Let the market work

by Jordan J. Ballor • October 5, 2005

Check out this exchange, involving Tony Blankley from The Washington Times, Pat Buchanan of MSNBC, and Eleanor Clift of Newsweek, from last week’s McLaughlin Group about President Bush’s call for people to conserve gasoline in their daily activities:

MR. BLANKLEY: Let me make a quick point. Free-market prices maintain equilibrium of supply and demand. Let the price go up. People will make individual decisions.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Right.

MR. BLANKLEY: And they will cut back. They did when the prices went up. Some did; some didn’t. The idea of hortatory calls for conservation never work.

MR. BUCHANAN: John, they are all buying Eleanor Clift Priuses and they’re not buying my Navigators anymore.

MS. CLIFT: Right. (Laughs.)

MR. BUCHANAN: The market is working. People will not drive when the price goes up —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So you agree —

MR. BUCHANAN: — but they’ll put investment and money into oil.

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.

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