by Stephen Aguegboh

“God is akin to a perfect market and for fear of what the religious extremists would say, I am sure that this is an infinitesimal of how, what and whom God is”

As an economist, I have always been a fan of the classical perfect market. As much as I want to enjoy the possibility of such a utopian perfection, I still don’t fool myself into thinking that anything like that exists anywhere. Not even the textbook example of the capital market cuts it; It could merely be seen as the closest amongst other existing markets.

The nagging question passing through the subconscious mind of readers would be -“what would anyone like about a perfect market?” Well, for starters, the basics of this market offer a life free of the imperfections that threatens the world we presently live in. For instance, free flow of information, this example is the quickest to come to mind because it just goes to show that anyone that doesn’t have access to this article might be a victim of unfree flow of information.

Thus, if this article promises to send a message, it only means that this message is restricted to the few who have the capacity to afford access to social media. This instance is just a microcosm of the bigger picture. What about kids and youths alike who cannot afford quality education? What about the man who does not have as much information as his neighbour to make rational decisions in his everyday life? What about teenagers in typical rural areas that have insufficient information about HIV? The list goes on.

You know, one of the very costly assumptions of rationality is the symmetry of information. Well, news flash- Information is hardly symmetric in any field of life.  At every point, someone knows better and that changes everything. Let’s not delve into the angle that relates to putting information into use because that is a discussion for some other day.

God is akin to a perfect market and for fear of what the religious extremists would say, I am sure that this is an infinitesimal of how, what and whom God is. The bottom line here is that like a perfect market, He isn’t as material as lots of entities we come in contact with in life; But modelling our life after Him gives us the hope that we are anything like Him. Of course, like a perfect market, nobody would ever get there but we must keep trying. On a final note, someone once said “In life, if you stand for nothing, you could fall for anything”.

—————————————————————-

Stephen Aguegboh is a graduate of Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; He is also a huge fan of Chelsea FC. He tweets from @SteveMcKenzy

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija