May 2014 Archives

May 21, 2014

Samuel Gregg: Catholicism’s Compatibility With Capitalism

Sam Gregg, Director of Research for Acton, is featured in an interview with the National Catholic Register. The interview ranges from Gregg’s education and career at Acton to how Catholicism and the free markets dovetail. Continue Reading...

May 20, 2014

Explainer: What is Going on in Vietnam?

What is going on in Vietnam? For decades, China and Vietnam have clashed over control of parts of South China Sea, which is rich in oil and fish. Earlier this month, China moved an oil drilling rig into waters claimed by Vietnam. Continue Reading...

May 20, 2014

Kuyper on Decentralization, the Family, and the Limits of State Authority

In Guidance for Christian Engagement in Government, a translation of Abraham Kuyper’s Our Program, Kuyper sets forth an outline for his Anti-Revolutionary Party. Founded by Kuyper in 1879, the party had the goal of offering a “broad alternative to the secular, rationalist worldview,” as translator Harry Van Dyke explains it. Continue Reading...

May 19, 2014

Video: ‘Fighting Poverty: We’ve Been Doing it All Wrong’

Yahoo! Finance’s Stock Analyst, Kevin Chupka, recently interviewed Rev. Robert Sirico about the “Cure for Income Inequality” and the work of PovertyCure. Chupka begins by stating that “close to half the planet lives on less than $2 dollars a day” and that an alarming number of Americans are living below the poverty line. Continue Reading...

May 19, 2014

What Most People Get Wrong About Economics

I am not an economist. Truth be told, I only took one class in economics as an undergrad. However, I’ve learned a lot in the past few years, and one of the things I’ve learned is that most people don’t understand economics. Continue Reading...

May 19, 2014

All Is Gift: Lessons in Stewardship from C.S. Lewis’ ‘Perelandra’

One of the primary themes in the Acton Institute’s new series, For the Life of the World, is the notion that “all is gift” — that we were created to be gift-givers, and that through the atoning power of Jesus Christ, we are empowered to render our activities, nay, our very lives to God and those around us. Continue Reading...

May 19, 2014

Calvin Coolidge on the Death of American Civilization

“The Power of the Moral Law” is the title of an address delivered by Calvin Coolidge at the Community-Chest Dinner in Springfield, Massachusetts on October 11, 1921. Published in The Price of Freedom, the text is only available online through Google Books. Continue Reading...

May 19, 2014

Profit Isn’t Enough: Could Our Economy Benefit From Catholic Social Teaching?

Is a “profit alone” mentality enough for a business or for a nation? If the economy is running well, should we bother to look any deeper, or just leave well enough alone? Continue Reading...

May 16, 2014

The Power of the Personal and the Temptation of the Planner

In his latest column, David Brooks examines the limits of data and “objective knowledge” in guiding or directing our imaginations when it comes to solving social problems. Using teenage pregnancy as an example, he notes that although it may be of some use to get a sense on the general drivers of certain phenomena, such information is, in the end, “insufficient for anyone seeking deep understanding”: Unlike minnows, human beings don’t exist just as members of groups. Continue Reading...