Two weeks ago I received my 2nd dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. When you think about this, it is simply amazing–who could have imagined we’d be able to have multiple vaccines available and widely being implemented in under a year? Certainly some thought it would take years (if ever) to get to this point. We must begin by thanking God for the gift of Common Grace, whereby He blesses all of humanity with gifts we don’t deserve. As we read in Matthew 5:45, He sends his rain on the just and the unjust alike. But God’s common grace often works through people and institutions, like free markets.

Mr. Trump had many faults, but his administration’s effort to mobilize industry and the government through operation warp speed has paid many benefits, and we should recognize it. It was only expensive if you didn’t consider its benefits–we were losing trillions of dollars globally per month with shut downs. And despite critics, the roll out of something that had never been done before on this scale was remarkably effective. We were only a few weeks off initially and that was quickly made up. I always thought by late spring we’d have vaccines generally available and it seems like that’s about where we are. The machinery of government in execution actually has little to do with whoever the president is, but policy does matter. So kudos to Mr. Trump for accelerating the timeline and continuing kudos to those that are executing now, to include the Biden administration.

But this would never have happened without “Big Pharma,” a favorite whipping boy for progressives. It is precisely high pharmaceutical profits that enables funding of thousands of researchers that proved to be that “standing army” that helped us get these vaccines created. The technological research that enabled this is a combination of basic research that government funds, but Pharma really led the way. I share many of the complaints against the practices that Big Pharma does to keep profits artificially high, but we got some amazing payback here–so kudos to Big Pharma.

Finally, hats off to free market capitalism. Clearly the pharmaceutical industry is not what we would call a free market, with heavy government and much monopolization. But even with this–only companies that actually serve the consumer over the long term survive, and those that don’t continue to do research won’t be in a position to serve consumers well. Big Pharma responded to the incentives of profits and prices that are only present in a market economy and they delivered. We don’t see much vaccine and pharmaceutical development outside a market context and there is a big reason why.

So three things that the far-left hates–Donald Trump, Big Pharma, and free market capitalism are getting my Monday morning kudos. What say you?