Despite the recent economic meltdown, most people would agree that free markets have improved the lives of billions of people. Many people today are living longer and wealthier than anyone ever has, in large part because free markets incentivize us to create products that other people want to buy. Entrepreneurs who knew that they would profit from their efforts invented vaccines, computers, microwaves, and indoor plumbing.
However, free markets are not an unqualified good. They’re simply the most efficient way to provide consumers what they want. What markets can’t do is tell us what we should want. If consumers want relief from the heat of summer, markets will connect them with the sellers of air conditioners. If consumers want to get rich quick through games of chance, markets will supply them with casinos.
In short, markets amplify whatever we are. If you want to know who you are, look at what you buy—it’s yourself revealed. What is on your iPod, credit card statement, or television schedule? The fruit you find there indicates what kind of tree you are (Matthew 7:17-18,20).
Markets also amplify by enlarging our effect on others. A medieval materialist would horde his gold, and that would be the end of it. But now, through the amplifying power of markets, a materialist who buys a behemoth home supports an entire industry that builds McMansions, and an immoral person who clicks on pornography encourages producers to make more of it.
Every purchase is a vote for the product we buy. If we choose coarse, banal, or risqué entertainment, our culture will flood the market with more.
No man is an island. That has never been truer than now. And God will some day judge the choices we make today (Matthew 7:19; Hebrews 6:8).
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Esther 3:1-15
More:
Read Luke 12:13-21 to see how our choices amplify ourselves, and read Romans 14:13– 15:4 to see how our choices may help or hurt others.
Next:
How might a “buycott” be better than a boycott? What would happen if we banded together to publicly support the good stuff rather than drawing attention to the offensive?
lindagma on May 4, 2011 at 5:59 am
A super perspective and quite thought provoking. I never considered looking at my checkbook as a check for my spiritual condition…but there you are. Not that I’m purchasing porn…but where are my priorities? GREAT message.
mike wittmer on May 4, 2011 at 7:28 am
I know–and just as bad is that my purchases signal producers tomake more of whatever I buy. So my spending affects others as well.
Alvin on May 4, 2011 at 9:49 am
An eye-opener for me. Not that we should boycott everything producers produce, after all, we are consumers. They produce these goods for humanity’s sake and demands. Nonetheless, we should be very cautious of what we patronize. Many people are already in the brink of full blown materialism not being fully aware that what they they consume are not a NEED but more of a WANT. Worst thing, if these purchases are ungodly and exploitative. Well, … I am not excluding myself on this. Thanks for the message.
eppistle on May 4, 2011 at 12:45 pm
I think that there’s implications here for investing in mutual funds. Many mutual funds investments in things like tobacco and casinos. Hardly any mutual fund is lily white, unless you buy socially responsible mutual funds like the Timothy Fund, Mennonite Mutual Funds, and Domini Social. Are these socially responsible funds the only good alternative for Christians?
winn collier on May 4, 2011 at 6:51 pm
another encouragement to leave an embodied, real-word faith. Thanks, Mike!