More About This Blog

It's already been a few hours since my first post, and many things are still on my mind from discussions with various folk in recent weeks, on Facebook and elsewhere.

I should emphasise, if I haven't already, this blog is an attempt to collect my thoughts somewhere where they can be challenged or encouraged, and generally refined as they need to be.

It's not an attempt to raise economics above the Bible, or above other issues when people decide their political affiliation. It most certainly is not an attempt to paint one particular party as the Christian party; all parties are composed of fallen, sinful people and everyone knows that collective organisations of sinful people can make rather large pigs ears of things.

However, how broadly should economics be defined is an important question? A friend suggests social justice should come above economics in the grand scheme of things when we consider where our Christian vote or political affiliation goes. According to Wikipedia, "Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating an egalitarian society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being".

There's little doubt that social justice is a philosophical concept but also clearly it is an economics concept, and I suspect I'll be coming back to this again and again. Notably because in order to create a society that satisfies what Christians would decide to be the appropriate level of human right recognition and dignity, one has to have a deep understanding of the economic mechanisms at work that produce particular outcomes in society.

Often a free market can provide exactly this: Dignity and freedom for all participants. But economic theory is fairly clear that this happens when a market is competitive and all participants are price takers. Once we move away from this paradigm then we start to enter the realm where dignity is not afforded to all by the market and the question is what do we do then?

If we intervene we have to humbly recognise that government failure can be just as bad if not worse than the market failure that prompted it. We also have to give due consideration to the structures we will set in place; what incentives will they provide for market participants?

As I say, I'll come back to this plenty in the weeks and months to come I expect. But hopefully I've made it fairly clear that economics has to play a huge role in the matters important to a Bible-adhering Christian, and a good understanding of economics is very important when that Christian comes to think about politics and policies.