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Economic
Thinking
for the
Theologically
Minded
by Samuel
Gregg
University
Press of America: November
2001. 170 pages
The
Invisible Heart:
An Economic Romance
by Robert D. Russell
MIT Press:
February 2001. 288 pages.
Reviewed
by Lynn Heath
Economic Thinking for the
Theologically Minded was written by Samuel Gregg who is Director of Research
at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids
(please click to visit), Michigan and Visiting Professor at the John Paul
II Pontifical Institute for the Study of Marriage and the Family. He
has a M.A. in political philosophy from the University of Melbourne and a
Ph.D. in moral philosophy from the University of Oxford. He studied
at Oxford as a Commonwealth Scholar.
Gregg's book is divided into
two parts. In the first he introduces and explains the
"economic way of thinking." He then subjects the concepts
and foundational assumptions in economics to analysis from the perspective
of Christian ethics with emphasis on the degree of agreement between the
economic and Christian understandings of human nature. Both agree,
for instance, that human beings have free will.
The second part of the book is a collection of well selected statements
and brief essays from classic economic texts and other writings from a variety
of schools of thought. These selections are arranged around the the
themes of: propetry, trade, intervention, value and price theories, the
definition of economics, wages, money, mutually beneficial exchanges, marginal
utility, unintended consequences, profit, supply and demand, division of labor, and
taxes. Each theme is introduced by a brief description and is
intended to reinforce the arguments of Part I.
Gregg believes that Christians are obligated to help the poor. The question of "how" to help is complex, and Gregg thinks
Christians can be aided in this by understanding the basics of economics. First, he
believes that what ever aid is given should not diminish personal human dignity,
which is present because we are made in the image of God. Second, he
believes that helping the less fortunate should be "assistance"
rather than "usurping their free will and reason." We must
help in ways that allow people to rise to a level of well-being that
allows them to think and freely choose between real options, but we must
not help in ways that encourage dependency.
Gregg's quotations include the ancient as well as the most modern
authorities: Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Adam
Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek, John Maynard
Keynes, and Milton Friedman.
A number of quotations come from the Spanish Scholastics who were
theologians in the School of Salamanca and are credited by some as being
the first scientific economists. The extent of economic thinking by
scholars in the School of Salamanca is remarkable and is illustrated by this quote
written by Luis Saravia circa 1544 about the "just price" of
goods or services:
Therefore,
those who measure the just price by the labour, costs, and risk incurred
by the person who deals in the merchandise or produces it, or by the cost
of transport, or the expense of traveling to and from the fair, or by what
he has to pay the factors for their industry, risk, and labour are greatly
in error, and still more so are those who allow a certain profit of a
fifth or tenth. For the just price arises from the abundance or
scarcity of goods, merchants, and money, as has been said, and not from
costs, labour and risk. If we had to consider labour and risk in order to assess the just price, no merchants would ever suffer a loss, nor
would abundance or scarcity of goods and money enter into the question.
The book is only 170 pages long including references. There are no
graphs or complicated economic formulas. It is a short book which
can help a person understand economics in a Christian context.
If you prefer your economics lessons to
come with more humor and
romance, you must read The Invivisible Heart by Russell D. Roberts
(MIT Press: February 2001. 288 pages). This is an entertaining
story of a budding romance between Sam Gordon and Laura Silver, two
endearing characters who teach in an exclusive prep school in Washington
D.C. Sam teaches a senior elective course called "The World Of
Economics". Sam is a free-market capitalist. Laura Silver
teaches English literature, and is a liberal who believes that all
citizens need the government to protect them from people like Sam Gordon.
However, these two people are very attracted to each other and an
on-again-off-again romance begins. At the same time across town in a
government building a crusading head of a watch-dog agency tries to bring
a ruthless CEO, Charles Krauss, to justice. The conversations between the
participants in this entertaining novel are paraphrases of arguments made
by many of the greatest socialists and economists who have ever lived.
The romance is charming and the pursuit of evil doers is attention
grabbing.
At 288 pages The Invisible Heart still doesn't take any longer to
read than the more dense 170 pages of Economic Thinking for the
Theologically Minded. And, of course, it is fun as well as thought
provoking.
Russell
D. Roberts is the John M. Olin Senior Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the
University of Chicago.
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