While there is no single Christian vision of government and good Christians can disagree on a host of topics, one of the things that sets apart the Christian vision is a robust vision of the good life and integrated human flourishing directed toward certain ends that are fitting to man as a rational and free creature with an everlasting destiny.

The Christian idea of the good life is one of the reasons why for Christians, politics and the state, while necessary and ordained by God, are just not that important in the way they are to many ancients and modern visions.

Many critics say this is because the Church is focused on otherworldly matters. But this is insufficient. While it is true that the main concern of Christianity is eternal salvation, the Church is very concerned with living in this world—but its vision of the good life is found first in relationship with God, and then in the Church, families, and other associations in the place or places in which a person finds himself. This contrasts with certain ancient visions, or those influenced by the thought of Rousseau, which tend to see a plurality of associations as a dividing force and see man becoming integrated in and through the larger “community” of the state, thus making the state and politics central to life.

For Christians the purpose of politics is to create peace and order under which men can live out their freedoms, their responsibilities, and pursue an integrated vision of the good life. Politics is necessary and important, but by no means sufficient, primary, or the end of life–even life here on earth.

This is the vision of medieval thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and the Reformed theologian, Johannes Althusius, who wrote that “politics is the art of associating men for the purpose of establishing, cultivating, and conserving social life among them.” He called this “symbiotics” and said that “the end of the political symbiotic man is holy, just, comfortable, and happy symbiosis…”

This is why Christians today need to be concerned with the revival of community, private charity, mutual aid societies, strong families, and vibrant churches. But it is also why we must beware of finding community in the state, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Those countries coordinating the $1Trillion bailout of Greece find themselves in similar trouble. Hassett writes:

The fatal flaw in the plan is that the European nations bailing out Greece — even Germany, where government debt has risen to about 80 percent of gross domestic product — have similar budget problems and even less political will to take similar medicine.
Their plan appears to rest on the hope that lenders won’t notice. Eventually they will, and when that happens, a worldwide loss of faith in government debt markets is a virtual certainty.
In other words, it is hardly good news for a creditor if a hopelessly bankrupt borrower offers to take on the debts of a hopelessly bankrupt borrower.
During the financial crisis, faith was restored in large financial institutions because toxic assets were essentially exchanged for government bonds. If government bonds become toxic, there will be no effective treatment options remaining. The collapse will have no bottom.

He also notes that the US is not immune to the problems that plague Greece. According to a study done by the IMF in 2003, the US finds itself an unsustainable debt situation that if not resolved could lead to even the possibility of default.

The paper, written by economists Paolo Manasse of the University of Bologna along with Nouriel Roubini of New York University and the IMF’s Axel Schimmelpfennig, studied historical sovereign-debt crises, exactly the situations that Western nations are hoping to avoid. They found that external debt levels — money owed to foreigners — exceeding 50 percent was a key indicator that debt default may occur.

Here is the chilling fact: the average external debt as a percent of GDP among countries in their sample the year before a sovereign debt crisis was 54.7 percent, and 71.4 percent in the crisis year. The U.S. external debt on Dec. 31, 2009, was $13.77 trillion, or almost 100 percent of GDP. For much of Europe, the story is worse.

It seems that the only way to solve these impending crises is to rethink the entire way we look at the roles and responsibilities of government in democratic societies, but that may take the political will that no one has.

Answer: Free Markets
To be more precise: Farmer’s Markets.

Spring is in the air and so I headed off to the first official day of the farmer’s market in Grand Rapids on Saturday. As you can imagine farmer’s markets not only have an abundant supply of fresh vegetables and meats–but lots of liberal bumper stickers and flocks of “counter cultural” folk who tend to look the same, and love to talk about sustainability, free range chickens, grass finished beef, and the evils of capitalism.

Yes they love to go to farmer’s markets to buy local, drink fair trade coffee, and meet up with their friends and comrades. (To be sure there are a lot regular folks and farmers who also go to the farmer’s markets, less to make a political statement, and more to buy and sell wholesome foods at good prices).

But the irony-or rather tragedy–is that if the left had their way, then agriculture would be even more controlled by the government than it is now, and local growers and farmer’s markets would be regulated out of existence.

