In this week’s Acton Commentary, “From the Lead Frying Pan into the Toxic Fire,” I examine some of the fallout from the lead paint fiasco of 2007. Last month RC2 Corp. settled the civil penalty for violating a federal lead paint ban. But in the wake of subsequent federal action, I examine two unintended consequences. First, new federal regulations are posing an unsustainable burden on some small businesses, forcing them to make very hard choices about whether to keep their...

Hilaire BellocOver the past five years, many conservatives and religiously-inclined people have been turning to the works of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton as part of an effort to rethink the nature of economic life. Both these figures wrote about many other things than economics – and some would say that, for all their insights as Christian apologists, economics was never their strong point. Indeed many of their economic writings were heavily criticized when they were initially published in Britain...

The Big Picture blog has some remarkable images from the last 48 hours in Haiti (warning: there are disturbing images among the collections). In the wake of the disaster, many are looking back at Haiti’s history to see what has kept this nation in generations of economic despair. As the AP reports: Two years ago, President Rene Preval implored the world mit to long-term solutions for his nation, saying a “paradigm of charity” would not end cycles of poverty and...

If you are looking for a Christian relief organization working in Haiti, let me mend WFR Relief, located in Louisiana. Led by Don Yelton, WFR has a solid track record for passion in times of disaster, having “provided humanitarian aid and disaster relief in 50 countries since 1981.” They distinguished themselves, for instance, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. An article about Yelton and WFR is here. WFR’s donation page is here. ...

A friendly reminder that registration is currently open for the 2010 Acton University (AU), which will take place on June 15-18 in Grand Rapids, Mich. This year’s distinguished international faculty will once again guide participants through an expanded curriculum, offering even greater depth of exploration into the intellectual foundations of a free society. For four days each June in Grand Rapids, the Acton Institute convenes an ecumenical conference of 400 pastors, seminarians, educators, non-profit managers, business people and philanthropists from...

I have to admit that my first few reactions to the news of an earthquake in the Caribbean weren’t especially charitable. I thought first that the scale of the reports had to be exaggerated, that things couldn’t be as bad as the media was breathlessly reporting. Then I wondered how long it would take for the environmental movement to make use of the disaster to advance their agenda. Neither of these reactions are particularly noble on my part, obviously. Blame...

Thomas P.M. Barnett has written a good, concise, piece on the consolidation and deepening of globalization, specifically Wal-Mart’s tapping into local producers in developing countries. (HT: Real Clear World) As far as I can tell, there are no Wal-Mart’s in Italy, but having spent the last three weeks at my parents’ home in Flint, Michigan and shopping at places like Wal-Mart and Target, I can clearly see how far behind the curve Italy is. While family-run boutiques and the slow-food...

Some years ago, I was engaged in a conversation at a municators convention with a liberal/progressive activist who was having trouble understanding how the market could actually be a force for good. Finally, he defaulted to the question that — to him at least — would settle the matter. “So,” he asked, “does the Acton Institute work for social justice?” My response, of course, was, “You bet we do.” The problem with this brief exchange was that we obviously didn’t...