{"id":21180,"date":"2026-06-27T12:28:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T16:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=21180"},"modified":"2026-06-27T16:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:02:07","slug":"free-economics-101-by-david-bahnsen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=21180","title":{"rendered":"Free Economics 101 by David Bahnsen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Economics - <em>oikonomia<\/em> (\u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b1): oiko (house\/estate) nomia (law, management).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From a Christian perspective, the Bahnsen group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bahnsen.com\/bahnsen-economics-course\">offers this series<\/a> (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. <strong>If you're a Christian, you must learn this<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I'll mention here some key take away:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Lecture 03: The goal is Human flourishing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Lecture 06: Foundation in Creation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">God's created world prevents economic worldview of the false dichotomy of <strong>mere \u201cwealth creators\u201d vs mere \u201cwealth consumers\u201d<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Human purpose in economic life is a required <strong>mandate, even pre-fall.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Division of labor <\/strong>rooted in Garden of Eden - \"<strong>fill the earth<\/strong>\", diversity is creational, not accidental. Results in Adam Smith's \"division of labor\".<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Macro <\/strong>systems working <strong>against creational truths must be resisted<\/strong>. - 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 <strong>not straightforward<\/strong>. The principles may be fixed, but the policy conclusions often are not. Different societies can agree that dignity matters and still disagree on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>child labor<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>wage regulation<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>welfare systems<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>unions<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>environmental rules<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>trade policy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the real dispute is often not over the value itself, but over <strong>which institutions best uphold it<\/strong>. Cultural differences matter. <strong>Creational truths may be stable; policy translation is contested.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Lecture 07: Anthropology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Asking why rather than just observe and discern patterns. This leads to incentives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Viewing mankind as collective (not individual) or individual (not collective) in a <strong>mutually exclusive manner, is an error<\/strong>. The right economic system is one that aligns with all <strong>five anthropological realities (creative, rational, individual, social, sinful)<\/strong> simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Lecture 08: Work is not a curse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The curse of work is only toil and anxiety, not work itself - parallels pain in childbirth, not bearing children. <strong>No work means idleness, purposelessness, and valuelessness.<\/strong> Ecc 5:18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Work <\/strong>uniquely marries <strong>passion <\/strong>to <strong>skill<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Passion without skill, or skill without passion, yields little satisfaction<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Their intersection is the \u201csecret sauce\u201d of happiness<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dignity argument<\/strong>: the strongest case <strong>against <\/strong>policies that make people <strong>nonproductive or noncontributory<\/strong> - I would say it depends on how you define dignity. Americans have fallen into a \"<strong>don't judge<\/strong>\" fallacy to really define dignity properly. Cross cultural evaluation of dignity is warranted, I believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The exponential happiness gain lies in <strong>unlocking creation\u2019s potential<\/strong>, <strong>not in accumulating things<\/strong>. I can use this lesson, especially when you tend to become a <strong>hoarder<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bahnsen's claim: <strong>Redistribution-focused systems<\/strong> are the truly materialistic ones. I think both capitalism (<strong>free enterprise<\/strong>) and communism fall prey to materialism. Communism is just conveniently worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economics - oikonomia (\u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b1): 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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=21180\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-theologization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21180"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21224,"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21180\/revisions\/21224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}