Already small local farms face a myriad of rules and regulations that make it difficult to compete with large agricultural corporations. Many people who love to promote the “buy local” movement, too often lack a coherent understanding about how markets and regulation work and while their bumper stickers praise small, local businesses and entrepreneurs, their voting patterns support the exact opposite.

Luckily there are some coherent voices who understand the relationship between local markets, wholesome food, and political and economic liberty. One of them is Joel Salatin, Mr. Salatin runs Polyface Farms in Central Virginia. He has a lot of interesting insights into farming, family businesses and freedom.

Unlike many in the organic movement, Salatin realizes that government and bureaucracy are part of the problem. In an illuminating article, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal in Acres Magazine he documents the struggles small farmers must face to get their food to market. You can also find the book here: Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal

Salatin tells how the law requires farmers to have their cattle butchered at a USDA approved site and not on their own farms, however he writes:

When I return home to sell these delectable packages, the county zoning ordinance says that this is a manufactured product because it exited the farm and was re-imported as a value-added product, thereby throwing our farm into the Wal-Mart category, another prohibition in agricultural areas. Just so you understand this, remember that an on farm abattoir was illegal, so I took the animals to a legal abattoir, but now the selling of said products in an on-farm store is illegal.

People who praise “local-ism” need to realize that for local farmers and businesses to flourish–and for small organic farmers to be able to compete–we need free and competitive markets and not government intrusion that only benefits those companies big enough to send lobbyists to Washington or their state capitols.

We want heroes like Eric Lidell of “Chariots of Fire” fame, who overcame insurmountable odds in athletics and live heroic lives of sacrifice as well. But as we regularly witness in college and professional sports, and, recently, the Olympics these fine, young athletes are too often, unfortunately, not fine young men and women.

We have almost come to expect this from professional, and increasingly, college sports, but somehow the Olympics maintained its luster. Yet as the Winter Olympics came to an end on Sunday, more stories about lewd and vulgar behavior continue to emerge. From reports of supplying Olympic Village with over 100,000 condoms to racy photographs and admissions of wild nights and pornographic addiction, one lesson seems apparent: Don’t let your babies grow up to be Olympians.

Sports are often said to build character. They can and do. They teach hard work, patience, self-denial, and teamwork. But, especially in a sports-obsessed culture like ours, they also have the tendency to breed narcissism. Athletes become privileged entertainers who have been coddled and told they are special from the moment they showed prowess. They are adored, their misdeeds overlooked. It starts small, but those misdeeds can become a way of life as much as the sports themselves.

We want our sports stars to be role models, but instead they are increasingly purveyors of cultural decadence, selfishness, and a distraction from the serious moral challenges of living a life of real virtue and heroism. When Charles Barkley declared that he was not a role model, he was right. In his inimitable way, he was trying to tell us something: Find your real heroes elsewhere.

Yes, to become a professional or Olympic athlete requires great dedication and sacrifice, but it doesn’t really matter much unless those traits transfer into other areas of life. Instead, sacrifice and self-denial seem to be limited to one’s own search for glory.

The moral crisis that pervades sports is part of a larger social breakdown that is compounded by a culture that is afraid to speak about truth and virtue—much less moral evil and sin. Moral relativism has become the norm and freedom means doing what you want instead of submitting to some higher standard (at least outside of the sports arena). Authentic pursuit of virtue has been replaced by mere volunteerism and fashionable political activism, and the idea that young men and women should strive for moral excellence and self-control is viewed cynically. The 100,000 condoms for Olympians are emblematic of the message given to young people in a myriad of ways: They are expected to act like animals, unable to control themselves. But they are not animals—they can control themselves, and many do.

This may sound like a curmudgeonly grumbling about young people just having fun. I wish it were so. It would be less of a problem if entertainers—whether Olympic athletes or actors and rock stars—did not play such a central role in shaping our culture. Our post-industrialist, highly technological culture is dominated by entertainment. But the entertainers are barbarians within the gates, and their behavior is emulated by young, adoring fans who see that moral virtue and steady character are not requisite for athletic and social success.

This has long term consequences for our freedom. George Washington warned that a free society required a virtuous people with maturity and self-control. Liberty is not the property of adolescents unable to control their passions. Yet American cultural life is increasingly described by what Diane West called “the death of the grown up.”

