The Sean McDowell Show - The Case for Capitalism

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Does capitalism encourage greed? Does it favor the rich? Does it create inequality? And why is socialism making a comeback? Is socialism a better economic system? Dr. Scott Rae is a leading ethicist and he is the author of "The Virtues of Capitalism." We discuss these questions and more. Let us know what you think! READ: The Virtues of Capitalism, by Scott Rae (https://amzn.to/3YRbolw). WATCH: Why Christians Should NOT Be Leftists (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2m3RuR7i-c) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org   Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day? The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy Daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store, download it today.

Life Audio. Should Christians be capitalist? There are some general principles that we need to be talking about. God owns it all. God has entrusted this to us. God has given us a responsibility toward taking care of the poor. I think those are things that we can be talking about when we talk about money. I imagine some Christians could go, well, as long as I support capitalism, that's creating

a system. I've done my duty. That is definitely not what you're arguing for here. we still have a responsibility. What are the virtues of capitalism, better referred to as market economics? Should Christians be capitalist? Scott, people have asked us to talk about this. You wrote a book called The Virtues of Capitalism, which makes your position clear.

This is part two. In part one, we did a critique of a book about why Christians should be leftist. Now we want to kind of give a positive moral case for why. why Christians should embrace market economics. Now, what that says, I'm really curious, is socialism making a comeback? And why do you think it is? I think it is making a comeback, but among Gen Z. And the reason is because I think of historical myopia.

Fair enough. You know, I grew up in the, you know, I was born in the 50s, grew up in the 60s and 70s at the height of communism and watched it, you just watched it fail. In fact, I was 1972, I was in Czechoslovakia, and I watched what socialism had done in the country. You'd be amazed that the number of people who were standing around doing nothing and being paid virtually nothing for it.

And the number of people who were under-employed was just staggering. And the lack of goods on the shelves, I mean, it was clear that the system was failing. I saw that personally, by the way, going to Russia 13 times, starting in the early 90s. Grown up in the 80s when big movies were like Rocky for U.S. versus Russia, of course. I saw it with my own eyes, so it doesn't actually surprise me at all. I think the other piece is socialism just, it sounds good, like social, good, collective community. So on the surface, it makes a lot of promises that are appealing to people. But we'll get to why it doesn't work.

Maybe just lay out for us. What is the basic difference for people to understand between socialism and market economics? again known as capitalism. Who owns the means of production? Okay. That's a basic dividing line. That's the basic dividing line. Okay.

I mean, even under socialism, there is a limited right of private property. I mean, even in the Soviet Union, there were laws against theft. So that, just because there are laws against theft doesn't mean you've got a market economy. But it's who is who is able to own the means of produce. the stuff that we have. And it's a high emphasis on private ownership as opposed to public ownership or state ownership of the things that produce our stuff. That's the main difference.

So there's other philosophical theological differences that tend to go with it about the nature of the world, about the nature of human beings. But at its core, we're talking economic systems. That's right. Now, I think we should be aware, too, that there's pure, capitalism and pure socialism exist on the extremes. And there's probably, you know, neither of those exist in real life. I mean, I mean, even, you know, communist China had markets, you know, and they've got, you know, they have a dynamic market-based economy. And, you know, when we have,

in the U.S., we have certain socialist tendencies like we have Medicare, Social Security, maybe. Social Security, you know, things like that. So, you know, things like that. So. It exists on a bit of a continuum. So where you are exactly on the continuum, so the U.S. would be here and maybe Scandinavia would be, you know, a bit different market, different set of market incentives. Yeah, that makes sense. That's fair. I'm going to quote you directly that you wrote with your book, Austin Hill.

You said, quote, despite its flaws, failures, and imperfections, capitalism remains the most moral choice among the world's economic systems. Explain and defend. Well, there's three reasons. Okay. One is it historically is the best, it's really the only proven means for lifting the poor out of poverty, lifting large numbers of the poor out of poverty. And it is clearly the best means to obey the biblical mandate to care for the least among us. and Sean, if throwing money at the poor around the world would have worked, it would have done so. It's been throwing –

It's been trying. We've been doing that for the last 50 years, and it hasn't worked. What works are systems in place that allow people to start small businesses, to take part in entrepreneurial activity that enables them to lift themselves out of poverty by pursuing. their own self-interest, also in ways that meet the common cause. That's one. Okay. The second reason is it is the best way to fulfill the Genesis 1 creation mandate that God gave to human beings.

