Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'Sociology'

July 08, 2014

David Brat’s Religious Virtues

In a piece today for the NYT Magazine, economics reporter Binyamin Appelbaum examines David Brat’s fusion of faith and free-market economics. Appelbaum finds that mixture problematic, to say the least, but it’s hard to sort out whether it is the religious faith or the free-market sympathies that Appelbaum finds more troubling. Continue Reading...
June 27, 2014

From Steadfast Conservatives to the Faith and Family Left: Highlights from Pew Research’s Political Typology Survey

In discussions of political issues, the American public is too often described in a binary format: Left/Right, Republican/Democrat, Red State/Blue State. But a new survey by the Pew Research Center takes a more granular look at our current political typology by sorting voters into cohesive groups based on their attitudes and values: Partisan polarization – the vast and growing gap between Republicans and Democrats – is a defining feature of politics today. Continue Reading...
May 15, 2014

Why Does No One Believe Extreme Poverty Has Declined?

Would you say that over the past three decades (since about the mid-1980s) the percentage of people in the world who live in extreme poverty — defined as living on less than $1.25 per day — has: A) Increased B) Decreased C) remained the same The right answer is B: extreme poverty has decreased by more than half. Continue Reading...
April 24, 2014

Conservatives Have the Right Answers on Poverty

From the fiscal to the familial, conservatives have the right answers, says Kevin D. Williamson: The conservative hesitancy to put the issue of poverty at the center of our domestic economic agenda, rather than tax rates or middle-class jobs, is misguided — politically as well as substantively. Continue Reading...
April 21, 2014

Marx Redivivus?

Ross Douthat (a scheduled plenary speaker at this year’s Acton University) has a noteworthy piece this week about the revival of sorts of Karl Marx: “Marxist ideas are having an intellectual moment, and attention must be paid.” Continue Reading...
April 17, 2014

Poverty Is Expensive

There are several ways to understand that poverty is expensive. First poor people pay more for the things they buy or they find that cheap stuff is not good. The poor find it hard to pay for housing which leads to having a harder time saving money even by cooking. Continue Reading...
March 26, 2014

Crony Capitalism’s Favorite Trick

Many who reject capitalism in favor of some “third way” do so because they often mistake it for government-corporate cronyism, says Jonathan Witt in this week’s Acton Commentary. But in countries that have begun extending true economic freedom to the masses, capitalist activity has already lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty. Continue Reading...