The invisible hand of God: does faith flourish in a free market?
God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge Penguin Press, 416 pp. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the beginning, preaches God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World, God created Adam. No, not the dim-witted Adam with the nagging girlfriend and forbidden-fruit problem, but Adam Smith, the enterprising fellow with the thick burr, the invisible hand, and all those economic maxims drawn from an eighteenth-century pin factory. And God, it seems, saw that Adam Smith was very good indeed. Soon industrialists begat free traders, free traders begat robber barons, robber barons begat captains of industry, captains of industry begat high financiers, high financiers begat masters of the universe, and masters of the universe begat i-banking, securitized mortgages, and credit default swaps, and now only God and Tim Geithner know what’s next. Along the way, God also created the Economist to proclaim the truth and eff
