<\/p>\n
In a typical\u00a0hour-long crime drama,\u00a0one of the catchphrases that the witty detective has in his arsenal of axioms is \u201cfollow the money.\u201d\u00a0 That phrase took new meaning for me as I read \u201cThe Great Transformation\u201d by Karl Polanyi.
\nAustrian economist Karl Polanyi wrote his landmark work on world economic markets during the 1940\u2019s while living in Great Britain.\u00a0 In the book, Polanyi goes to great lengths to explain while the gold based economy was bound to fail, and that free markets were the enemy of humanity, leading to wars and economic collapse.
\nHaving lived through the first World War, and the worldwide economic collapse of the 1930s, Polanyi was looking for a culprit.\u00a0 He found that in free market economies.\u00a0 Following a more socialist path, he was a proponent of government-regulated markets.
\nOf course, this book was written when socialism was on the move across Europe, and beginning to take root in Asia and Latin America.\u00a0 He died long before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolvent of the USSR.
\nI must admit.\u00a0 This was a difficult book to process.\u00a0 Polanyi\u2019s arguments were complex and thorough.\u00a0 As someone with a fair grasp of twentieth-century world history, I found his characterization of the Free Market Economy as the cause of World War One to be a stretch.\u00a0 While he might convince us to \u201cfollow the money,\u201d most historians would agree that there were many other political factors that led to WW I beyond global economic markets.
\nWhat I found most intriguing was the discussion of world markets built around the international gold standard.
\n\u201cThe breakdown of the international gold standard was the invisible link between the disintegration of the world economy which started at the turn of the century and the transformation of a whole civilization in the thirties.\u201d (Polanyi, Kindle Loc. 1215)
\nI have read recently that some political leaders (but few economists) would like the United States to move back to an economy backed by gold.\u00a0 This book certainly shed the light on this modern discussion.
\nAs a Christian leader, I know that the Bible says a lot about money and power.\u00a0 Even more, scripture gives me insight into the hearts of men and women.\u00a0 While economics is truly important, \u201cfollowing the money\u201d is not the only factor in history.\u00a0 Honor, Greed, Shame, Compassion, Religion, Pride, Worldview, Ethics\u2026 these all factor into the ups and downs of world history.
\nThe U.S.A. faces some strong international issues regarding trade and global economies.\u00a0 Having said that, our country also faces problems in the areas of immigration, race relations, and the monumental divide between conservative and progressives.\u00a0 These problems cannot be solved simply by better economics.\u00a0 Many of these issues are matters of the heart, not the pocketbook.\u00a0 You can only follow the money trail so far.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/buysell.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"