We want our athletes to be heroes, but we also glorify an adolescent culture that follows its whims. The two are mutually exclusive. C.S. Lewis described the problem decades ago: “We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst, we castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Critics immediately jumped, claiming that the pope’s critique undermined protection of women and homosexuals in the workplace and promoted discrimination. Yet as usual, the critics not only mischaracterize, they miss the larger point. Benedict’s vision goes beyond provincial English politics. His concern is to preserve real freedom by revitalizing reason and respect for truth—not to pander to current fashions of ideological equality.

One of the more contentious parts of the equality legislation requires that religious adoption organizations end so-called “discrimination” and allow homosexual couples to adopt children. In practice this means that Catholic adoption agencies will be forced either to shut down or to act against their conscience. This is clearly a loss of religious freedom, but Benedict realizes there is a lot more going on.

First, Benedict’s remarks reflect one of the consistent themes of his papacy: to revitalize reason and a respect for truth in the West. In his famous homily before his election to the papacy, when he spoke of a “dictatorship of relativism,” and throughout his writings and speeches, he has challenged the limited and ultimately irrational notion of reason that dominates Western intellectual life.

Second is his defense of authentic equality. The current legislation transforms equality from a question of justice and fairness before the law to an ideological weapon to further secularist social policy and discriminates against religion. This pseudo equality manifests a vitiated concept of reason. The equality laws in Britain reflect less the British tradition than they do Rousseau’s notion of radical equality, which has been the source of much socialist and liberal thought. Radical equality now has become praiseworthy as something good in itself, separated from any question of truth, common sense, or even biological realities. This is what happens when we lose a rich concept of reason: Anything goes—whatever is currently politically fashionable among the elite, or is supported by consensus. Pope Benedict understands that justice based on consensus is capricious and unstable.

Third is Benedict’s awareness of the need to protect the natural right of free association and freedom of religion within a pluralist society. The current equality legislation prevents religious and other peaceful groups within society to live according to their conscience. It also smacks of totalitarianism. The right of association has been a hallmark of free and prosperous societies, a protection for the weak and a guardian of justice. When it is undermined for ideological reasons, society suffers. Not only does it prevent people from living out their beliefs, it also reduces the power of civil society to check the state. Benedict’s critique of the equality law is a defense of people’s right to join together for some project that benefits the common good.

Benedict has been harangued for claiming that certain parts of the legislation violate the natural law. What does this arcane Medieval concept have to do with modern legislation? Well, everything. The genius of English freedom has been to base its society on law, not on ideology. English legal culture is rooted in the natural law tradition. A Guardian editorial on February 3rd argued that churches have as much to gain from the legislation as they do to lose because it protects Catholics from being discriminated against when they look for jobs—and accuses Benedict of being protected by the laws he is criticizing. But Benedict realizes that if law is not grounded in reason and truth and becomes unhinged from reality, then justice gets reduced to power—Might makes right. As a young man in Nazi Germany, Joseph Ratzinger experienced a society where power was separated from reason and justice. He knows what violations of the natural law mean in practice. Critics miss that Benedict is the one promoting real equality and equal protection against a theory of justice guided by whatever happens to be the fashion at the time.

Andrew Brown—also at the Guardian—writes, “Just when it seemed that Roman Catholicism was a normal and natural part of the English religious scene, Pope Benedict has to come out with a statement that raises every residual Protestant hackle in the country.” Brown conjectures that the pope didn’t expect to be heard. But of course he did. And precisely because the last thing Benedict wants is Catholicism to be a normal part of the current English religious scene. This may be what Mr. Brown wants, but a church that does nothing more than sway with the prevailing winds neither inspires nor draws people—nor does it have the strength to stand up against injustice and abuse.

A parallel can be seen in the cultural battles over religious symbols during the Christmas … I mean, the holiday season. One would think from media coverage that there exists an overwhelming consensus that religious symbols have no place on public property. But the reality is quite different. There may be a clear consensus among the secular intelligentsia, but it doesn’t hold for most Americans.

