Innovation is an ethical matter through and through, says Chris MacDonald, because ethics is fundamentally concerned with anything that can promote or hinder human wellbeing.

Innovation is generally a good thing, ethically, because it is aimed at allowing us to do new and desirable things. Most typically, that gets expressed in the painfully vague ambition to ‘raise productivity.’ Accelerating our rate of innovation is a worthy policy objective because we want to be more productive as a society, to increase our social ‘wealth’ in the broadest sense. The 20th Century has seen a phenomenal burst of innovation and increases in wellbeing, exemplified not least by the fact that life expectancies in North American have risen by more than half over the last hundred years. The extension and enriching of human lives are good goals, which in turn makes innovation generally a good thing.

Read more on Innovation is a Moral Obligation…

In the forthcoming issue of Comment magazine, I examine how free trade orients us towards the good of others. In doing so, I argue against the value of pious banalities and cheap slogans. I include examples like, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” or, “When goods do not cross borders, armies will.” The latter is often attributed to Bastiat, and while it captures the spirit, if not the letter of Bastiat’s views, the closest analogue is actually found in Otto Tod Mallery: “If soldiers are not to cross international boundaries on missions of war,” wrote Mallery in 1943, then “goods must cross them on missions of peace.”

Read more on Trade, Aid, and Bumper Sticker Strategy…

I recently wrote about the need to reach beyond an earthbound economics, re-orienting our thinking around a more transcendent framework that requires active spiritual engagement and discernment. Even as Christians, far too often we set our focus too strongly on temporal features like material needs, happiness, and quality of life—all of which come into play accordingly—without first concerning ourselves with what God is actually calling us to do as individuals.

Read more on From the Roots of Society to the Fruits of Discipleship…

Coolidge and pitching great Walter Johnson.

Calvin Coolidge is ripe for national recognition and his wisdom is being sought out perhaps now more than ever. If you’re a voracious reader of commentary and columns you’ve noticed his common sense adages are being unearthed at a rapid pace. Most of the credit and recognition for the Coolidge revival goes to Amity Shlaes. Her newly released and splendid biography Coolidge can’t be recommended enough. (Full review on the PowerBlog forthcoming)

Read more on Calvin Coolidge: A Rare Kind of Hero…

Georgene Rice recently interviewed Samuel Gregg about his latest book, Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America can Avoid a European Future.  Her show airs on KDPQ FM in Portland, Oregon.

Read more on Audio: Samuel Gregg Discusses ‘Becoming Europe’ on the Georgene Rice Show…

Reflecting on the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, Philip Booth, professor at Cass Business School in London, says the pope was clear on his economic ideas.

As he said in Caritas in Veritate: “Economy and finance, as instruments, can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. But it is man’s darkened reason that produces these consequences, not the instrument per se”. In other words, credit derivative swaps are not evil, but those who abuse them might be.

Read more on Pope Benedict: The Capitalist System is Virtuous…

As occurrences of preventable diseases increase and the debt deepens, some look to “sin taxes” as an easy to solution to both problems. Thirty-three states have even gone as far as to implement a soda tax in an attempt to curb obesity. At first glance sin taxes seem to be a good idea, but they can actually cause more harm than good.

Read more on A Rapidly Expanding ‘Sindustry’…

After decades of bloody turmoil between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, on March 26, 2007, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, sitting side-by-side at Stormont confirmed that power-sharing will return to Northern Ireland on May 8th of that same year. It was supposed to be a “new era.” Unfortunately, in order for Ireland to recover from decades of a very complicated history it needs a growing economy. Northern Ireland’s economy is in steep decline because it remains such a high-taxed welfare state.

For example, jobless remains at extremely high levels. The BBC reports that between June and August of 2011 8.1% of the population were unemployed. In fact,

Over the year, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit has increased by 4.8%, to 63,400, while in the UK as a whole the figure has fallen by 1.4%. A large proportion of the unemployed are young people, with 21.1% of those between aged between 18 and 24 now unemployed, up 3.0% over the year.

Northern Ireland also has high minimum wage rates—about $7.87/hr for workers 18-20 years-old—and a ridiculous corporate tax rate of 24%. This “one-two punch” does nothing but discourage the starting of new businesses, foreign direct investment, and provide incentives for companies not to hire young people. The Central Bank of Ireland, in a moment of common sense, now believes that maybe, just maybe, high corporate taxes stifle job creation. According to the BBC,
Read more on Northern Ireland: Coming to America?…

In this abridged version of the video series Economics for Everybody, R.C Sproul Jr. explains why it’s important for Christians to understand economics. Economics Has Consequences pulls together some of the key aspects of the original series into one film, including introductions to such basic principles of economics as stewardship, civil government, work, wealth, and entrepreneurism. The second section explores the impact of government intervention on education, the money supply, welfare, depressions, markets, and more.

Read more on Economics Has Consequences…

The newest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality has been published. The issue is available in digital format online and should be arriving in print in the next few weeks for subscribers. This issue continues to offer academic engagement with the morality of the marketplace and with faith and the free society, including articles on economic engagement with Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate, biblical teaching on wealth and poverty, schools as social enterprises, the Reformed philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd’s economic theory, and much more.

As we have done in the past, Jordan Ballor’s editorial is open access, even to non-subscribers. In “Between Greedy Individualism Editorial and Benevolent Collectivism” he examines the enduring impact of Michael Novak’s The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, writing,

At the time of its publication, Novak’s work must have been like a window thrust wide open in a dank room, introducing a breath of fresh air and the sanitizing rays of sunlight. Against ideologies that posit state power as a neutral or even benevolent force arising of necessity against the rapaciousness of the market, Novak observed instead that it was democratic capitalism that arose first as a system designed to check the invasiveness of state tyranny. The “founders of democratic capitalism,” wrote Novak, “wished to build a center of power to rival the power of the state.” Indeed, “they did not fear unrestrained economic power as much as they feared political tyranny.” Still more would they fear the union of economic and political power that we find all too often today in corrupt and cronyist regimes.

You can read his full editorial here. Read more on New Issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality (15.2)…