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October 12, 2010

Liu Xiaobo: Peace Prize, Prosperity and Liberty

In the International Herald Tribune, Fang Lizhi points to the experience of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo over the last 20 years as “evidence on its own to demolish any idea that democracy will automatically emerge as a result of growing prosperity” in China. Continue Reading...
October 12, 2010

Faith and Prosperity

Here is a link to a good summary of McKinsey’s report on business and Africa that can be found at Acton’s good friend Andreas Widmer’s blog Faith and Prosperity. Andreas is a former Swiss Guard turned high-tech entrepreneur who is now focusing on promoting enterprise solutions to poverty throughout the developing world. Continue Reading...
October 12, 2010

Marketplace Revolution

Last week several colleagues and I had the opportunity to attend Partners Worldwide conference: Marketplace Revolution: Fighting Global Poverty through Business. Acton was delighted to be one of the sponsors of the event The conference had 400 people from all over the world and promoted enterprise solutions to poverty. Continue Reading...
October 12, 2010

Of Miracles and Means

Last week I linked to Joe Carter’s On the Square piece, “What the Market Economy Needs to be Moral,” challenging his view that we need a “third way.” He has since clarified his position, and noted that what he wants is not really an alternative to the market economy but an alternative grounding, view of, and justification for the market economy. Continue Reading...
October 07, 2010

The Main Battle

In the “Wealth Inequality Mirage” on RealClearMarkets, Diana Furchtgott-Roth looks at the campaign waged by “levelers” who exaggerate and distort statistics about income inequality to advance their political ends. The gap, she says, is the “main battle” in the Nov. Continue Reading...
October 07, 2010

The Christian Market?

Joe Carter discusses “What the Market Economy Needs to Be Moral” today over at First Things: On the Square. He rightly points to the twin errors of collectivism and atomistic individualism, each of which have been soundly criticized in Catholic Social Teaching, for instance. Continue Reading...
October 06, 2010

A Federal Tax Receipt

There’s an old saying to the effect: “Show me a man’s checkbook and I’ll show you what’s important to him.” It may not be quite the same as a checkbook, but NPR’s Planet Money passes along what a receipt from the federal government might look like for an average taxpayer (HT): As Third Way, who put together the taxpayer receipt, argues: An electorate unschooled in basic budget facts is a major obstacle to controlling the nation’s deficit, not to mention addressing a host of economic and social problems. Continue Reading...