The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
The other day I listened to the podcast in which Ricochet member R. J. Moeller interviewed Fr. Robert Sirico about the good father's new book, Defending the Free Markets: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. One of Fr. Sirico's insights struck me as so compelling that I found myself scrolling backwards and forwards on my iPod to listen to it over and over.
A lot of people, R. J. noted, would grant that there are practical arguments for free markets--the markets work, after all, producing goods and service--but nevertheless wonder why Fr. Sirico insists on making the moral case. Could Fr. Sirico explain himself?
Fr. Sirico's reply:
Think about who human beings are, the fact that we have a physical body and the fact that we also transcend our physicality. We all know that. We just observe ourselves and we see our physicality. But then we experience our transcendence when we fall in love or when we appreciate art and beauty.
Those are indications that there is something more than the purely material to our existence, that there is something spiritual to our existence. Our touching the material world with our transcendence – with our minds, with our reason, with our creativity, with our courage – brings forth from nature resources that would lie dormant and useless to humanity but for the fact that we touched them and brought them forth.
This begins the moral argument for the free society and the free economy.
The fundamental economic act: touching the material world with our transcendence.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
Update: Over on "Values & Capitalism," the blog of the American Enterprise Institute, R. J. has just posted a review of Fr. Sirico's book.
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Aug '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
Elegant. Luminous. Just what we need in this darkening time.
Oct '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
As Paul Ryan and others have stressed, it's time to make the moral argument. Talking lower taxes and budget cuts has its place, but it falls on deaf ears when not joined to a powerful moral argument. Thanks, Peter.
Mar '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread..." Genesis 3:19
Jun '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
I can't wait to read Father Sirico's book. It sounds like a noble successor to Michael Novak's The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (a book that deserves to read by 21st century readers).
Dec '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
That Father Sirico sounds like a wise man! :)
Thanks for the shout-out, Peter. For those interested, I also wrote a review of his book this week. Check it out here.
Few people speak with the passion, wisdom and eloquence of Rev. Sirico. Please familiarize yourself with him! Whether you are religious or not, he has things Americans need to hear.
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
Am in total and emphatic agreement about Michael Novak's book, tabula. A major, major piece of work that will appeal to everyone who cares about the morality of both democracy and capitalism.
Apr '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
Sorry to sound a sour note, but how would this work exactly? If we are not making stained glass windows or something beautiful or transcendent then the free market is a no-go? I think capitalism and the free market gets way overthought sometimes. How about the justification for the free-market is that it is the only system that allows rational, honest people to conduct voluntary arms-length transactions without the threat of force.
Jun '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
Think of all the people in history, not necessarily all rich, that were friends of an artist in the early years, who bought their paintings to the point of collecting. Not as an investor, but just because they liked it. Occasionally, thirty or forty years later, they seem like an investment genius. But that's not why they collected it. They just liked it. It spoke to them. It's always easy to misunderstand why people do things. Whether an investment was made for love, or for money, doesn't really matter. The market works just fine either way. It's very ecumenical in that way.
Mar '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
As I'm not a religious person, and my moments of transcendence have been rather fleeting or frustrating, I'm with Peter M, rather than Peter R.
I think Adam Smith didn't need to refer to transcendence to make the moral argument for free markets. At the moment, in the BBC Reith Lectures of all places, Niall Ferguson is making the modern version of Prof Smith's case - extremely eloquently.
Sep '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
"Our touching the material world with our transcendence – with our minds, with our reason, with our creativity, with our courage – brings forth from nature resources that would lie dormant and useless to humanity but for the fact that we touched them and brought them forth."
I think it's as simple as making trees into boards that are useful for structures, or discovering that metal alloys make great tools. It doesn't necessarily have to be aesthetically pleasing, just using our creative mind to make something out of what we have.
That said, even in unfree markets humans create. However, if we don't have the freedom to exercise our creativity, we create the Trabant, instead of the BMW. Or the Soviet apartment block instead of Biltmore.
