Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Public Policy

January 06, 2016

Cultural Stewardship and Institutional Scrutiny

In today’s Acton Commentary, I have some further reflections on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The basic thrust of the piece is to encourage institutional thinking. We should expect that humans are going to institutionalize their goals because humans are natural institution builders, or culture makers. Continue Reading...
January 05, 2016

How Can We End Hunger in America?

What does it mean to be hungry in America? And how do we solve the issue of domestic hunger? To answer those questions, Congress created the bipartisan National Commission on Hunger, a group tasked with providing “policy recommendations to Congress and the USDA Secretary to more effectively use existing programs and funds of the Department of Agriculture to combat domestic hunger and food insecurity.” Continue Reading...
December 08, 2015

Facebook and the Institutional Forms of Social Good

Over at Think Christian, I take a look at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and derive a lesson from Jesus’ interaction with the rich young man in Mark 10. A basic lesson we can take from the decision to organize the initiative as an LLC rather than a traditional non-profit corporation is that pursuing social good is possible in a wide variety of institutional forms. Continue Reading...
November 30, 2015

How We Tax the Poor

Imagine you’re a single mom with one child who receives $19,300 a year in government benefits. A local business offers to hire you full-time at an hourly rate of $15 an hour. Continue Reading...