Economics - oikonomia (οἰκονομία): oiko (house/estate) nomia (law, management).
From a Christian perspective, the Bahnsen group offers this series (of 30 videos) upon sign up for free. A foundational principle on trading. This course is done in a way that it's not an optional elective subject. If you're a Christian, you must learn this. I am basically summarizing the entire course series using Granola and thus some of my summary is AI assisted. I skipped watching these videos myself because they work too slow for me. Saving it in a folder for my library drive.
I'll mention here some key take away:
Lecture 03: The goal is Human flourishing
Lecture 06: Foundation in Creation
God's created world prevents economic worldview of the false dichotomy of mere “wealth creators” vs mere “wealth consumers”.
Human purpose in economic life is a required mandate, even pre-fall.
Division of labor rooted in Garden of Eden - "fill the earth", diversity is creational, not accidental. Results in Adam Smith's "division of labor".
Macro systems working against creational truths must be resisted. - This is probably why the Bahnsen group's business approach is conservative. I think though the principle is sound, but applying those principles to policy is not straightforward. The principles may be fixed, but the policy conclusions often are not. Different societies can agree that dignity matters and still disagree on:
- child labor
- wage regulation
- welfare systems
- unions
- environmental rules
- trade policy
So the real dispute is often not over the value itself, but over which institutions best uphold it. Cultural differences matter. Creational truths may be stable; policy translation is contested.
Lecture 07: Anthropology
Asking why rather than just observe and discern patterns. This leads to incentives.
Viewing mankind as collective (not individual) or individual (not collective) in a mutually exclusive manner, is an error. The right economic system is one that aligns with all five anthropological realities (creative, rational, individual, social, sinful) simultaneously.
Lecture 08: Work is not a curse
The curse of work is only toil and anxiety, not work itself - parallels pain in childbirth, not bearing children. No work means idleness, purposelessness, and valuelessness. Ecc 5:18.
Work uniquely marries passion to skill:
- Passion without skill, or skill without passion, yields little satisfaction
- Their intersection is the “secret sauce” of happiness
Dignity argument: the strongest case against policies that make people nonproductive or noncontributory - I would say it depends on how you define dignity. Americans have fallen into a "don't judge" fallacy to really define dignity properly. Cross cultural evaluation of dignity is warranted, I believe.
The exponential happiness gain lies in unlocking creation’s potential, not in accumulating things. I can use this lesson, especially when you tend to become a hoarder.
Bahnsen's claim: Redistribution-focused systems are the truly materialistic ones. I think both capitalism (free enterprise) and communism fall prey to materialism. Communism is just conveniently worse.