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

Chapter Nine: P31W: Enter the Entrepreneur! 215 THE ENTREPRENEUR AS CREATIVE DESTROYER The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter identified another important function of entrepreneurship: creative destruction. Schumpeter focused on the creative technologies that market systems tended to create—technologies that revolutionized the way the world works. When those revolutions happened, fortunes would be made, but others’ livelihoods would be destroyed. The invention of the automobile put a whole line of industry, blacksmiths, effectively out of business. These innovations are continuous, and are seemingly being created at an increasing rate. Moore’s law has computer processing speeds doubling every two years, and information is flowing phenomenally throughout the world, courtesy of the Internet (including the gospel!). As economist Deirdre McCloskey says, “Efficiency is not the chief merit of a market economy: innovation is.” “Efficiency is not the chief merit of a market economy: innovation is.” DAVID VS. GOLIATH: CREATIVE DESTRUCTION! 1 Samuel 17:32-37 “ 32 David said to Saul, ‘Let no man’s heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.’ 33 Then Saul said to David, ‘You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth.’ 34 But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God.’ 37 And David said, ‘The L ORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.’ And Saul said to David, ‘Go, and may the L ORD be with you.’” You know the rest of the story. David took a smooth stone in his sling and sank it deep into Goliath’s temple, killing him and causing the Philistines to flee. Yes, there was physical destruction, and it was creative. Who would have thought of using a stone in a sling to kill a giant? David was indeed an entrepreneurial warrior—coming up with new techniques to replace old ways of fighting. But the physical differences were not really the innovation coming from the future leader, but rather the spiritual differences between David and all others. David had a faith that was truly gigantic. Not only could he be indignant at the affront against the living God that these Philistines were making, and not only would he voice that indignation to men (including the King!), but also in the very presence of Goliath. Facing certain death from a human perspective, he scoffed at the threat of Goliath, for he knew the certainty of God’s deliverance. Just before David killed Goliath, he responded to Goliath’s snide remarks with these words: “‘You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the L ORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the L ORD will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel…’” (1 Sam 17:45- 46) Now that is Faith! And a spiritual entrepreneur.