Acton Institute Powerblog

Promoting free societies characterized by liberty & religious principles

A Letter on Work and Worth

The following is a letter written in response to a post from my friend Brad Littlejohn on the topic of the minimum wage.  Dear Brad, Thank you for your thoughtful and substantive engagement on the question of the minimum wage. Continue Reading...

Why Has the Economic Recovery Bypassed Young People?

In his latest column, Tyler Cowen points out that whatever economic recovery we’ve experienced has “largely bypassed young people,” arguing that such a development is bound to have an impact for years to come: For Americans aged 16 to 24 who aren’t enrolled in school, the employment picture is grim. Continue Reading...

Is de Blasio The New Left?

Peter Beinart at the Daily Beast writes a fascinating article about the way the “left” is currently being reshaped. It seems that young adults in the Democratic Party are far more radical than what America saw in the Clinton White House. Continue Reading...

Creating Large Retail Deserts In Washington, D.C.

As politicians continue their surrogate decision-making in the lives of the underclass, Washington, D.C. city politics remain a laboratory for repeated public policy failures. The Washington, D.C. city council recently approved a measure that would create a living wage for workers in the city who are employed by large retailers. Continue Reading...

Chris ‘Ashton’ Kutcher on Opportunity as Hard Work

PowerBlog readers will be excused for missing this, as I suspect there are not many who frequent the MTV Teen Choice Awards. But don’t let your skepticism prevent you from watching this video of Ashton (really, “Christopher Ashton”) Kutcher’s acceptance speech, in which he exhorts the younger generation to get its hands dirty with hard work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuBSRC1zpHw Continue Reading...

Dispersing Poor People And Crime

Emily Badger at The Atlantic Wire posts a common sense story regarding the debate about whether or not the dispersing of poor people out of inner-city housing projects into suburban neighborhoods, through government housing voucher programs, increases crime rates. Continue Reading...

What Distributists Get Wrong

Last week, we took a look at what distributists get right in terms of economics, through the eyes of David Deavel at Intercollegiate Review. Now, Deavel discusses where distributism goes off the rails in that same series. Continue Reading...

Progressivism’s Presuppositions

The more I read of Thomas Sowell’s latest book, Intellectuals and Race, the more I am persuaded that the era of progressivism may have been just as damaging to the history of black progress in American than the Jim Crow era. Continue Reading...