisa Sharon Harper hold both similar and different perspectives on the economy and the government’s role. They were co-presenters at last fall’s American Dream Conference, and they co-authored Left, Right & Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics . Their 2011 book explores their philosophical differences through the shared lens of their faith. continued on page 18