The first imperative that God gave to Adam and Eve after they were both created was to be fruitful. And we typically put be fruitful and multiply together, meaning procreation, but they are separate. Oh, okay. Multiply and fill the earth. go together for procreation. Be fruitful has economic and vocational overtones to it. It means to be economically.

It means vocationally fruitful. It means unlocking what God has embedded into his creation and bringing it to a place where it can benefit the common good. So in market systems, I think, are the best way to do that because they provide incentives for innovation, initiative. Okay. Third, maybe there would be a fourth.

Sure. Third, I think it best accords with the freedom that God has created human beings with by virtue of being made in his image. Economic freedom is essential, religious freedom, I think, is the most basic freedom, but economic freedom is right behind it. And lots of other freedoms go with that. And the freedom to order your economic life according to your own self-interest, And the Bible never condemns self-interest.

It only mandates that it be balanced by the concern for the interest of others. And then a fourth reason is that market-based systems both require and nurture a certain set of virtues that are essential. They require creativity, initiative, innovation, what we call entrepreneurial traits. But they also require perseverance. They require work ethic. you know, they require punctuality, they require personal responsibility, they require good stewardship, all of these virtues, they both require them and they nurture them at the same time. Think about who would you rather hire somebody characterized by the fruit of the spirit or by the deeds of the flesh?

That's not even close. And so I think, I think, you know, we get a lot of, we get a lot of comment about outliers, but the vast majority of people who succeed in the marketplace do so because it's assumed that there's at least a modicum of virtue that's necessary to be successful. Which is why, and this is a separate point, sometimes capitalism is not the best system for a nation where it's at just morally experientially. You want to get nations there, but it's not a cookie cutter for every nation of all time. that doesn't necessarily fall from the point that you're making. Markets have to be planted in fertile ground.

There you go. Well said. Okay, now in some ways you might have answered this question, but another quote that you and your co-author said is that not only do believe that it market economy, economics, is the preferred choice. We also believe that capitalism is the most consistent with a Judeo-Christian view of the world. Now, you might have answered this because your second one was about be fruitful, economically grow, about certain virtues,

about caring for our neighbor, but any other specific reason why you'd argue that it's the most biblical. I would see here that the most biblical and the most moral are interchangeable. Okay. Okay. So that's fair. I think I've answered that unless you've got something you want to add to that. No, that's fair.

I think that's good. Okay. All right. So why does capitalism work? And there's a little bit of irony there because we're talking about work and what work is. In other words, why has it driven so many people out of poverty? And again, to quote the book, he said it's transformed entire regions of the world and as a result generated such robust economy. So from kind of a worldview perspective, why does it do the things that you're describing?

Well, because, Sean, part of human nature, and part of it, I think, is because we're made in God's image, but also I think part of it because we're fallen also is that human beings respond to, incentives. And if people don't have incentives to work, to take risks, to go the extra mile, they're probably not going to do it. Most people are not motivated for the long term. Now, they'll do it in the short run, maybe. But they're not motivated to be volunteers for the long haul. I mean, both of us, we love what we're doing, and we do it because of its intrinsic value. That's right. But I suspect if we weren't getting paychecks for it, we'd be doing something else, right?

Maybe I shouldn't speak for you about that. Maybe you're just more altruistic than I am. I'll just let that one sit. But for our viewers, you'd be well served, I think. There's a short video that's been done, that's gotten, it should have. If it hadn't gone viral, it should have. The Swedish demographer Hans Rossling did a piece, it's about four minutes, called 200 years 200 countries. And it charts how over 200 years most of the world emerged from $2 a day poverty into thriving middle and upper classes.

It's a fascinating look at it. He does it like he does it in like three or four minutes. and everywhere markets have been tried. They've succeeded because they wed the pursuit of self-interest with the common good. So you reject the idea, and I agree with you, by the way, that we read in the book Why Christians Should Be Leftists, that we're kind of wired to just feel good, we want to work, we want to contribute to the whole. Like that's often framed as being sufficient for a work ethic, and you just say that's not sufficient.

Well, that's just not the reality of living in a fallen world. Now, I think part of it, you know, we're not, you know, we're not as what economists call homo-economics. We're not just driven by our economic needs and our self-interest. But we're driven by more things than that. But I don't want to minimize how important it is. And the Bible mandates, Sean, that we pursue our self-interest sufficient to care for ourselves and our dependence.

I think that's what the Bible means when it says, if you don't work, you don't eat. It means if you don't work, you're not entitled to the community's goods that are set aside as a safety net. And Paul says the person who doesn't provide for his family, the strongest possible language in the street, he calls them an anathema.

