October 2016 Archives

October 05, 2016

‘Riches do not bring freedom’

The contrast between the treatments by David Bentley Hart and Dylan Pahman of the question of the intrinsic evil of “great personal wealth” this week pretty well established, I think, that in itself wealth is among the things neither forbidden nor absolutely required. Continue Reading...

October 05, 2016

Radio Free Acton: John Wilsey on Tocqueville’s Enduring Insights

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy In America is renowned as one of the best examinations of early American society and politics, and remains one of the most insightful commentaries ever written on the practice of democracy in the United States. Continue Reading...

October 04, 2016

Against technocracy: Greg Forster on reviving the fight for educational freedom

“Our problem [with education] today is not to enforce conformity; it is rather that we are threatened with an excess of conformity. Our problem is to foster diversity.” –Milton Friedman, Capitalism & Freedom The education reform movement has set forth a range of strategies to combat the leviathan of public education. Continue Reading...

October 04, 2016

The Christian case for global capitalism

Capitalism tends to make Christians uneasy and conflicted. On the one hand, we recognize that free enterprise has been the most effect means of poverty reduction in the history of the world. Continue Reading...

October 04, 2016

How markets discover the equilibrium price

Note: This is the fourth post in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Now that we know what the supply and demand curves are we can put them together to understand how they affect prices. Continue Reading...

October 03, 2016

Does the New Testament say wealth is intrinsically evil?

In a recent article in Commonweal, the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart responds to a rebuttal article written last year by Acton research director Samuel Gregg. Hart say that “on at least one point Gregg did have me dead to rights: I did indeed say that the New Testament, alarmingly enough, condemns great personal wealth not merely as a moral danger, but as an intrinsic evil.” Continue Reading...

October 03, 2016

Economic growth lifted another hundred million people out of extreme poverty

The number of people living in extreme poverty continues to decline, notes a report released yesterday by the World Bank. In 2013, the year of the latest comprehensive data on global poverty, an estimated 767 million people were living below the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day. Continue Reading...

October 03, 2016

Love is the Truth

This ad perhaps captures Deirdre McCloskey’s observation that “love runs consumption” better than anything I have yet seen. Coca Cola – What Goes Around comes Around from THE APA on Vimeo. Continue Reading...