In the days since the Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the media have been saturated with sympathetic personal stories of accomplished people who claim they (or others claim) would never have had a chance at success without race-based affirmative action policies in college admissions. Continue Reading...
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July 04, 2023
Hope for America Lies in a Grateful Heart
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
—Cicero, Pro Plancio, 54 B.C.
Whenever I act out of anger or fear, I make mistakes—sometimes serious mistakes. Continue Reading...
June 30, 2023
An All-American Asteroid City
During his past decade or so of directing, Wes Anderson has done his darnedest to make audiences forget he’s an American. His most recent films have been set in elaborately imagined fictional versions of Budapest (2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel), Japan (2018’s Isle of Dogs), and France (2021’s The French Dispatch). Continue Reading...
June 29, 2023
Getting Back to a Mind-Centered Economy
If there is anything that makes people nervous about capitalism, it is surely the prospect of instability. Whether it is the boom-bust cycle or severe financial crises, the up-and-downs that seem to be part-and-parcel of life in market economies make us nervous. Continue Reading...
June 28, 2023
Orban Is Running Out of Other People’s Money
There once was a time when foreign investors regarded Hungary as the tax haven of the European Union. Boasting a low corporate tax rate, a new flat tax, and most importantly for many investors massive subsidies from the Hungarian government to “create jobs,” this was Hungary’s claim to fame. Continue Reading...
June 27, 2023
Disney and Human Flourishing
Sometime in the last decade, the collegiate class were led by their dedicated sophists to start talking about “the narrative,” which hadn’t concerned them before. Soon they also started complaining about propaganda, “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.” Continue Reading...
June 22, 2023
Christian Humanism and the Imaginative Mysteries
A young Kansas boy moves between oil derricks, wheat fields, and abandoned buildings. He stops for only one thing: the hose. Not any ordinary hose, but a most extraordinary hose. Its contents pour forth not in trickles, streams, or torrents but gush in words, images, and pages. Continue Reading...
June 21, 2023
The Best Econ Books for Your Summer Reading
The best way to start summer is to stock up on the newest book releases and to revisit the classics. Whether you’re concerned about growing populism among the right and left, how to think through humanitarian aid within your church, or the more significant questions of human flourishing, there is something for everyone. Continue Reading...
June 21, 2023
Was the British Empire Evil?
There is a comedy sketch from British television, now made immortal by the internet, in which a Nazi soldier, waiting for Russian troops to advance on his army’s position, uneasily examines the skull insignias on his uniform and wonders if they might, in fact, be the baddies. Continue Reading...
June 20, 2023
There Are No Alternatives to Free Market Capitalism
Alexander William Salter’s new book, The Political Economy of Distributism: Property, Liberty, and the Common Good, is an odd fish. It begs questions, contains numerous chapters that consist mostly of lengthy quotations, and at times seems to contradict itself, yet in the end it affirms an essential truth that we may forget from time to time, that private property is essential for political freedom. Continue Reading...