The United States has experienced years of record-breaking stock markets and unmatched levels of employment. Yet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presents her country as a dystopia in equal parts Dickensian and Hobbesian, where the wealthy few ground the poor masses into the dust. Continue Reading...
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January 24, 2020
Fact facts: President Trump’s new guidance on religion and prayer in schools
When students go back to school Monday morning, they will have more protections to exercise their constitutional freedom of religion than at any time in decades. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued updated federal guidelines requiring public schools to respect the religious liberty of students and teachers – or lose federal funding. Continue Reading...
January 24, 2020
‘Medicare for All’ is not pro-life
President Donald Trump made history on Friday when he became the first president to address the March for Life in person. As I watched the moment unfold, I was taken aback by a poster I saw held by one of the attendees: “Medicare for All. Continue Reading...
January 23, 2020
Global wealth inequality has been falling: Report
“Economic inequality is out of control,” according to Oxfam, which releases a dire-sounding report about inequality every year on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The 2020 edition faults the supposed “dominance of neoliberal economics, which values deregulation and reduction in public spending,” and the alleged existence of “monopolies,” for “accelerating economic inequality.” Continue Reading...
January 23, 2020
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s crass Marxist materialism
During a Martin Luther King Day discussion with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made clear that she is not just a democratic socialist but a Marxian one. Evie Fordham of Fox Business has written a helpful summary of the remarks, including Ocasio-Cortez’s concise explanation of the Marxist theory of the exploitation of labor:
“No one ever makes a billion dollars. Continue Reading...
January 23, 2020
Drucker on Christianity and the ‘roots of freedom’
This is the seventh in a series of essays on Peter Drucker’s early works.
In his 1942 book, The Future of Industrial Man, Peter Drucker pointed to the Christian anthropology of man as a promising building block for society. Continue Reading...
January 22, 2020
Worried about climate issues and poverty rates? Andrew McAfee has good news
Things are getting better. A lot better. If you spend a significant amount of time watching cable news, this may come as a surprise. So, how much better is the world getting? Continue Reading...
January 22, 2020
Acton Line podcast: Why we need Sir Roger Scruton’s true conservatism
When Sir Roger Scruton passed away at the age of 75 on January 12, the world lost a giant in philosophy. Scruton wrote approximately 50 books on topics ranging from food to music to conservative thought, and in 2016 he was knighted for his contribution to philosophy and education. Continue Reading...
January 22, 2020
Lunch lady equality: The fruits of Sweden’s ‘good socialism’
Sweden is often hailed for its sweeping cultural and political emphasis on the equality of all things. But while the popular discourse tends to center on its progressive economic policies and far-reaching public services, the country’s focus on fairness stretches across the spheres of Swedish society—including, more recently, its school cafeterias. Continue Reading...
January 21, 2020
Bernie Sanders tweets a recipe for exacerbating the housing crisis
Note: An expanded version of this post was released as this week’s Acton Commentary.
This week, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT, tweeted the following reaction to a story from The Economist describing rising American rent payments:
This is a crisis. Continue Reading...