The political divisions that started erupting across America in 2015 are about many things. These include the meaning of national sovereignty, the sense of a growing chasm between the political class and everyone else, and angst about what many believe to be unwarranted accelerations in wealth and e inequalities. Underlying such worries, however, is another belief: that opportunities for advancing one’s social and economic well-being are narrowing, even disappearing for many Americans. And if—if—that is the case, then part of...

Last month Alejandro Chafuen, Acton’s Managing Director, International, published a piece on detailing Latin America’s response to and preparedness for COVID-19. He recently followed up with a new post that brings his analysis up to date and highlights the situation’s relationship to the rest of the Americas. The leaders of Brazil and Mexico remain targets of criticism, and it remains to be seen what effect, if any, changing seasons will have on the virus’s spread. The coronavirus has so far...

On December 26, 1991, the USSR’s Supreme Soviet passed its final piece of legislation. Declaration Number 142-Н formally stated that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a sovereign entity. That vote sealed America’s victory in the Cold War. Many also believed that the twentieth century’s primary economic contest—socialism versus capitalism—was over. Across the world, even nations with long histories of dirigisme seemed to be embracing markets. All that seems like a long time ago. Today market skepticism is...

Popular culture presents the human race petitors in a selfish struggle for the survival of the fittest. However, new scientific research finds that the human race has a natural tendency to cooperate—and that religion increases philanthropic giving and voluntarism during a crisis. “Humans are quite possibly the world’s best cooperators,” according to a summary by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, which sponsors research into the topic. “Cooperation has never been more relevant” than during the global pandemic of COVID-19. Scientists...

Resentment is plicated emotion, a curious mix of disappointment, disgust, anger, and fear. The villainous poser Antonio Salieri in Miloš Forman’s Academy Award-winning film Amadeus is a study in resentment. In his youth, Salieri, desired nothing more than to make music. Salieri admits Mozart was his idol and that “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know his name!” He confesses he was always jealous of Mozart’s talent but still makes a successful career as poser in Vienna. When...

The Acton Institute is helping popularize a left-leaning professor’s stark criticism of the universal basic e among the world’s 275-million Francophones. A new French language translation of “Marx vs. the universal basic e” recounts the findings of Ive Marx, a supporter of e redistribution. Despite his ideological inclinations, Marx ran the data and concluded that the UBI would actually harm the poor: Marx et une équipe de chercheurs ont testé les effets de l’introduction d’un revenu universel aux Pays-Bas. Leur...

The United States has been in a state of emergency since mid-March as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to slow the spread of the virus, states have implemented various measures, including shelter-in-place orders, forcing millions of Americans to stay at home. Millions of individuals have now been furloughed or laid off permanently, and many are struggling to put food on the table. The economy cannot remain closed indefinitely. How do we begin facing the tough questions evoked...

Imagine you have just wrapped up another Earth Day celebration at your church (online only this year) and as long time chair of the Creation mittee, you reflect on all the plishments: banning Styrofoam coffee cups and plastic bottles; mandating locally sourced and sustainably farmed organic food at all hospitality events; convincing your pastor to offer sermons and “climate blessings” provided by the mother church’s Social Justice office. But the crowning achievement, the green feather in your cap, is that...

In an interview about her creation of FX’s new Hulu miniseries, Mrs. America, Dahvi Waller tells Esquire magazine that the idea for the series was born out of her childhood home. As the daughter of a political scientist, she “grew up learning about America’s politics and government” and developed a love for political dramas. Over time, however, she noticed that many political dramas revolved around men. “Women were either the wives or the victims,” she says. “I became really interested...

On June 18, 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill steeled his people for the Battle of Britain with a stirring speech in the House of Commons that concluded: “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” The present coronavirus crisis calls for Churchillian statesmanship, yet few, if any, democratically elected leaders have proven equal...