Several years ago economist Bryan Caplan provided the most succinct and helpful statement about how we should think about free trade: “We’d be better off if other countries gave us stuff for free. Isn’t ‘really cheap’ the next-best thing?” As with any simplification, critics could find many reasons to grumble about what that leaves unstated (e.g., trade leads to offshoring of jobs). But it highlights an important point about why free trade matters. Free trade is about as close to...

If you’re a college grad, what was your first job out of college? Mine was working at a day-care center. It was not my dream job. I’m not sure I even knew then what my dream job was, but I knew that wasn’t it. There is a lot of talk in the media about the underemployed, people with a skill set that is not utilized fully in their current job. We also have a lot of young people graduating from...

Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted 92-0 to approve an amendment which adds a religious liberty provision to the overall negotiating objectives outlined in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The addition wouldrequire the Administration to take religious freedom into account whenever negotiating trade agreements within the partnership. During a floor speech on the amendment earlier tonight, Senator James Lankford’s (R-OK)said, “Our greatest export is our American value. The dignity of each person, hard work, innovation, and liberty. That’s what we send around the...

What happens when a group of high school students decide to form a group to discuss the intersection of religion, liberty, and markets? At Grand Rapids West Catholic High School, they founded The Acton Club. Acton Institute Director of Programs and Educational Impact Mike C. Cook talks with the founders of the club about their experience over the last year in starting the group and their hopes for the future on this edition of Radio Free Acton. Certificate of Achievement...

The Houston- based Prison Entrepreneurship Program looks at convicted criminals as if they were “raw metal in the hands of a blacksmith – crude, formless, and totally moldable.” PEP puts prisoners through a rigorous character training and business skills regimen to prepare them for a productive, even flourishing, re-entry to life after incarceration. Ray Nothstine took part in PEP’s “pitch day” presentations where prisoners test their start-up dreams before a panel of business people and investors. He describes his day...

When is the last time you broke the mandment? (Depending on how you count them, thatusuallythe one about “Thou shalt not steal.”) Most of us would say we never (or almost never) break that one rule. We’re not thieves. We’re not swindler. We’re not plunderers. We don’t break that one at all. Or do we? As Kevin DeYoung (and the Heidelberg Catechism) point out, the mandment forbids more than outright robbery: In God’s sight, theft also “includes cheating and swindling...

“As a social psychologist, I have long been amused by economists and their curiously delusional notion of the ‘rational man.’” writes Carol Tavris. “Rational? Where do these folks live?” In a review of behavioral economist Richard Thaler’s new book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Tavris notes how economists are slowly beginning to see — or, one could argue, finally returning to the notion — that the discipline ought treat man as more than a mere robot or calculator. “Researchers...

“Indifference to the moral dimension distorts the study of human action in economics,” says Rev. Gregory Jensen in this week’s Acton Commentary, “so too does it deform the discipline that reaches behind that action to the human mind: psychology.” Built on a sound anthropological foundation and guided by an equally sound morality that is clear on the proper goals of human life, the empirical findings and practical techniques of psychology can foster the flourishing of both persons munities. Unfortunately, as...

Greed. Lust. Corruption. Thirst for power. A wretched lack passion for human life. That is Myanmar. Myanmar is home to 1.3 million Rohingya, a religious and cultural minority in what was once known as Burma. The Myanmar government staunchly refuses to recognize the citizenship of the Rohingya, claiming they are all illegal immigrants of neighboring Bangladesh, despite the fact that many Rohingya families have lived exclusively in Myanmar for generations. This lack of citizenship makes the Rohingya vulnerable to trafficking,...

We are five months into 2015, and life is still unjust. People are still ignorant and hurting each other. All the things we hope and pray for – peace, love, faith, understanding – still seem unattainable. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has spent his life thinking, theologically, about these things. In today’s Crisis Magazine, author James Day examines Ratzinger’s writings and teachings regarding “the source of mankind’s pervading unhappiness and alienation from each other and God.” Ratzinger has seen...