A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans are perfectly happy with displays of religious symbols and believe it is fine for schools to celebrate religious holidays.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 76% of adults believe religious symbols like Christmas Nativity scenes, Hanukkah menorahs and Muslim crescents should be allowed on public land. Just 13% disagree, and another 10% are undecided.

Eighty-three percent (83%) believe public schools should celebrate religious holidays. This figure includes 47% who think the schools should celebrate all religious holidays and another 36% who believe they should only celebrate some. The question did not single out which holidays should be celebrated and which should be excluded.

Only 14% think the public schools should not celebrate any religious holidays.

Additionally-news for retailers: “Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 72% of adults prefer “Merry Christmas,” while 22% like “Happy Holidays” instead.”

So why the widespread sense that Christmas is the holiday that must not be named? It’s another example of a small minority of Scrooge-like secularists spreading their gloom to the rest of us in the guise of enlightened tolerance, a secular Uniculturalism that strips America of our traditions and vitiates the human experience.

We relegated socialism to the “dustbin of history,” but socialism never actually died and in many ways it has actually gained influence. This may sound reactionary, even McCarthyist—but only until we understand socialism the way socialists understand it.

Yes, socialist economic ideas went out of fashion, but socialism has always been more than just economics. We tend to equate socialism with communism, Marxist revolutionaries, and state ownership of industry. But socialism is a much broader vision of the person, society, equality, and what it means to be free.

Karl Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels, saw three major obstacles to the socialist vision: private property, religion, and “this present form of marriage.” Also central to socialist thought is a secular and materialist vision of the world that espouses relativism, sees everything politically, and locates genuine community in the state and not in families, churches or voluntary organizations.

The fall of communism and two decades of globalization did not extinguish socialist hopes. The tactics changed, but the goals remained. Proponents of socialism traded in revolution for the gradualism of the Fabian socialists who encouraged use of democratic institutions to achieve socialist goals. They replaced political radicals like Lenin and Castro with the cultural Marxism of Theodor Adorno or Antonio Gramsci, who called for a “long march through the institutions” of Western culture.

This is the pedigree of Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, and the various sixties revolutionaries who now inhabit positions of cultural influence throughout the West. We are seeing the fruit of their efforts: socialist visions of family, religion, art, community, commerce, and politics pervade the culture.

I am not suggesting that Americans or Europeans live in socialist states. That would trivialize the suffering of those who lived behind the Iron Curtain. Rather, I am suggesting that socialist ideas have transformed the way many of us think about a host of important things. Ideas considered radical only 75 years ago are now considered quite normal and even respectable.

Look, for instance, at co-habitation rates and the number of people who do not believe in marriage or view it as a “bourgeois” institution. Directly or indirectly, they got these ideas from people like Engels and Adorno, who argued that “the institution of marriage is raised… [on] barbaric sexual oppression, which tendentially compels the man to take lifelong responsibility for someone with whom he once took pleasure in sleeping with….” The same-sex marriage movement and hostility to the traditional family follow Engels goal to destroy “this present form of marriage.”

In other realms, we see increasing secularization, religion being equated with intolerance and decreasing religious practice. Look at the common acceptance of ethical and cultural relativism and the fear of making truth claims lest one be labeled an extremist. Look at the unquestioned supremacy of materialist and Darwinist thought that dominates the scientific community, or the political correctness that pervades language. Look at our public school system, increasingly focused on indoctrination rather than education. We joke that the universities are the last bastion of Marxism. But who do we think writes the textbooks that teach primary and high school students? The “long march through the institutions” has been more successful than its early advocates could have dreamed.

Of course it would be simplistic to blame socialism for all that ails the West. But socialism has been the principle vehicle of many of these ideas, carrying them into the mainstream.

So how is it that, after such dramatic failures, socialism continues to allure? Perhaps because, as future pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, wrote, the Marxist dream of radical liberation still captures the modern imagination.

It’s a dream that will always betray, because sustained liberty requires a certain moral culture: one that respects truth and conforms to it; one that recognizes the inherent dignity and spiritual nature of the person; one that respects the role of the family and encourages a rich and varied civil society; one that acknowledges that culture and religion are more important than politics; one that respects rule of law over the arbitrary rule of men and rejects utopian delusions; one that recognizes that the difference between right and wrong is not determined by majority, consensus or fashion; and, finally, one that recognizes that the ultimate source of liberty is God and not the state.

