No Free Lunch: Economics for a Fallen World: Third Edition, Revised

Chapter Five: Supply & Demand: Markets at Work 108 why God is just in doing what he sovereignly wills to happen: we are His property, His creation, created for His glory. He is free to use us for noble or base purposes, because we are His (Romans 9:21) . We, His creatures, are made in His image and are free—indeed required—to exercise stewardship over the resources God has entrusted to us. And we will give an account (Matthew 25:14-30 )! We are free to exercise stewardship unwisely on our selfish pursuits, or faithfully in accordance with what we believe God calls us to do. Stewardship over assets that God puts under our control will often involve markets as we exchange some assets for others for more productive combinations. God gives us freedom, and freedom gives rise to markets as we exercise stewardship over the assets that God puts under our control. Once we see that markets are really just the result of individual actions (as Adam Smith said) to “truck, barter and exchange,” we see that markets are simply many individuals with competing bids for any given good. I have to admit, I am a bit of an eBay and Craigslist junkie and am always on the lookout for inexpensive “treasures” that I don’t really need. If the price is low enough, I end up buying it because it’s simply too good a deal! Maybe some of you do this too. One of the things I learned quickly on eBay is that just because the current bid on an item is very low, even with only a few minutes left on a seven-day auction, that doesn’t mean it will sell cheaply. I would bid on an item and be the top bidder for several days, and then with just a few seconds to go, someone would come in and bid above me and I would lose the item. I’d been “sniped!” The eBay auction is a market, and there are competing bids for any asset. The seller of the item wasn’t at my mercy, as there were many other potential bidders. Likewise, I wasn’t at his mercy; there are almost always similar items for sale now or in the near future. I had to compete against other potential buyers; the seller has to compete against other potential sellers. Public discourse sometime suggests that economic competition is between “management” and “workers,” but in reality economic competition is always just the opposite : Buyers compete against buyers; sellers compete against sellers. This is so absolutely true and so often misunderstood that we must take a few moments to elaborate. Trade union literature often follows the class envy approach of the communist manifesto. Here is one example found on the web: “Does anyone believe that the type of manager that we have seen pillaging the economy on Wall Street, or stealing jobs and already earned pay from workers at Republic Window & Door in Chicago, is an exception to the rule? (expletive) no. American managers are congenitally ruthless exploiters of human beings constrained only by unions or their fear of unions, and by the protective legislation, such as minimum wage laws, Stewardship: the care of assigned resources that are owned by another. In a biblical sense, stewardship is the careful management of the time, treasures, and talents that God has given us, in order to bring glory to God.