Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Business and Society

Samuel Gregg: Imitate Sweden’s Economic Liberation, Not Her Failed Socialism

Acton’s director of research Samuel Gregg has a piece over at The American Spectator that may surprise big government liberals. (We know you read this blog.) In “Free Market Sweden, Social Democratic America,” he lays out the history of Sweden’s social democracy — its nature and its effects on the country’s economy — and then draws lessons for the United States. Continue Reading...

Roger Scruton: No escaping morality in economics

Roger Scruton has written an excellent piece on the moral basis of free markets; it’s up at MercatorNet. He begins with the Islamic proscriptions of interest charged, insurance, and other trade in unreal things: Of course, an economy without interest, insurance, limited liability or the trade in debts would be a very different thing from the world economy today. Continue Reading...

Shareholder Activism on the Rise – from Nuns and Unitarians

The Manhattan Institute’s Proxy Monitor project is aimed at “shedding light on the influence of shareholder proposals on corporations.” It provides a thorough analysis of proposals made from 2008 – 2011 by activist investors — and believe it or not, only 35 percent of those proposals were related to corporate governance. Continue Reading...

Faith and Work, Politics and Jobs

Reactions from religious communities to last week’s jobs speech from President Obama are running the political gamut, as one might expect. Over at Think Christian, my piece has garnered some rather vociferous response. Continue Reading...

Guest Review: Schmalhofer on Roberts

The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity Russell Roberts Princeton University Press (2008); 224 pages; $9.69 Reviewed by Stephen Schmalhofer I hated freshman economics at Yale. It was the only C I ever received. Continue Reading...

A Thought for Labor Day Weekend

“Work gives meaning to life: It is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others, and thus to God.” –Lester DeKoster, Work: The Meaning of Your Life—A Christian Perspective, 2d ed. Continue Reading...