Ep 140: Should Christians Care About Competition? with Dr. Art Carden

Economists like competition because competitive markets create what the economist Tim Harford calls “a world of truth”: we produce, as he puts it, the right things the right way and in the right proportions, with prices guiding them into the hands of the right people. This “world of truth” makes no assumptions about people’s preferences, however, and it is entirely possible that people buy and sell things that corrupt their souls–that they exchange the truth of God for a lie, as it were.

But this does not mean forsaking competition will make things better. In this episode, Art Carden explores the unintended consequences of government intervention to prevent or promote competition as well as implications of the Imago Dei for exchange and the institutions thereof.