Civic Engagement

May 28, 2019

Can intellectuals actually win elections?

In my previous Letter from Rome, I asked whether populists have the capacity to govern, given the failings of the Italian coalition made up of left-wing and right-wing populists and their apparent disdain for ideology. Continue Reading...

April 17, 2019

New video of Rev. Robert Sirico: ‘Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy’

Earlier this month Fr. Robert Sirico delivered an address to the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley titled, ‘Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy’. The talk begins with an account of a formative childhood experience which first kindled in him a passion for justice. Continue Reading...

April 16, 2019

How Rod Dreher’s ‘Benedict Option’ misunderstands Christian liberalism

Rod Dreher is once again exasperated. He is frustrated by a rumor that George Weigel hasn’t bought the tireless promotion of his ‘Benedict Option’: A few months ago, Weigel appeared at an event in Providence, RI, to discuss the Benedict Option. Continue Reading...

April 05, 2019

Chick-fil-A barred from airport

Sean Ryan, a Buffalo, New York Assemblyman, wants to control what you eat. Last week, the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport nixed plans to open a Chick-fil-A after Assemblyman Ryan took to Twitter to call out the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) for allowing this “discriminatory” corporation to open inside the “taxpayer-funded public facility.” Continue Reading...

April 02, 2019

Grace in our life together: Community beyond markets, states, and ‘social capital’

When discussing the role of economics in our life and world I am always careful to make a distinction: life is economic but economics is not all of life. I’ve suggested this broader understanding of personal and social interests has been common among major free-market theorists since Adam Smith. Continue Reading...

March 11, 2019

Socialists cannot divorce good intentions from sound economics

Corey Robin has contributed an interesting essay to the Boston Review’s forum ‘Economics After Neoliberalism’. I am reluctant to enter into debates on, “Neoliberalism”, a term so nebulous and variegated in its usage as to render it useless as anything other than an all-purpose cudgel with which to browbeat others in middlebrow magazines (See Phil Magness on its pejorative origins). Continue Reading...

March 04, 2019

How to talk and listen towards a free and virtuous society

Reading Dylan Pahman’s recent piece, Don’t write off young ‘socialists’, got me thinking about talking and listening. We all talk and listen, with varying degrees of success, every day. Most of the time I do each well enough to muddle through learning something from others while imparting some sliver of wisdom in between boisterous declarations of my opinions and preferences. Continue Reading...

March 01, 2019

Pope Francis: Pray before giving

In a private audience Francis had yesterday with St. Peter’s Circle, a social action group serving Rome’s poor since 1869, the pope gave some excellent advice. He said that it is best for them to pray hard prior to administering charity to those in need. Continue Reading...

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