Stork Economics

My friend Mark linked this article on his blog earlier this month. (Thanks, Mark! Sorry for the "me too" post.) It’s a surprisingly short one for First Things, where I usually must devote 45 minutes to reading an article and another three hours to digest it. This primer is brief, insightful, and funny.

A few summary quotes:

If you ask a child where babies come from, you can get a lot of interesting answers, but traditionally the most common answer is that they come by stork. Children tend to have a similar understanding of economics. If you ask them where their allowance comes from, the two most likely responses are “Daddy’s wallet” and “Mommy’s purse.” In both cases, nothing is created, just transferred. Babies are transferred by storks, and wealth is transferred by parents.

…
Most of us grow up to understand that God allows us to participate in the procreation of babies, but unfortunately very few ever realize that God allows us to participate in the procreation of wealth. Rather than procreation, most people assume what is commonly referred to as a zero-sum view of economics. In this view, wealth can neither be created nor destroyed but only transferred from one person to another. This, essentially, is stork economics.

…
It would be very sad if someone reached adulthood still believing that babies are delivered by stork. … In the same manner, those who still believe in stork economics often find it very difficult to acquire wealth, or at least to create it. … While the method for procreating babies is extremely popular, the methods for procreating wealth are, unfortunately, much less attractive.

Be sure to read the whole article to get to the punchline.