Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'capitalism'

December 07, 2009

Bernanke Versus the Austrians

My essay in today’s American Spectator Online looks at why Ben Bernanke should not be confirmed to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Two planks in Bernanke’s recovery strategy: Expand the money supply like a banana republic dictator and throw sackfuls of cash at failed companies with a proven track record of mismanaging their assets. Continue Reading...
November 25, 2009

Socialism Flu Shots for Christmas

Got the socialism blues? Worried that a friend or maybe a teenage son or daughter may contract a nasty case of it? Marvin Olasky at World magazine recommends former Acton research fellow Jay Richards’ 2009 HarperOne book, Money Greed and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and not the Problem: Among the myths Richards demolishes: The Nirvana Myth (contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its real alternatives), the Piety Myth (focusing on good intentions rather than results), and the Materialist and Zero-Sum Game Myths (believing that wealth is not created but simply transferred). Continue Reading...
November 23, 2009

Hell and Capitalism

Contrary to the belief of some, the two realities referred to in the title of this post are not identical. But the discussion around a recent Boston Globe article reminds me of the saying from Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, “Capitalism without the threat of bankruptcy is like Christianity without the threat of hell. Continue Reading...
November 06, 2009

Critiquing Fair Trade and Dead Aid

Cardus’ Robert Joustra rightly pillories “fair trade” along with the logic of foreign aid in a challenging article, “Fair Trade and Dead Aid: ‘My Voice Can’t Compete with an Electric Guitar.'” Continue Reading...
November 05, 2009

The Market, School of Virtue

This week’s Acton Commentary: Does the market inspire people to greater practical virtue, or does it eviscerate what little virtue any of us have? Far from draining moral goodness out of us—as many think—the free market serves as a “school of the practical virtues.” Continue Reading...
October 16, 2009

Capitalism is Not Based on Greed

In a new essay at The American, Jay Richards explains why capitalism isn’t based on greed. In Acton’s first documentary, The Call of the Entrepreneur, Richards along Rev. Robert Sirico, Sam Gregg, Michael Novak and others touch on this matter in making the moral case for the free economy. Continue Reading...
August 17, 2009

On Calvinism and Capitalism

I don’t much like the term Calvinism. I think it is historically unhelpful, and in general prefer to use something like Reformed theology or speak about the Reformed confessions, depending on the particular context. Continue Reading...