Foundations of the Free Market, 3

Continued from "Foundations of the Free Market, 2"

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve labored to pursue their calling and purpose:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

After the Fall, they labored to survive:

And unto Adam he said, Because thou . . . hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, "Thou shalt not eat of it," cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
(Gen 3:17-19)

This judgment upon Adam marks the beginning of the economics of scarcity. (Mankind's inherent sin and need of redemption are also part of the Fall, but important as they are, these are not my main focus here.) From that time forward, man's wants have exceeded the resources available to supply those wants.

The state of scarcity is not all bad. It has produced certain economically rehabilitative effects on mankind. They include the following:

1. Men engaged in productive labor have less time to devise mischief;
2. The division of labor results in more efficient productivity, which tends to enforce cooperation among the members of a society;
3. It forces man to participate in the original Dominion Mandate, whether he wants to, or not.

Of course, there are those who deny that the Dominion Mandate survived the Fall. I will provide Scriptural evidence that it did indeed survive in "Foundations of the Free Market, 4".