According to one major index of economic freedom, by country, the US has been in steady decline since the early 2000s. In the Economic Freedom of the World 2016 Annual Report, the US has dropped from second best in the world to sixteenth or eighteenth. How does this happen? Anne Bradley, a Christian economist, offered her insights into this phenomenon during an interview with Joe Connors: How does this manifest itself? Through regulations which make it hard for a new mom and pop business to enter an industry because you’ve got these regulators using the legal system to block people…This gets to a bigger issue of what I call cronyism, some people call it crony capitalism – which I don’t really like – another word for it is corporatism, which is where you have big corporations with excess capital that can hire lobbyists and all these attorneys to try and negotiate with lawmakers to twist and shape the law to their own advantage.
She goes on to explain how big government and big corporations are monopolizing the business field, making it almost impossible for smaller businesses to be born and improve the economy. She then explains how Christians can contribute to the nation’s economic health:
As Christians, we want them [everyone] to be able to use their gifts and talents to do what God has called them to do… being literate in economics, just understanding the mechanics of how these things work can help. It’s being educated about what all this means and the implications for everyday people. And then it’s asking, “What has God created me to do?” and doing that with integrity and doing it well while being aware that regulations and special interests are going to be a part of your industry, whatever you go into. Try to fight that where you can.
Joe Connors also weighs in on this topic with his own advice for Christians looking to improve the economy:
The other aspect, especially for Christians, is that when you use government for more and more in this capacity, you’re essentially taking away the decision and the choices in certain situations, your calling and career and stuff like that…once we hand that off to government we’ve reduced our choices, we’ve reduced our ability to serve God and our fellow human beings in all kinds of unique and creative ways.
God has called each one of us to serve Him with our varied gifts, and in diverse professions with energy and integrity. At the same time, while economic issues such as government regulations may seem remote to daily life, they can and do affect the health of civic society and our own ability to work and serve. We need to bolster America’s economic freedom in order to be able to engage and enrich our communities, and serve one another in a variety of ways.
