Since it’s Sunday, I thought I’d give a little example from Thomas Sowell’s book Basic Economics that deals with religion.
This entry also might be called "Market Ecumenism" or "How the Market Promotes Not-Killing-Each-Other-Over-Religious-Differences."
After explaining that the purchase prices different groups are willing to pay for limited goods and services competitively determines the prices of those services, the Master writes:
Most people may be unaware that they are competing [against other purchasers when they buy an item or hire a worker] and simply see themselves as deciding how much of various things to buy at whatever prices they find, but scarcity [of goods and services] ensures that they are competing with others, even if they are conscious only of weighing their own purchasing decisions against the amount of money they have available.
One of the incidental benefits of competing and sharing through prices is that different people are not as likely ot think of themselves as rivals, nor to develop the kinds of hostility that rivalry can breed. For exmaple, much the same labor and construction material needed to build a Protestant church could be used to build a Catholic church. But, if a Protestant congregation is raising money to build a church for themselves, they are likely to be preoccupied with how much money they can raise and how much is needed for the kind of church they want. Construction prices may cause them to scale back some of their more elaborate plans, in order to fit within the limits of what they can afford. But they are unlikely to blame Catholics, even though the competition of Catholics for the same construction mateirals makes their prices higher than otherwise.
If, instead, the government were in the business of building churches and presenting them to different religious groups, Protestans and Catholics would be explicit rivals for this largess and neither would have any financial incentive to cut back on their building plans to accomodate the other. Instead, each would have an incentive to make the case, as strongly as possible, for the full extent of their desires and to resent any suggestion that they scale back their plans. The inherent scarcity of materials and labor would still limit what could be built, but the limit would now be imposed politically and would be seen by each as due to the rivalry of the other. The Constitution of the United States of course prevents the American government form building churches for religious groups, no doubt in order to prevent just such political rivalries and the bitterness, and sometimes bloodshed, to which such rivalries have led in other countries.
The same economic principle, however, applies to groups that are not based on religion but on ethnicity, geographical regions, or age brackets. All are inherently competing for the same resources, simply because these resources are scarce. However, competing indirectly by having to keep your demands within the limits of your own pocketbook is very different from seeing your desires for government benefits thwarted by the rival claims of some other group. Market rationing limits the amount of your claims on the output of others to what your own produtivity has created, while political rationing limits your claims by the competing claims and clout of others (pp. 54-55).
Is there any conceivable way that we can elect Thomas Sowell as the next President, UN Secretary General, and Pope?
Mail copies of his books to (a) everyone in the U.S., (b) everyone in the college of cardinals, and (c) everyone who is involved in electing the secretary general?
Sounds like a plan!