All peoples have their idols. Rugby has become a dominant idol in New Zealand. For many people, winning the Rugby World Cup is the most important thing that could happen to New Zealand.
I have always believed that this idol will have to be humbled before New Zealand can see a real revival. It will be interesting to see whether our rugby idol will be humbled, or deliver our hope.
For many people, the free market is an idol of fear. Primitive people blamed bad harvests on failure to appease the weather Gods. They made an idol out of something that they feared. We know that the weather gods do not exist. Modern people like to blame the troubles of economic life on the free market. Some have built "the market" up into something evil with terrible powers to do harm. Oliver O'Donovan refers to the market as a personality and calls it Leviathan.Markets do not regulate themselves. They adjust themselves, but like the brutish and short-sighted Leviathans they are, they trample people beneath their feet while the do so. (The Ways of Judgment, p.65.)
Donovan and those who fear the market are raising up an idol that does not exist.
The reality is that the market does not close factories and lay people off. This is done by the managers and owners of businesses. They might say that they market forced them to close the factory, but that would not really be correct, either. It would be more correct to say that the people stopped being willing to buy what the factory produced at the price that was offered.
To be morally responsible, an entity must be able to make decisions and understand the consequences of their actions. Markets cannot think. Markets cannot make decisions. So markets are not moral entities. The moral decisions are made by people participating in the market. They are the ones with moral responsibility.
Contrary, to what most people think, markets do not set prices. In fact prices are never really set. In a market, you can see offers to sell for a price. You can see other people offering to buy at a price. You sometimes see a transaction occurring at a price, when the offers of a buyer and a seller coincide, but that does not set the price. A transaction may never occur at particular price again, if no other buyer or seller is willing to trade at that price. Buyers and seller decide prices, by agreeing to a transaction at a particular price. But they only set the price for their transaction. Their deal may influence the price for later transactions, but it does not set a price.
Those who speak as if the market can make decisions, be morally responsible and cause evil are idolising the market. Some people have built the market up into something mysterious and malignant with terrible powers to do harm. This gives them something to blame, but they have created an idol that does not exist. My approach is to demystify the market. A market is nothing more than communication and interaction between people.
In a comment on a previous post, Ted Gossard suggested that a problem with the market is that people idolise it. He is also concerned that the market leaves some people unemployed and poor. These are good concerns. I will answer these concerns and show how the are related in the next couple of posts.
People cannot idolise many things. Some Christians idolise the Bible, but that does not make the Bible immoral. The correct response to God word is to worship and obey him, but that does not stop people from idolising the word. People can make an idol of the game of football, but that does not make it morally wrong. God gave us the ability to communicate in markets. We should thank him for that gift and operate by his standards when active in markets. People can idolise the market but that does not make it wrong or immoral.
The sin of idolatry is in the heart is in the heart of the person idolising the idol, not the object of idolatry. A block of wood is not evil, because someone could make it into an idol.
There are two types of idol:
We sometimes make an idol of something we love, but we also have a tendency to make an idol of something that we fear.
Some people in the United States are so passionate about the free market that they have made it into an idol. They allow the market to shape their lives and their morality. If something will sell, then it must be good. This is misguided, because God is the one who determines good and evil. Many things that happen in a free market are morally wrong by his standards.
For many people, the free market is an idol of fear. Primitive people blamed bad harvests on failure to appease the weather Gods. They made an idol out of something that they feared.
My approach is to demystify the market. Other people seem to build it up into something mysterious and malignant with terrible powers to do harm. It gives them something to blame, but they have created an idol that does not exist.
