On the so-called “free market” and the economic idolatry of the “invisible hand”:
“The alcoholic with plenty of money and access to an open liquor store may, in a purely negative sense, be free from anything interfering with getting what he wants; but in reality he is profoundly unfree and cannot free himself.”
William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed, p. 8.
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
June 17, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Joseph
economic idolatry? What’s your suggestion for an alternative system?
June 18, 2009 at 5:50 am
Casey Bessette
I’m not trying to suggest anything is wrong with the “free market” as such, I’m just pointing out the necessary connection between religion and economics. Even in the secular thinking of Adam Smith there must be an “invisible hand,” presumably some sort of god, who tells men everywhere that all there desires are legitimate because economically feasible. The alternative system is the one that will be consummated at Christ’s second coming (in other words, no perfect system exists this side of the eschaton).