Let them be a cursed. That's really a significant statement from the Apostle Paul about the importance of, pursuing your self-interest sufficient to care for yourself and your dependence. So that's the reason, this is what Adam Smith was on to. He said, you don't get your meat or your milk from the butcher and the milkman, and you don't get your bread from the baker out of their concern for altruism. You get it because of their concern for their self-interest, which also meets the common good.

And by the one, the Bible says love others as – Oh. Excuse me. When the Bible says to love others as you love yourself, the assumption is we naturally love ourselves. And that's good. We're supposed to. In fact, we can only really love other people and care for their interests if we first care for our own. It's not a bad thing.

That's how God has made the world. So you've talked about why capitalism works. why does socialism always fail? What is it on a worldview level that no matter how good intention we are doesn't work? Well, economic, well, for one, it misunderstands what a human being is. But on economic reasons, the reason socialism fails is because, as Mark Rethacher put it, you eventually run out of other people's money. And I think she was right about that.

I agree. because socialist systems don't create wealth, they redistribute it. And people, there's no incentive for people to innovate, to take risks, to work hard, to put themselves out for their companies. And if your income is capped, basically once you reach the cap, you lose incentives to work hard. This is why France several years ago raised their tax rate to 75%. And people stopped, you know, money fled the country. Yeah.

And entrepreneurs stopped innovating because we always say, What's... Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with a timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organized.

Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store. Growing your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study, KJV, and download the app today. The point. They're not, you know, yes, we have, we have altruism. But in a fallen world, altruism is not enough to carry us in the long term. And that's the genius that Adam Smith was on to is that, pursuing your self-interest in many cases, not all of them, but can provide for the common good.

And you guys are not shy of talking about some of the weaknesses and flaws. You're not saying this creates a utopian society. So you're not saying it's perfect. You're saying it's... And the other reason socialism failed is what you mentioned about utopia, because utopia is almost always require totalitarianism to pull them off. And the reason for that is because people don't like to give up. what they've achieved. They don't like to give up the freedom to pursue their own self-interest and to better themselves economically.

And by self-interest, it's themselves and their family and their church and their community rather than some amorphous government that's out there. It just doesn't work, right? And the government has no accountability. If the government spends money, it doesn't affect them. It's somebody else's money. But when I spend my own money, I see it subtracted from, my bank account, it's very personal. So I'm as a whole going to spend it differently. That's, that's the disconnect that often exists. I think there's, there's a dynamism to market economies that doesn't exist in socialism. So there's a number of objections and you deal, I think you, I think you deal each one of these, but these are ones that I've heard and would love your take on it, Scott. One is that capitalism is Darwinian. It's kind of dog eat dog. It's competitive structure encourages disunity, non-cooperation. If you don't create this product, you fail. So I've got to beat you to get to the top. I'd say not, it's competitive, but to say it's non-cooperative is

clearly not true because nobody creates their own products by themselves. That didn't happen. as we mentioned, I think, in part one, bringing a product to market requires incredible cooperation among competing businesses and businesses that are pursuing their self-interest. In fact, when I hit send on an order for a new computer, hundreds of people spring into action going to work to fulfill my order. and if they don't do that, then I don't get my computer. Yeah, is it competitive? Yes, competition is a good thing because competition enables us to get, make sure that the best products are the ones that succeed.

And the ones that have the most benefit are the ones that succeed. Now, to be fair, you know, markets reflect the virtues and values. of the participants in it, which would suggest that there are times to get to another major objection that it is going to all be based on greed. That actually was my next one. So respond to the claim that capitalism is about greed. Well, for one, greed's a human vice, not an economic one. To say there are no greedy people among socialist is absurd.

They said other ways to satisfy their greed. That's why in most socialist countries, they have thriving black markets, which are, I'd say, much more pure market exchanges than what exists above ground. And I would say profit and greed are not the same thing. profit just means that you're using your resources efficiently. And I think what I would say is an honest profit actually means that you are fulfilling the dominion mandate faithfully. So an honest profit, I mean that's not one that's not fraudulent or producing a product that's inherently evil. Like, pornographers are not fulfilling the dominion mandate, even though they're very profitable.

That's a dishonest profit. Good distinction. So you're right. Greed is in every economic system because it's a matter of the heart that we carry with us. Is there something you would say to Christians, though? Like we have to be especially careful and cautious in a culture where I can create a business for my own good. I can buy products that I promised will fill my heart that there's at least more temptation to greed here in a capitalist society, or is it just a different kind?

