Human flourishing

July 17, 2017

Arvo Pärt on the economy of wonder

Our society has grown increasingly transactional in its ways of thinking, whether about family, business, education, or politics. Everything we spend, steward, or invest — our money, time, and relationships — must somehow secure an immediate personal return or reward, lest it be cast aside as “wasteful.” Continue Reading...

July 14, 2017

Human machines & the nature of man

On Tuesday, Newsweek published an article relating how the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) allocated $65 million to develop brain implants “to link human brains with computers.” Neuro-technology has been a priority of the U.S. Continue Reading...

July 06, 2017

What the pastor taught the professor about social justice

I’m a middle-aged professor who regularly does a presentation on social justice. As a dedicated believer in the power of free markets, I tend to focus on social justice as distributive justice. Continue Reading...

June 06, 2017

Faithful work in a pluralistic world

When the benediction is offered at the conclusion of a church service, it can be easy to nod in agreement even as we neglect or forget the actual implications for everyday life. Continue Reading...

May 16, 2017

The Social Capital Project: Reviving ‘associational life’ in America

Over the past few decades, America has experienced a wave of drastic economic and social disruption. In our search for solutions, we’ve tended to look either to ourselves or the State, resulting in a clash between individualism and collectivism that forgets or neglects the space between. Continue Reading...

May 08, 2017

Samuel Gregg on how to really make America great again

With economic growth gradually declining since the 1980s and in the first quarter of 2017 possessing a growth-rate of only 0.7 percent, the United States is not headed in a direction of growth and prosperity. Continue Reading...

May 05, 2017

Pope Francis’s attack on ‘libertarian individualism’ not about libertarians

The following essay appeared Friday, May 5, 2017, at Crux. In a recent message by Pope Francis to the Pontifical Academy of Social Science he outlines some moral concerns about a phenomenon he sees as invading (his term) “high levels of culture and education in both universities and in schools,” namely “libertarian individualism.” Continue Reading...

April 06, 2017

Intellectuals vs Freedom

[Review of From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chavez: Intellectuals and a Century of Political Hero Worship by Paul Hollander, Cambridge University Press, 2016, 325 pp.] My former boss and current president of the Foundation for Economic Education, Lawrence Reed, used to begin seminars by asking members of the audience when they “caught the liberty bug.” Continue Reading...

April 05, 2017

Hillbilly experts: Economic optimism from Appalachia

It seems like every day we hear the siren calls of a coming end of jobs. A new report out of the PwC says that 38% of all jobs in America are at risk of being automated. Continue Reading...

March 30, 2017

In Western countries, what’s the greatest predictor of misery?

A few weeks after leaving the presidency, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a message to the citizens of Maryland that, “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” Continue Reading...

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