Latest Posts

July 27, 2017

Are you brave enough to tell a joke?

Ticking Giants (2017) tells how an Egyptian comedian found a way to fight against and call out abusive leaders with creative non-violence. This new documentary directed and produced by Sara Taksler follows Dr. Continue Reading...
July 26, 2017

The one virtue personified by all good fathers and entrepreneurs

  It has become passe to accuse defenders of the free market of selfishness and atomization. Even Pope Francis recently denounced “libertarian individualism.” But Mihail Neamtu, in a new essay for Religion & Liberty Transatlantic, argues that open markets rely on one specific virtue, best exemplified by fathers and entrepreneurs, which requires them to care for others: Over nearly half a century, secular academia, pop culture, and the managerial welfare State have undermined an important moral quality of the West: individual responsibility, rooted in inherent human dignity. Continue Reading...
July 26, 2017

Finding ‘the lost tools of learning’

“If you were to read Dorothy Sayers’ The Lost Tools of Learning and thereafter read the curriculum of Veritas Classical Academy,” says Elizabeth Yeh in this week’s Acton Commentary, “you would find that the “lost tools” have been found in the small town of Marietta, Ohio.” Continue Reading...
July 26, 2017

Radio Free Acton: Jim McGann on the world of think tanks; Upstream on Spiderman: Homecoming

This week on Radio Free Acton, we talk with Jim McGann (senior lecturer of International Studies at the Lauder Institute, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program and senior fellow, Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania) about the world of think tanks – what they are, what they do well, and where they can improve their effectiveness. Continue Reading...
July 26, 2017

The political implications of bitcoin

Prior to the publication of John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, balanced budgets reflected the received wisdom for governments. By making the case for debt spending in times of recession (and the virtually ignored case for restricting spending in times of growth), Keynes gave political leaders a license to abandon the requirement of balance. Continue Reading...