Dan Hugger

Dan Hugger is Librarian and Research Associate at the Acton Institute.

Posts by Dan Hugger

August 27, 2018

Lord Acton vs. the ‘New Socialists’ on Freedom

Corey Robin, professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, wrote an interesting and troubling piece last week in the New York Times titled, “The New Socialists: Why the pitch from Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders resonates in 2018.” Continue Reading...
May 07, 2018

Bernie Sanders, jobs, and what work really is

Last month the Washington Post reported, “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will announce a plan for the federal government to guarantee a job paying $15 an hour and health-care benefits to every American worker “who wants or needs one,”…” These jobs would be the product of hundreds of government projects initiated in, “…infrastructure, care giving, the environment, education and other goals.” Continue Reading...
April 24, 2018

How not to think clearly on faith and economics

Mark Labberton, President of Fuller Seminary, recently addressed a meeting of Evangelical leaders held at Wheaton College and has released a reconstruction of his remarks. It is an interesting address which spends four paragraphs explicitly addressing questions of economics and economic policy. Continue Reading...
April 18, 2018

Is economics an ideology?

Richard H. Spady, research professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins, has recently published a piece at First Things entitled ‘Economics as Ideology’ in which he explores some contemporary trends among economists and their use of economics as a Procrustean bed to reshape society in its own image, A body of thought is “ideological” when it will­fully projects its own first principles on its subject matter and actively seeks, perhaps unconsciously, material changes to bring social realities into conformity with these first principles. Continue Reading...
March 22, 2018

The bishop, Balaam, and communism

Lester DeKoster begins his book Communism and Christian Faith, now out in a new edition from Christian’s Library Press, with a quote from Bishop Joseph Butler’s sermon ‘Upon the Character of Balaam’: “Things and actions are what they are, and their consequences will be what they will be: why then should we seek to be deceived?” Continue Reading...
March 12, 2018

Is Elizabeth Bruenig even a socialist?

Elizabeth Bruenig, columnist for the Washington Post, yesterday published an opinion piece entitled, ‘Let’s have a good-faith argument about socialism’ responding to some critics of her earlier piece, ‘It’s time to give socialism a try’. Continue Reading...
March 07, 2018

Give socialism a try? Let’s not.

Elizabeth Bruenig, columnist for the Washington Post, yesterday published an opinion piece entitled, ‘It’s time to give socialism a try’. The title is a bit misleading as the piece makes no positive case for socialism but rather chronicles her own and several others convictions that something in our society has gone terribly wrong. Continue Reading...
March 06, 2018

Misreading capitalism

At this year’s LibertyCon Byran Caplan, Economist at George Mason University, and Elizabeth Bruenig, columnist for the Washington Post, debated the perennial question of ‘Socialism vs. Capitalism.’ Both Caplan and Bruenig have posted their opening statements and it is an interesting and engaging exchange. Continue Reading...
April 24, 2017

Acton books distributed to schools by Theological Book Network

  The Acton Institute recently donated a number of titles on faith, work, and economics to the Theological Book Network which will distribute them to its partner institutions in what it calls the ‘Majority World’ (‘Majority World’ is a term coined to replace earlier sometimes anachronistic or misleading terms like ‘Third World’ or ‘Developing World’). Continue Reading...