I think it's because market systems have the capacity to create wealth like no others. There probably is the temptation toward greed and toward overconsumption. But with that, it also creates the resources for charity and for a safety net like we've never seen before. And so, you know, would I rather be tempted by greed than by grinding poverty? For sure. I will deal with my greed. And I think the reason, the Bible has as a solution for greed. It's called giving.

Now, God commands giving, not because he needs it. The kingdom will get along just fine if we hoard all our wealth. our heart is what needs our giving because that's what breaks the power of money in our lives. That's fair. So one of the other critiques that comes up often is that in a capitalist system, the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. You've got to be careful how you say that because that's saying it clearly. Okay. When they leave out at the expense of the poor and just say the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer getting poor,

sometimes that at the expense of is implied but not stated clearly. And you're right to state it clearly. And I think that, for most of the history of civilization, that was true. And as a result, everybody was equally, and they were equal, but they were equally poor, wretched, and miserable. And once markets were introduced, then you could do well, and do good at the same time, which was not true in the ancient world prior to market systems being introduced. So I would say yes, just because the rich are getting richer doesn't necessarily

mean that the poor are getting poor. Because there is a sense when a profit is made and when economies grow, the size of the pie actually gets bigger. And just because the rich are getting richer, you know, factory wages can be up at the same time. Now, there are things about market systems where you do have dislocations sometimes. And so sometimes there are temporary setbacks. It doesn't say that there is consistent economic growth all the time. But it does say that the general pattern has been

that the size of the pie generally gets bigger over time. Oh, that's really the key, that it's not a finite. If I get, that means you lose. Wealth can actually be created and generated so the pie gets bigger. Wealth is being created every day. Hence, not at the expense of the poor is why you focused on that point. That's correct. Okay.

All right. So you talked about this a little earlier that capitalism leads to overconsumption and materialism. I think you've addressed that one. I say, yeah, materialism is a human vice. Fair enough. And you might say in a different economic system, there might be other vices that are emphasized more, but it's not like there's just no vices in other economic systems. I'll tell you what the other vice is.

When you are stuck in your economic strata, the vice is envy in covetousness. Because that's all you can do is look up with envy at the person at the social economic standing above you. And in my view, envy and covetousness are far worse in socialistic systems than they are in market systems. That's – I'd love to explore that, but that point is fascinating. I'm let that sit with folks. So the last objection that is often raised is that capitalism leads to economic busts. So in our last episode, one of the – I think there were seven or eight factors that led the author of the book,

why Christians should be leftists to abandon kind of a capitalist system. And one was the economic crash of 2008, 2009. So you think about like the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, market crash of 2008. I'm sure another one is coming in due time. Some people are talking about an AI crash. Maybe that could happen in the future. Doesn't capitalism lead to economic busts like that? It can.

Okay. But I would say, by contrast, socialism is a constant economic bust. Not just at one time. I didn't expect that answer. Okay. You know, part of the reason for these booms and bugs, that's a whole complicated subject. But part of the reason for that is because people don't always act in their economic self-interest. interest. The dot-com bust was labeled irrational exuberance. And I think that was right. I remember it

well. That was right. Yeah. And I think the, you know, the market crash in, you know, when the financial system nearly melted down, I think was largely through, this is a quick and dirty summary of it, but largely through unethical activity where the people who were foisting securities on the investing public knowing that they were useless and knowing that they were going to get bailed out. That's my – And they were going to get bailed out because of the systems that were arguably more socialist on the spectrum would bail them out. Is that a fair way to characterize it or not quite that way? Not quite. Because the federal government recognized that the institutions that were failing were too big to fail.

Got it. Okay. Now, we can – there's a – I'm sure that's a whole story. I've read everything published on that market crash. Oh, okay. And I encourage our listeners if you've not read – the best thing on this is Michael Lewis's book called The Big Short, which was made into a movie, which I think really – It captures that really nicely. And it was excesses.

And it was putting risks onto investors unknowingly. And I think the conclusion of the big short was that the people who did that knew they were going to get bailed out. So anyway, that's a longer. Lots of people we can agree to disagree about some of that. But is that endemic to capitalism? I'd say not necessarily. I mean, Australia's had a market system for a long time. They've basically avoided a lot of these booms and busts.

And they have a capitalist system, largely speaking. Yes. Interesting. Okay. So even if it were, some of this, I guess, has to be our expectations. If our expectation is constant growth for without any steps back and your home was going to increase 10% every year. Like if you have that expectation, then the bust is. is going to be a negative.