The fall of Communism in Eastern Europe was one of the great victories for human freedom. But while the East suffered untold misery, perhaps it was too easy a victory for us in the West. We were lulled into thinking that socialism had been discredited, had lost its allure—that capitalist economies and abundant goods were sufficient to satisfy human desires. Perhaps we should have listened more closely to those like John Paul II or Alexander Solzhenitsyn who warned us about an empty materialism, an insidious relativism, and a vitiated culture.

The challenges of socialist thought are real. But there is hope. There is hope in the resurgent resistance to the unprecedented growth of government. There is hope in the millions of families who work hard and in the thousands who make sacrifices for freedom every day. This week we celebrate the victory of freedom and the collapse of applied socialism. Let us not come to a point where we look back with regret that we forfeited such a precious gift. Let us build anew a culture of ordered liberty. Let us learn from those who suffered. Let us recover the wisdom that comes from our faith and our Founders and do our own part to shine the fragile light of liberty.

What are we to make of capitalism in light of all the crises, fraud, and government intervention, when even some traditional supporters of markets are supporting bailouts and seem to have lost faith in the market order? Is capitalism no longer credible? Is capitalism really to blame for the financial woes we now face?

Before we try to answer this question, it is important to point out that the word “capitalism” is actually a Marxist term, and while we use it interchangeably with “market economy,” the Marxist view of capitalism surprisingly still shapes the way we tend to understand economics. The term capitalism gives the impression that the market is something out there: a nebulous force which can create great wealth but can also turn and harm us. This impersonal understanding can lead us to blame markets when things go wrong instead of looking for reasons that are harder to diagnose and often reveal deeper cultural and spiritual issues.

Pope John Paul II specifically rejected the term capitalism and its mechanistic, amoral, and impersonal image, preferring instead “market economy,” “business economy,” or “free economy.” He did so not to be pedantic, but to illustrate the important truth that markets are fundamentally networks of human relationships. Understanding markets this way sheds light not only on many economic problems, but also on the underlying moral nature of markets. If markets are intrinsically connected to human action then they necessarily have a moral dimension. Capitalism as seen by Marxists, or even within neo-classical mathematical models, separates markets from morality — and thus from reality. This, as we have seen, can have disastrous consequences.

Markets are the combined activities of millions of individuals and families. They are not composed merely of some guys on Wall Street; they are made up by us. Like anything else run by humans, markets are not perfect and can fail. If we become overly speculative and convinced that prices can go nowhere but up so that we violate all norms of prudence and keep buying at outlandish prices — as happened in the Tulip Bubble in 1637, the dot.com bubble in 2000 and the housing bubble last year — sooner or later reality will set in.

Despite their failures however, free markets have lifted more people out of poverty and helped create prosperity and peace better than any system ever devised. So much so that even in today’s financial downturn, as hard as it may be, very few people who live in mature market economies are completely without resources or on the brink of starvation. Notice that markets are often blamed for the downturns, yet we tend to forget the cause of the upturn.

In these days of financial turmoil, we often hear critics speaking about de-regulation or “unbridled capitalism.” Both of these are straw men. Unbridled capitalism is a myth. Try to think of one country where there are no regulations on the economy or business. For free markets to succeed and be sustainable, they require a framework built of rule of law, contracts, and secure property rights.

The real question is what kind of regulation and what level of intervention we should choose. It is important to remember that many of the contributing causes of this crisis were precisely an overly invasive government. Federal regulators required banks to provide mortgages to customers who could not pay back the loans; the Federal Reserve manipulated the money supply, exacerbating the housing boom; and politicians of all stripes promised bailouts that incentivized irresponsible behavior. These are prime examples of what Friedrich Hayek labeled “the fatal conceit”: the notion that bureaucrats and politicians have enough knowledge to plan an economy better than individuals and businesses.

