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4 freedoms that affect your right to vote (and 1 that doesn’t)

This week marks the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the UK. Just before the centenary, the Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty evaluated each nation’s electoral system in its first-ever World Electoral Freedom Index. It found that four separate freedoms correlate with a nation having free and honest elections. The report analyzed ponents of electoral laws, broken down into four categories: a nation’s political development, freedom to vote, ability to run for office, and the extent voters could hold...

10 facts about the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the UK

Women in the UK received the right to vote for the first time 100 years ago today: February 6, 1918. Numerous cities are celebrating the centenary today and throughout the season. Here are the facts you need to know: The “Representation of the People Act” proposed the right for British women to vote – but only if they were over the age of 30, a property or homeowner, and a member of or married to a member of the Local...

What we get wrong about technology

When asked to think about how new inventions might shape the future, says economist Tim Hartford, our imaginations tend to leap to technologies that are sophisticated prehension. But the reality is that most influential new technologies are often humble and cheap and new inventions do not appear in isolation: To understand how humble, cheap inventions have shaped today’s world, picture a Bible — specifically, a Gutenberg Bible from the 1450s. The dense black Latin script, packed into twin blocks, makes...

Using rice to help refugees and fight corruption in Brazil

Corruption scandal after corruption scandal has rocked Brazil for years, with ex-president Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment and ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s conviction on corruption charges. Michel Temer, Brazil’s sitting president, has also faced charges of corruption, primarily stemming from relationships with the state-owned pany, Petrobras. An obvious lack of transparency and ethics is present in Brazilian markets, what we often refer to as crony capitalism. “More than a brand, a movement.” With this slogan as the battle cry, Acton...

What Christians should know about the Dow

Note: Almost four years ago, the Dow inspired me to start a series of posts explaining economic terms and concepts from a Christian perspective. It’s fitting then thatthe Dow is also motivation to relaunch this long dormant feature (over the past two days the Dow has suffered the worst point decline in history). I call it the “Dow Conundrum.” At least once a week, for as long as I can remember, I’ve heard about the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJIA)....

Samuel Gregg: History has its eyes on Alexander Hamilton

Establishing a lasting and free county is no easy task. “The process of ordering freedom is never simple,” Samuel Gregg writes in a new article for Public Discourse, “Formally ratifying a constitution isn’t the end of the process. Articles and clauses need interpretation, ambiguities necessitate clarification, disputes require adjudication, and governmental structures giving effect to the constitution’s purposes must be developed.” No one understood that better than the ten-dollar founding father, Alexander Hamilton. Gregg reviews Kate Elizabeth Brown’s 2017 book,...

Some solutions to moral hazard

Note: This is post #67 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. In the last post in this series we discussed a form of exploitation of information called moral hazard. What are some solutions to moral hazard? In this video by Marginal Revolution University, Tyler Cowen offers several potential fixes such as as countering asymmetric informational imbalances or reducing the incentive of the agent to exploit their information advantage. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow,...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

Ministries of Service in the Marketplace

R&L: Early in life, you considered entering the ministry but decided to enter the financial world instead. How did you integrate your inclination toward religious service with your eventual business career? Templeton: When I was a child in Tennessee, my mother worked odd jobs so she could pay half the cost for Gam Sin Qua, a Christian missionary in China. At that time, I thought that being a missionary might be the most beneficial use of my life on...

Oct 27, 2026

Christianity the Key to Dignity and Fulfillment at Work

R&L: It monly held that it is impossible to be both a faithful Christian and a good businessman. How do you respond to this view? Beckett: This view is mon, but it is seriously flawed. Based on that logic, we would have to assume the Apostle Paul was not a good businessman when he was making and selling tents. More likely, he was an exemplary businessman, his products high in quality, fair in price. Can you see the people...

Oct 27, 2026

God's gift of freedom must be used to choose the good

R&L: Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, noted that, “The individual today is often suffocated between the two poles represented by the state and the market.” You have noted that the way out of this modern dilemma is the strengthening of culture. Could you elaborate? Dulles: The political and economic orders, important though they obviously are, do not exhaust the reality of human life and human society. They deal only with particular aspects of life...

Oct 27, 2026

Judeo-Christian Tradition Best Basis for Environmentalism

R&L: Although, on its face, the environmental movement seems to be about economics and politics, you have argued that, at root, it is a spiritual movement. Describe the theology at the foundation of environmentalism. Nelson: The environmental movement, at its heart, is a nervous reaction to humankind’s new relationship to the natural world that has developed over the past three hundred years. Modern science and economics have given human beings the capacity to control nature in ways almost unimaginable...

Oct 27, 2026

The Poor are the Solution, Not the Problem

R&L: In the first sentence of your book, The Mystery of Capital, you write, “The hour of capitalism’s greatest triumph is its hour of crisis.” The great triumph, of course, is capitalism’s victory munism. What is the great crisis? De Soto: Everyone had high expectations at the fall of the Berlin Wall, when we thought that the “end of history” was in sight because market economies would allow all to flourish, but now there is a general feeling of...

Oct 27, 2026

Free Markets Best Protect the Environment

R&L: Now munism has been defeated and discredited, many see radical environmentalism as the next great threat to freedom. Do you agree with this analysis? Hodel: Yes, and I define radical environmentalism as a mechanism for permitting the collectivist mentality to feed its impulse to control society. In other words, there are very valid environmental concerns we all care about; I've never run into anybody who isn't an environmentalist. No one wants dirty air and water or wants to...

Oct 27, 2026

Religious Education Indispensable for Free Society

R&L: How do you view the role of higher education—and of distinctively religious schools, in particular—in a free society? Spitzer: Religious schools—and Roman Catholic schools, in particular—supply an invaluable contribution to a free society. They do so because religious education promotes four religious virtues: the transcendental dignity of the human person, a transcendental ethic, agapic love, and an eschatological hope for the world. These four religious virtues, in turn, promote four secular virtues: the intrinsic dignity of the human...

Oct 27, 2026

Private Property System Best Benefits Environment

R&L: It has been said, borrowing Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic, that an economist is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Assuming I place a high value on the environment, and knowing you are an economist about to talk about environmental issues, do I have reason to be ill at ease? Hill: Yes, you do. You have caricatured economists a bit, but economists have spent a great deal of time talking about...

Oct 27, 2026

Changed Hearts, Not Politics, Prompt Social Renewal

R&L: In some Christian circles, social action has taken precedence over evangelism. I am here thinking of the way that the pursuit of social justice has taken the place of the proclamation of the Gospel. What are your thoughts on this trend? Palau: My view is this: Evangelism, proclamation of the Gospel, is social action. It is social action because it changes the core of the problem, which is, the individual out of control from God. Conversion brings the...

Oct 27, 2026

To Be Drawn Out of Ourselves Toward God

R&L: In your new book, Things That Count, you have an essay subtitled, “The Problem of Possessions.” What is the problem with possessions? Meilaender: I suppose there are a number of problems with possessions, not just some single problem. But at least one central problem is the way in which possessions tend to capture our trust. Human beings need to seek security, yet the very act of seeking security seems to seduce us into placing our trust somewhere other...

Oct 27, 2026