Capitalism 3.0

Chapter 6

Trusteeship of Creation

God gave the care of his earth and its species to our first parents. That responsibility has passed into our hands. — National Association of Evangelicals, 2004

Gifts of creation were produced only once and are irreplaceable. By contrast, products traded in markets tend to be massproduced and highly disposable. It’s hard to imagine a deity who’d view such temporal goods as equivalent to his or her enduring handiwork. The question is whether creation’s irreplaceable gifts are different enough to merit different treatment by our economic operating system. A strong case can be made that they are.

The case is moral as well as economic. The moral argument is that we have a duty to preserve irreplaceable gifts ...