I, Smartphone and the Common Good (Video)

This is a creative way to communicate a very important truth if we care about serving and loving our neighbors (locally and globally).



"There are five primary lessons that we can learn from this video...

• Markets bring people together without any one person in charge.
• No one person has enough knowledge to create the things we use every day.
• Markets allow people to use their gifts to serve others.
• Each one of us has a role in serving the common good.
• The innovations which markets bring can benefit all society.

We believe that how and why we work is directly connected to overall stewardship. God has gifted us with scarce resources in our mental capacities, our skills and talents, and our physical resources. Understanding how markets help us to best harness those scare resources for the common good is critical.

There are two other important implications from this video:

1. Markets are the best form of global poverty alleviation known to date. Allowing markets to operate across the globe in the 20th and 21st centuries has lifted millions if not billions out of poverty. According to the World Bank, embracing market reforms has helped lift 400 million people out of abject poverty in China alone, because people were allowed to work. For most of us, our work takes place within the market setting, so markets are critical for allowing people to use their talents.
2. Markets embrace the dignity inherent in our creation by allowing us to unleash our creativity. Markets allow us to be innovators, to take risks on ideas, to be entrepreneurial. Markets have made it possible for us to have electricity, air travel, indoor plumbing and even the smartphone. Those creative innovations, through the market, can make our lives easier, more efficient and less costly."

For more see this excellent website. (IFWE)

To read my interview with Institute for Faith, Work & Economics fellow Dr. Jay Richards on economics and Christianity see my book Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture.