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Adam Smith and a life well-lived

Over at Law & Liberty I had the pleasure of reviewing Ryan Patrick Hanley’s new book, Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life. I highly recommend it: Ryan Patrick Hanley’s latest book offers an accessible, erudite, and concise introduction to Adam Smith in full, the moral philosopher of wisdom and prudence. Continue Reading...

Alejandro Chafuen in Forbes: Young Europeans’ views of totalitarianism

Alejandro Chafuen, Acton’s Managing Director, International, wrote recently in Forbes to give his thoughts on a recent survey that examined young Europeans’ attitudes toward various strains of totalitarianism. Attitudes in different countries vary, of course, and – unsurprisingly – communism is viewed more favorably in countries that were never behind the Iron Curtain than in many eastern ones where the historical memory of it lives on. Continue Reading...

A Nobel for a technocratic approach to poverty

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Victor Claar looks at the work of the three economists awarded the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. Claar, associate professor of economics at Florida Gulf Coast University and an Acton affiliate scholar, says “economists are quite divided on this year’s prize” given to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. Continue Reading...