At least on equal par with a juridical framework as a factor in sustaining market systems is a specific moral culture. This includes trust, diligence, collaboration, honesty, perseverance, and prudence. If this crisis has taught us anything, it is the importance of morality for a market economy. The list of the seven deadly sins comprises an outline of the crisis’s causes. How many of us out of greed, gluttony, or pride used credit cards to buy things we did not need or could not afford, just so we could have the latest gadget or keep up with the Joneses? What about Wall Street bankers who couldn’t resist the chance to make ever more and took imprudent risks with clients’ money, or out of pride bought financial instruments they hardly understood? Markets cannot succeed without a strong moral fabric among the citizenry.

Yet instead of learning the lessons of the past, we again hear calls for increased regulation and government involvement. Some regulation is necessary, but we must not look to regulation to solve our moral problems. Here is where the realization that markets are networks of human relationships is important.

If we regulate too much, we concentrate the power of markets in fewer and fewer hands. This has led to all sorts of evil and corruption. Socialist economies, cartels, oligarchies, and union-controlled industries where the price mechanism cannot function produce stagnation and create incentives for corruption. It is a false hope to believe that regulation will make everything right. This is a utopian dream that ignores human failing and is the same promise that has been peddled by the socialists.

It is likewise delusional to believe that markets alone are enough. Markets require more than just efficiency; they require virtue. Our Founders taught us that without virtue political liberty could not long be sustained. The same holds true for economic liberty. And yet without economic liberty there can be no political liberty. Like liberty, the market must be moral, or it cannot exist at all.

(A version of this article will appear in Legatus Magazine.)

Microfinance was popularized by Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The bank provides small loans to those with little or no access to credit, and enables them to buy resources to produce goods they can sell on the market. The primary borrowers are women, and access to loans provides them independence and opportunity to go into business for themselves.

Despite good intentions and some positive impact, there are some serious concerns about microfinance that should not be ignored. Investing in microfinance is attractive, but as Arneel Karnani points out in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, microfinance places the emphasis on small subsistence activities which are much less effective than larger industries at helping the poor. Microfinance can also create a dependence on borrowing. Credit can be helpful, but it is not a solution for long-term growth. Jobs in larger companies and factories are much more stable and lucrative. Businesses that create value are the best answer for sustainable growth, and for these to flourish, focus needs to be placed on institutional reform and the creation of a just investment climate.

There are other concerns as well. The Grameen Bank not only gives out loans, it also attempts to change culture and promote development by encouraging new attitudes and behaviors among its clients. The bank encourages women to make "16 Decisions" to change their behavior and lifestyle. The "16 Decisions" include helpful practices like keeping their houses and the environment clean, building pit latrines and drinking from well water. Others, however, promote a collectivist mentality or attempt to promote cultural change such as abolishing dowries and discouraging childbirth — that is, generally promoting a Western secular view of the person. While the promotion of hygiene is beneficial, the Decisions' collectivist social engineering elements can actually exacerbate an already existing scarcity mindset, undermine development and entrepreneurship, and harm women.

Let's examine the decision to have small families. First, whatever one's personal beliefs about family and children may be, the idea of small families is clearly a Western, secular idea, and pressuring poor women in the developing world to accept it in exchange for loans smacks of cultural imperialism. There are economic consequences as well. The idea that small families are beneficial is based on a zero-sum game that sees people as consumers and not as producers. This is precisely not the type of attitude one wants to encourage if the goal is to promote development and entrepreneurship. The zero-sum fallacy undermines an entrepreneurial mentality because it teaches people that it is impossible to create new wealth. It inadvertently teaches that the only way to get wealth is to get it from somebody else. This encourages people to look to government distribution programs which end up punishing the real wealth creators, thereby harming the poor even more. If microcredit is supposed to be the first rung on the ladder to economic independence, then teaching a zero-sum mentality is not a step in the right direction.

The Grameen Bank prides itself on its role in empowering women, but perhaps the most insidious effects are the possible unintended consequences for women. In any culture that prizes boy children more than girls, the practical effect of promoting fewer children will be the abortion or abandonment of girls, who are seen as financial burdens. The unintended consequence of this plan to empower women can result in the exact opposite — a silent war against them. This leads to a host of other cultural and social problems down the road. As Nicholas Eberstadt's studies have shown, China provides a good example of this effect: the male-female ratio there is close to 125:100, way above the 105:100 norm.