Apr '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
DutchTex:
I think it's as simple as making trees into boards that are useful for structures, or discovering that metal alloys make great tools. It doesn't necessarily have to be aesthetically pleasing, just using our creative mind to make something out of what we have.
What if you slaughter chickens for a living? Allowed or not under this analysis?
Dec '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
Yes, Dutch. I'd say it's a too constrained definition of transcendence. A pencil transcends the natural conditions of the materials used to make it. From the religious view, human productivity could be described as cooperation in God's creative enterprise. But, I don't think you have to be religious to see the truth of the pencil example.
Sep '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
I found myself thinking of George Gilder's statement that by dint of human enginuity silicone chips more valuable than gold could be created from elements as common as sand. Of course we can transcend the physical world by simple cooperation as well.
Dec '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
Peter Meza
DutchTex:
I think it's as simple as making trees into boards that are useful for structures, or discovering that metal alloys make great tools. It doesn't necessarily have to be aesthetically pleasing, just using our creative mind to make something out of what we have.
What if you slaughter chickens for a living? Allowed or not under this analysis? · 30 minutes ago
Food production? You betcha. Money and the free exchange thereof is a voluntary exchange of life-force. And besides, I'd hate to have to slaughter my own chickens. Yuck.
May '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
I wonder if we miss the moral aspect of market freedom because of how markets are discussed (and defined) in the much colder and limited language of economics, with its convenient fictions of the perfectly rational buyer and the cost/benefit analysis for pure profit optimization. There is little room for a moral consideration in most economic thinking.
But people who live and work in real markets know that decisions are actually based on many, more subtle factors, and that people daily opt to spend their time, attention and money is ways that confound the purely rational.
As Fr. Sirico implies, our transcendence will become "physical" or realized in the many decisions we make about how we will participate in a free market, embedded in a free society (there is a free market of ideas, and of words, in addition to a free market of goods).
If remove the freedom, those choices lose their meaning, and lose any hope of transcendence.
Jan '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
I start with Matthew 25: 14-30. God expects us to engage in the world, take risks, and profit. You might argue that Jesus isn't recommending a Wall Street theology (true) but he's clearly teaching us to engage the world. Join it.
Continue with Gaudium et Spes from Vatican II, Laborem Exercens from JPII, and various others.
We can engage the world in a lot of ways. Of course, human life essentially includes the mundane tasks of taking case of food, shelter, and so on ... but instead of seeing these tasks as minor details to overcome before getting to the real stuff ... maybe day-to-day economics is the real stuff. Making a living is a noble way to engage the world. Starting a business that serves the public and provides jobs is a noble way to engage the world.
Participating in a market, done properly, produces a host of side benefits. The condition of the poor could easily be improved by those side benefits. In fact, I'd argue that the only way to improve the condition of the poor is to generate those benefits through the market.
I'm eager to read Sirico's book.
Jun '10
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
This is the argument for private property which is the fundamental basis of free markets. I explain to my lefty friends (who respect art as a general rule - and I am a sculptor when not appraising property) that surely the hundreds of hours, inspiration, and ideas that go into making a stone work entitle me to claim ownership. After all it would be immoral for someone else to assert ownership or control.
May '12
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
I love this podcast!
I think I will re-read my edition of Hayak, and see about getting hold of a copy of Bastiat.
I am something of a Classics man. I am still working my way through The Skeptical Chymist.
Mar '12
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
I'm nominating this post for the Ricochet Post of the Week coffee cup.
Apr '11
Re: The Most Important and Beautifully Expressed Insight into Economics I've Ever Heard
This topic still really bothers me. I think there is a real danger of mixing the free market with spirituality. At best, I think it unnecessary to mix the two. Besides which, the Bible, and the Catholic church for that matter are overflowing with admonishments about greed, getting rich, and guilt in general for actually participating in the free market. Isn't it easier to believe in a more mundane explanation of capitalism and just refuse to accept the guilt. Then you won't need the highfalutin explanations.