Political Freedom, Economic Freedom and Biblical Anthropology
Published on October 9th, 2009.
Everyone is a theologian. The more carefully we think about any one particular subject the more our theology comes to bear on that subject.
This is certainly true for economics.
Forty-seven years ago Milton Friedman published his classic work, Capitalism and Freedom. Friedman was not a Christian man, but he consciously or unconsciously assumed a Biblical understanding of what human beings are like in the development of his economic philosophy. Namely, humans are capable of great things, but humans are imperfect.
Concerning the role of government as a rule maker and umpire, Friedman writes, “The need for government in these respects arises because absolute freedom is impossible. However attractive anarchy may be as a philosophy, it is not feasible in a world of imperfect men” (25).
Yet, while Milton Friedman recognized the important role that government has to play in legislating our behavior, this did not mean that government is is trusted without qualification. The government is made up of the same imperfect people it is organized to govern.
In the following paragraphs Milton Friedman expresses the importance of economic freedom for political freedom.
Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic or organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables one to offset the other.
Historical evidence speaks with a single voice on the relation between political freedom and a free market. I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.
Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in the early days of the Roman era.
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition (9).
Friedman believes what he believes about the way the economy should work because of what he believes about human nature. He’s right – the story of human history is a story of trouble. Economic and political structures may occasion the expression of the good or the bad in people, but economic and political structures cannot ultimately explain why history tells the story that it does.
But while capitalism provides for human flourishing in a way that other structures cannot, Friedman’s last sentence is important. Capitalism will not bring about anything close to a perfect and pain free world. Capitalism does not preclude the abuse of political power and capitalism doesn’t make free people good people. That’s something for which we can trust God alone to provide through the gospel of his Son.
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