But if you compare it as a whole, capitalism in America, with some of the bus, which some people really have been hurt by it, and we can ask whether or not those are caused by capitalism or not, but they exist. And whether those harms are permanent or temporary. Fair enough. It still doesn't compare whatsoever to a socialist system. So the comparison shouldn't be capitalism during its upswings versus the downswings. It should be capitalism with the upswings and downswings versus.

socialism, then it's not even in the same ballpark. It's like JV versus the NBA. Something like that. You don't want to be too nailed down to that example, but generally makes the point. Yeah. I think most people, if they had their choice in living in socialists systems, living in market systems, they would choose market-based. Now, they may choose it may be something that's a little differently structured. They may choose Europe, Scandinavia, and they may choose higher taxes and more services. That's not an unreasonable choice. What it lacks, though, is the incentives for innovation, because you just get to keep less

of your income, and there's, I think, less incentive to go the extra mile. Look, people in a capitalist system have different proclivities to take risks. right if somebody wants a more secure solid job you could go in the military you could become a teacher you could do certain things but you have the opportunity and there's a trade off with that but also to take the kind of risk that create wealth create jobs it's just the opportunity to do that doesn't mean people can't follow systems and give up some of that for security a capitalist system allows that. It just doesn't require it and squelch those who want to take the risk. Yeah, that's correct. All right. So are there any goods and services that should be off the market?

Like slavery is an obvious one that we shouldn't buy and sell human beings. I mean, it's obvious now, not throughout the history of the world. Forteenth Amendment to the Constitution has something to say about that. There you go. So it wasn't obvious throughout the history of the world, but it's obvious now. But are there other pressing issues today, and you and I have talked about this, such as surrogacy, just to give one example, but you could give others, that we should not allow on the market. And how do we make some of those decisions about what's for sale and what's not? Yeah, I would think, I would say, adoptable children should not be for purchase and sale on the open market, even though that's probably a much more efficient way to do it than the system we have in place. Efficient, I would say,

Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organize. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store. Growing your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study KJV and download the app today. Effective. Those are two different things.

Okay, explain. Well, it doesn't – it wouldn't prevent people from, you know, simply, you know, using financial means as the only determinant of whether you get a baby or not. Okay. So it would take away the, you know, sort of the fitness of the parents, all of that. And it would force people – and this is part of the reason that something should be off the market because we don't want financial dire straits to be coercive. to people to force them to do things that they would otherwise never consider doing. So that would be – I would say, you know, organs for donation should be for donation, not for sale. Now, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't have – I would have been okay if my brother would pay me 10,000 for my kidney.

So you're saying not – so it's not an in-principle problem, but having a system in which they're for sale is going to create a supply and a demand that's going to have a negative net effect. Is that what you're – Well, I'd also say – for organs? Yeah. Yes. And I mean, I think they're – you know, again, having a market would make it a lot more efficient, but it would also create this huge level of unfairness because it would assume – it

would exacerbate the medical – the gap between the medical halves and have-nots that already exists. I think the way we distribute scarce resources medically is first come, first serve, for the most part. And that's part of the concern about surrogacy is that the rich could hire the poor to be a surrogate, and then people would feel inclined to do that in a way that's not hopeful and good for them. That's why, is that the main reason why we don't want that? And I'm not thrilled about, you know, woman's eggs or a man spurn. being for sale on the open market. Because then you can put specifications on what kind of characteristics you might be inheriting

in your child leads us toward design your children, which I think is a, which undermines the notion of children being a gift. So part of the core issue then is like, are we selling something that's going to undermine human dignity? Like selling sex and prostitution is going to undermine the dignity of the family, the dignity of the woman, surrogacy undermines the dignity. And of course, just because there's clear cases like, I would say, drugs and prostitution, doesn't mean there's not more difficult cases that could go either way. And there might be some of those. But capitalism doesn't mean we sell

anything whatsoever. And here, the principal problem, Sean, is that if everything's a market transaction, then it crowds out altruism. And that's part of the consularism. And that's part of the also with socialism is that it removes giving to the government and takes away the need and incentive to give individually to people potentially. It takes away the resources too. Oh, and the resources to do it. Fair enough. Okay.

