Wealth Without Cost, Volume Two: White Alchemy in Religion and the Arts

Value is Created by Freedom

In Volume One of Barry Bracewell-Milnes' Wealth without Cost described the costless creation of wealth, the creation of economic value without the use of costly inputs. Volume Two extends the argument to religion and the arts.

By contrast with what is widely believed, economics, religion and the arts are structurally similar orders for the creation of value and - as Quintilian argued - the structural similarities extend to comparisons between the various arts themselves. Value can be created by the primary activities of entrepreneurs, prophets and artists and through the secondary activities of stewards and critics and the process extends to tertiary value creation by consumers.

The market economy, the Christian community and the republic of letters are extended orders in Hayek's phrase. All three are characterised by the division of labour.

The most important resemblance between economics, religion and the arts is that value is created by freedom and the voluntary principle and diminished or destroyed by force, compulsion and violence in their various forms, including anarchy and the activities of government.