I could say a lot about free trade and the modern science of economics. I don't pretend to be a complete expert, but I'm also not a n00b to the topic; I do have an economics degree, after all—although after that I went on to do other things with my education. I think some of the most insightful commentary on economics comes from non-economists, who are able to not get lost in the weeds and recognize that economists have done a pretty terrible job of predicting much of anything economically, and most of the calls that they've made have turned out to be completely untrue, at least at a macro level. Now, some will suggest that this is because they've let their ideology influence their interpretation of the data too much, and the data and the "correct" interpretation is still right there for anyone who's not ideologically blinded to see, and there's some merit to that. But maybe not as much as people think. And maybe, for that matter, the entire field of study is kind of missing the point.
Many times people not of our faith are able to see things more clearly than most of the people of our faith are able to see. My first thought on reading this was to wish he'd had the greater insight from the Book of Mormon from people like King Benjamin, or other commentary here and there about the "pride cycle" which could just as easily be called the "prosperity cycle". But the fact is, that you don't need the Book of Mormon to come to those same conclusions, although it should be easier to do so if you have access to its plainer and more precious teachings. The Bible is sufficient to reach the same conclusions, however. Anyway, as with any non-LDS Christian teaching, apply the wisdom and counsel given to us in D&C 91: "There are many things contained therein that are true, ... There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. ... Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom; And whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited."
Much of what he says actually echoes exactly what many of the 20th century prophets warned us about, but it's interesting that that can be taken too far if we're so worried about the evils of communism, for instance, that we fail to be aware of alternative temptations sneaking up on our flanks while we're occupied looking at something else. Free trade isn't actually capitalism, especially as it's practiced in the West today, which is a kind of malicious corporate oligarchy that bears more resemblance to a corporate-government partnership to mimic socialistic ideas than it does actual free market capitalism. But because it wasn't actual communism, then communism with a fairer name was able to completely envelop us today in the West.
https://younggospelminister.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-devil-corrupts-with-free-trade-how.html
Let me quote a few sections of it, but I highly recommend that you read the entire thing at its original source.
So let me start this way: communism is one of the dumbest forms of society conceivable. Nazism is just as bad, and feminism has a higher death toll than both of those two systems combined (abortion). But communism is so obviously dumb. It impoverishes a nation, it empowers the particularly wicked to get into positions where they can do maximum damage, it centralizes mediocrity into the halls of power, and it is inevitably self-defeating. The fact that communism is so popular still in the modern world after all the damage it has done, is all the proof we need that influential elements in film, media and academia, which are all responsible for shaping minds, are in the hands of its perpetrators and their descendants. That is the only way that its teachings can continually be whitewashed in the minds of young westerners.
I say this, so there is no confusion, nothing I say in criticism today of our modern economic system comes from a place of sympathy to communism. I despise communism as much as anyone despises Nazism. I think it is horrible and disgusting we didn’t outlaw communism decades ago when we had the chance. To me Nazism and Communism are different sides of the same evil coin.
But, what is interesting is that right now many former communist countries are on the rise, and virtually every western nation is on the decline. We have nicer things, that is for sure, but there is one thing in history that is more effective at destroying a people than any political ideology: that is unrestrained wealth and greed. That is what our system has become.
In real terms the government views us all as economic beings, and we spend most of our time acting as such, and this is not good. Prosperity can be both a blessing and a curse, and the Bible warns us, desperately, about this, and one of the most famous passages about the Devil in scripture is in this very context. Because being enamoured with your prosperity is exactly the mistake the devil made.
So, today I want to speak to the evils of our free trade system, and how the Devil uses it to corrupt us. I think this is so important for us all here, especially because of our wealth, because the Bible puts a lot of focus on warning those of us at ease, how dangerous that ease can be for our souls.
It's interesting, as he points out, to read Ezekiel 27-28 with the thoughts of "how does this resemble our current economic system?" in mind? The Canaanites (Phoenicians) are often praised in our history books for their mercantilism and the innovations that they came up with that we still use heavily today in our society. Not all of them were bad, of course—the concept of money vs barter, or an alphabet are hardly bad things in their own right, but Ezekiel talks about something that sound an awful lot like free trade and the free movement of peoples that accompanies it. To me, it sounds like "the whole world in commotion" and the immediate run-up to the Bronze Age Collapse. The former ought to be very worrisome to anyone familiar with modern revelation, and the latter shoudl be very worrisome to anyone familiar with history.
Anyway, there's yet more. Again, I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing, and if you are loth to trust the word of a non-LDS Christian quoting only the Bible, think about how the principles he finds therein match quite well what we are taught from the Book of Mormon about wealth and the "pride cycle." In my opinion, the Book of Mormon is the nail in the coffin of any argument that free trade as we practice it in the modern West is a Gospel-compliant system. What was much closer to a Gospel-compliant system was what we did in America prior to the Civil War. Which, we're taught a modern mythology where the Civil War was the north righteously went to war with the South in behalf of the poor Negro, who needed his help, and was a kind of second founding of the nation without the errors of the first founding. This isn't accurate at all, however—what the Civil War really was was a corrupt system of rentiers who militarily conquered their rivals so that they could loot their economic wealth and impose their corrupt proto-oligarchic socio-economic system on them. Rather than a second founding, it was the beginning of the end for America, and the destruction of our Constitutional freedoms and system.
Anyway, that's a topic for another day. And I'm not suggesting that slavery was a good thing or should have been perpetuated, but the reality is that nobody who started or fought in the Civil War did so because of slavery. It was a post-mortem excuse thrown on the whole thing to justify to future generations why the war was fought and make the winners look like the good guys rather than the villains that they were.
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