While microfinance can play a role in development it is not a panacea for poverty, and the way it is practiced now can have serious unintended consequences that actually undermine development. If it is going to be successful, it has to help people move away from borrowing and stop promoting collectivist notions and a zero sum mentality that only hinder development. Microfinance can be the first step on the ladder but macro-finance is needed, too. For widespread and sustainable eradication of poverty, an attractive investment climate with secure property rights and rule of law are much more important in the long run. Microfinance is a stop-gap measure: development will have taken place when it is no longer needed.

The French student demonstrations were sparked by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s proposal to amend existing labor laws and implement the “first job contract,” a less restrictive labor policy for young, inexperienced workers. The measure would apply to those under the age of 26 and allows French companies to fire these workers within the first two years of employment.

Existing labor laws in France make it difficult to fire anyone for almost any reason — even during a period of economic downturn. It also discourages hiring during times of economic growth because employers know that hiring a new worker can cost millions of dollars in salaries and benefits over time. Those who suffer the most from this rigid labor law structure are the young and inexperienced. That helps explain France’s high unemployment rate of about 10 percent. For young people it is closer to 20 percent, and in the poor neighborhoods unemployment hovers around 40 percent.

Students from all over France, including elite universities like the Sorbonne, protested Mr. de Villepin’s “first job contract” because, they claim, it takes away job security and exposes them to précarité — a French word that means something like precariousness or instability. In plain English, it means risk. Apparently, French demonstrators fail to recognize that their potential précarité translates into actual unemployment and insecurity for others — most notably the underclass.

The Financial Times reported that Mr. de Villepin expressed regret at the “misunderstanding and incomprehension” of his ideas by the public. Incomprehension is right: They don’t understand economics. The strict labor laws remove incentives for companies to hire, and are a disincentive for entrepreneurs who need flexibility to cope with the uncertainty of a new enterprise.

But there’s more to it than merely an ignorance of economics. The preoccupation with the self and the obsession with security that leads young people to protest productive labor laws in the streets reflect deeper problems in society. This preoccupation, while pronounced in France, exists in other countries as well, including the United States. Here are a few of the problems:

• Failure to recognize trade-offs. French protesters and their sympathizers don’t understand trade-offs in economics. They want it all: job security, full employment, economic growth, universal prosperity, and entrepreneurial innovation. Paradoxically, they are unable to understand both scarcity and economic growth. They incorrectly see the economy as a zero-sum game, yet are simultaneously unwilling to accept trade-offs as a consequence of scarcity.

• The lack of prudence. I mean prudence in its classical understanding: the ability to see reality as it is and act accordingly. This flight from reality explains the inability to see trade-offs is part of a larger economic problem.

• Failure to take personal responsibility. This is an interesting paradox in France, the home of existentialism. A central message of the existentialist doctrine is freedom and no excuses, yet French young people want the state to be responsible for their future.

• Lack of an entrepreneurial spirit. The unwillingness to tolerate risk and creatively launch new businesses is rooted in a cultural problem. This was pointed out by Samuel Gregg, director of research at the Acton Institute, in an editorial in the European Wall Street Journal last year. A lack of entrepreneurial spirit, he said, is connected to a lack of hope which, in turn, is a result of the practical atheism that dominates Western European life.

• Boredom. French young people, like so many others, are just plain bored. People need something to live for besides security, six weeks vacation, and the pursuit of hobbies. Young people, especially, need opportunity, risk, and the possibility for heroism. But in a culture that relegates truth, beauty, and goodness to subjective whims, and ridicules classical virtues as arcane, it is not surprising to see young people taking to the streets looking for meaning.

French poet and dramatist Paul Claudel once wrote that youth is a time for heroism and sacrifice, not pleasure-seeking. You wonder how he would view the student demonstrations in France today, and the youthful cries for more government protection. The false security of the nanny state drains commercial activity of its energy and appetite for risk, which are central to the entrepreneur; and hope and the will to seek for higher, transcendent truths, which are central to a flourishing human life. In a desperate fear of précarité, humanity loses its joie de vivre.

Michael Miller is director of programs at the Acton Institute.

(This article is a product of the Acton Institute — www.acton.org, 161 Ottawa NW, Suite 301, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 — and is reprinted with permission.)