Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economic Freedom

May 23, 2013

Desperate Entrepreneur Atop St. Peter’s Pleads to Pope

What a sweet spectacle it is to observe Rome’s pastel-colored cityscape and glowing white marble churches from above St. Peter’s Basilica just before sunset. But this is not what one Italian entrepreneur had in mind late Monday evening and years since experiencing any kind of dolce vita in his native land. Continue Reading...
May 09, 2013

Same American Dream, Different Zip Code

If Baby Boomers are said to have fled to the suburbs in the pursuit of the “American Dream,” using zoning laws as a tool, today’s young adults could be charged with the exact same mission in light of the promises of New Urbanism. Continue Reading...
May 09, 2013

Conservatives and the Non-Triumph of Capitalism

Conservatives need to stop shying away from principled, as opposed to merely utilitarian, defenses of economic freedom and its associated institutions, says Acton research director Samuel Gregg in an article for Public Discourse: Some fiscal conservatives are certainly too sanguine about creative destruction’s unintended negative effects on our lives. Continue Reading...
April 17, 2013

Hipsters and Elitists versus Chain Stores

New York City’s hipster and elitist class seem to believe that they should have some role in determining what business owners do with their property. Like hipsters and elitists around the country, New York’s cohort are banding together to protest companies that do not present the utopian vision for the neighbors where these elites dwell (most of whom are renters, by the way). Continue Reading...
April 15, 2013

Liberty for Me, But Not for Thee

At last night’s plenary dinner at the Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) conference, William Easterly of New York University was awarded the association’s highest honor, the Adam Smith Prize. In a powerful speech, Easterly juxtaposed the contrary visions of economic development represented by the two laureates of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974, Friedrich Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal. Continue Reading...