Well, again, we can have a huge conversation on this, but one of the big topics that people talk about is health care. Is the problem that we don't have enough market economics and competition or that we're not enough like Canada and don't have it more of a, or say Europe a more state-run kind of healthcare system, or is it really not simple enough to- I say it's neither of those. Okay. And because both our system and the Canadian system share the same basic flaw. And that is we have objectives and goals that are incompatible.

our healthcare system is trying to provide world-class innovation and care at low cost with universal access and full freedom of choice and you can't have all those things at the same time you just can't you can't have the you can't have the pharmaceutical industry that we have coming up with these incredible you know life-altering game-changing medications and have everything be low cost at the same time. The pharmaceutical companies are, you know, most of what they experiment on fails. And they pour billions of dollars into things that never get to market. And rightly so. And so we have to make choices in this. Now, the merit of a system like Canada and the UK

is they've made their choices consciously. we've defaulted into our choices. So we have to – I'm waiting for the politician to say in health care, you can't have it all at the same time. And nobody's been willing to say that. So last question for you. You've been an advocate of capitalism, again, market economics. Thank you. And you're one of the first people that I had as an undergrad.

I think my senior year – my brother-in-law took your class on economics. We talked about this a little bit. and then in grad school some and then really for me reading j richard's book god greed and money was like oh my goodness this is i agree with what you said about it being the engine or the mechanism that has liberated more people from poverty than anything else in the history of the world just since 1970 just since 1970 1.5 billion people and that's because of a shift towards market economic. So how much do you think churches should talk about this? Because I don't think I've ever heard a sermon on capitalism. I'm not even saying they should give a sermon on capitalism.

In some ways, I don't have a lot of power over the kind of government system that I live in. My responsibility is to my neighbor like we talked about. But should, especially since we're seeing socialism grow within maybe younger millennials and Gen Z years and arguably the next generation, should this be an issue that more churches are championed, and if so, how? Well, for one, Sean, I think we should be honest about the history of socialism in our public schools. You mean how it's taught in public schools? But I think in our churches, we talk about money a lot. We don't talk a lot about economic life in general.

And I think part of the reason for that is because we don't. know what to do with the first century economy, which was so different than our own. And we don't know what to do with things like Jesus' statement that it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven and a camel to go through the eye of a needle. And we don't know what to do with the Bible's lack of teaching about ambition. The Bible is virtually nothing to say about economic ambition. And the reason for that is because people's place was fixed. Right. It was a moot point.

The system it was written in. And so I think we need to be talking about economic life, but we have to take into account these vast differences. And that should govern how we interpret the biblical text on this. But I think there are some general principles that we need to be talking about. One is God owns it all. It's his. God has entrusted this to us. God has

God has given us a right of ownership God has given us a responsibility toward taking care of the poor God's given us an obligation to pursue our self-interest sufficient to take care of our own needs and those of our dependents things like that

which we lay out all of those in the book there's several more of those I think those are things that we can be talking about when we talk about money Most churches talk about money when it comes to giving. Yeah. But that's just a small piece of the biblical wisdom about money and economic life. I imagine socialism can take away the incentive and resources to give.

I imagine some Christians could go, well, as long as I support capitalism, that's creating a system. I've done my duty. That is definitely not what you're arguing for here. Definitely not. We still have a responsibility. biblically over and over again to care for those to give. You have more responsibility because you have more resources at your disposal. Okay, fair enough.

That's a good way to put it. Well, your book is fascinating. The Virtues of Capitalism, a Moral Case for Free Markets. And it's now in my top two books alongside Jay Richards' book, I just think is fantastic. Virtues of capitalism, God greed, money, I think is the title, makes a biblical, a historical, and an economic case that capitalism really is what's best for society. And I'm going to check out that video you mentioned, that four-minute video. We'll try to link to that below.

That's a good call. All right, friends, let us know what you think about this. You can email us at think biblically at biola.edu. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can comment below. Is this kind of content helpful? Would you like more about how to think biblically or kind of defend free market economics or if there's enough objections that people write in and send us. Maybe we'll do a full episode responding back to it,

but we would love to hear for you. This is a little bit of a unique two-part series that we've done. So make sure you subscribe and follow. And thanks for joining us on the Think Biblically podcast. Hey, friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet, and it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people

and build community. And please consider leaving a podcast. podcast review. Every review helps. Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have on campus and online programs in apologetic, spiritual formation, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more. We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. The love of God is they're measurable. It's unchanging. It's indescribable. It's indescribable. Because God loves you so much, you can sleep through the night, in peace.

With Abide Bible Sleep Meditation, you can fall asleep fast with relaxing sleep stories based on scripture. To start listening now, go to Life Audio.com or search your favorite podcast app for Abide Bible Sleep Meditation. You can also download the Abide app from more biblical meditations at Abide.com.