Last November, my colleague Dan Hugger critiqued comments by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) about his desire for “common good capitalism” informed by Roman Catholic social teaching. Generally speaking, this is an aspiration that many at the Acton Institute share, but the specifics of what that would look like are where the real differences lie. Continue Reading...
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January 08, 2020
Alejandro Chafuen in Forbes: Corruption, not globalization, is to blame for poverty
When discussing globalization, advocates of the free economy usually start by stressing the large number of people who have risen out of extreme poverty in the last three decades. This period of poverty reduction showed a parallel growth in globalization. Continue Reading...
January 08, 2020
What are the unintended consequences of economic nationalism?
Protectionist policies are, on the surface, attractive. Through state means, they promise to protect industries and workers as well as boost a country’s industrial production. But like most top-down solutions, there’s a catch; the government has a knowledge deficiency. Continue Reading...
January 07, 2020
The NHS: Lie or we’ll fine you
The former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson once said that “the NHS is the closest thing the English people have to a religion” – but as a new story shows, it is a religion that forces people to break the Ten Commandments. Continue Reading...
January 06, 2020
Capitalism, solidarity, and work: A view from the 16th century
Legal historian Wim Decock of the KU Leuven recently published a study of the economic thought of the Flemish Jesuit Leonardus Lessius (1554–1623). Last week the National Catholic Register posted an interview with Decock about his book and Lessius’s contribution to economics. Continue Reading...
January 06, 2020
Happy New Year: The minimum wage is practically irrelevant
This morning, as Americans go to work for the first Monday of the New Year, a growing number will see their wages rise to $15 an hour or more – thanks, not to higher minimum wage laws, but to the bustling free market. Continue Reading...
January 03, 2020
The 2010s: The decade we (nearly) won the war on poverty
As a new decade begins, it bears pausing to celebrate the strides the human race has made toward eradicating poverty at home and around the world. This is doubly important, as the television retrospectives not only omit our growing prosperity, but so many people believe things are actually getting worse. Continue Reading...
January 03, 2020
Why Europe’s churches are under attack
For many people of faith, especially Catholics and Orthodox Christians, churches are sacred places. An older cathedral, for example, is not a museum nor merely a relic of the past, but rather a place where it is believed that grace is given through sacraments, a place where God dwells. Continue Reading...
January 03, 2020
The musical entrepreneurship behind the ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus
Although it was intended to be an Easter composition, the “Hallelujah” Chorus from Handel’s Messiah has become the musical diadem of the Christmas season. It has already in early January vanished from the radio, because the modern West pre-celebrates all its holidays. Continue Reading...
January 03, 2020
Star Wars and self-interest
Recent installments in the Star Wars universe directly raise the theme of self-interest, and specifically the formation or deformation of the self. These instances help us ask the important question, “Who puts the ‘self’ in self-interest?” Continue Reading...