Thursday, July 24, 2008

Myths Christians Believe About Wealth and Poverty

Christians need to be good thinkers and good economists -- in order to be good stewards for the Lord. Jay Richards points out eight myths that many Christians believe about economics:

The nirvana myth (contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its live alternatives)
The zero-sum game myth (believing that wealth gained in one place always means that wealth was lost someplace else)
The materialist myth (believing that intellect cannot create new wealth)
The greed myth (believing that the essence of capitalism is greed)
The usury myth (believing that charging interest on money is always exploitive)
The piety myth (focusing on our good intentions rather than the unintended consequences of our actions)
The artsy myth (confusing aesthetic judgments with economic arguments)
The freeze frame myth (believing that things always stay the same—for example, assuming population trends will continue indefinitely or treating “rich” and “poor” as static categories

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