Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Poverty

May 27, 2014

Is Fairtrade Failing to Be Fair to Farmers?

Fair trade is an organized social movement whose goal is to help producers of commodity products in developing countries achieve better trading conditions. Farmers can get their products, such as coffee or bananas, Fairtrade certification through certain standard-setting organizations. Continue Reading...
May 15, 2014

Why Does No One Believe Extreme Poverty Has Declined?

Would you say that over the past three decades (since about the mid-1980s) the percentage of people in the world who live in extreme poverty — defined as living on less than $1.25 per day — has: A) Increased B) Decreased C) remained the same The right answer is B: extreme poverty has decreased by more than half. Continue Reading...
May 08, 2014

Deirdre McCloskey on Ethics and Rhetoric in the ‘Great Enrichment’

In a marvelous speech on the origins of economic freedom (and its subsequent fruits), Deirdre McCloskey aptly crystallizes the deeper implications of her work on bourgeois virtues and bourgeois dignity. For example, though many doubted that those in once-socialistic India would come to see markets favorably, eventually those attitudes changed, and with it came prosperity. Continue Reading...
April 24, 2014

Conservatives Have the Right Answers on Poverty

From the fiscal to the familial, conservatives have the right answers, says Kevin D. Williamson: The conservative hesitancy to put the issue of poverty at the center of our domestic economic agenda, rather than tax rates or middle-class jobs, is misguided — politically as well as substantively. Continue Reading...
April 21, 2014

Audio: Sirico on Gnosticism, Poverty and Secularism with Larry Kudlow

On Saturday morning, Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico joined host Larry Kudlow on the nationally syndicated Larry Kudlow Show for a wide-ranging Easter weekend discussion. Sirico and Kudlow talked about everything from the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” to the collapse of poverty rates worldwide over the past few decades, and ended with a conversation about the upcoming canonizations of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, and a reflection on whether the march of secularism can be turned back in western society. Continue Reading...
April 18, 2014

Ignatius Press Now Carrying PovertyCure

Ignatius Press is now carrying Acton’s PovertyCure DVD Series here: This widely acclaimed series focuses on the key question, How do people create prosperity for their families and their communities? The purpose of this series is to encounter our brothers and sisters in the developing world not merely as people in need, not as aid recipients, not as charity projects, but as human beings created in the image of God and endowed with His divine creative spark. Continue Reading...
April 17, 2014

Poverty Is Expensive

There are several ways to understand that poverty is expensive. First poor people pay more for the things they buy or they find that cheap stuff is not good. The poor find it hard to pay for housing which leads to having a harder time saving money even by cooking. Continue Reading...
April 10, 2014

How Bitcoin Could Help the World’s Poor

Bitcoin is dead, long live Bitcoin. A few weeks ago the IRS killed off any chance that Bitcoin could become a mainstream currency. That’s probably for the best since it clears the way for it to become something much more important: the world’s first completely open financial network. Continue Reading...