Winston Churchill, like Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain, has been the putative source of many a pseudonymous or misattributed quotation. However, one of his best-known aphorisms about taxes is authentic – but misunderstood. Churchill did, in fact, say, “To think you can make a man richer by putting on a tax is like a man thinking that he can stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle.” The quotation has had a long and storied history in...

Gary Saul Morson has excellent and enlightening piece at the New Criterion on Vladimir Lenin and what he calls Leninthink. “Lenin did more than anyone else to shape the last hundred years. He invented a form of government we e to call totalitarian, which rejected in principle the idea of any private sphere outside of state control.” As we approach the 150th anniversary of Lenin’s birth, understanding him grows ever more important. Despite the fall of the Soviet Union, Leninist...

Voters in the UK gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party its largest majority in more than 30 years. With one seat yet to report, the Tories added a smashing 47 seats. A victory of this magnitude presents Prime Minister Johnson with sweeping opportunities, but hidden pitfalls also lurk in plain sight. “Lesson one of this election is that you ignore the votes of such a large number of your core voters at your peril,” writes Rev. Richard Turnbull, the...

The inauguration of modern Catholic social teaching that occurred when Pope Leo XIII published the first modern social encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891 marked a new stage in the Catholic Church’s engagement with the modern world. It also breathed life into mentary on numerous political, social and economic questions. Exploring, analyzing and critiquing that tradition is the focus of a new collection of essays on Catholic social teaching, entitled Catholic Social Teaching: A Volume of Scholarly Essays (Cambridge University Press,...

In a new interview on his book, Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization, Samuel Gregg lays out how crucial the integration of reason and faith is to the West and what specific consequences result when reason and faith are separated from each other. When reason and faith e “untethered” from each other, distortions, or “pathologies,” of reason and faith take shape. One such example is the “psuedo-religion” of Marxism. “Marxism, in one sense, is a pathology of reason,...

In a recent Acton Line podcast I began by asking Father Robert Sirico the very large question, what is Catholic social teaching and why is it important today? He answered that the Church has always had a social teaching but that when we usually discuss Catholic social teaching today we begin with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. George Weigel’s latest book, The Irony of Modern Catholic Historysheds much historical and theological light on just why that is. Francesca Murphy,...

Most socialists have been atheists, but does accepting socialist economic principles make believers more likely to e atheists? This week’s Acton Commentary, which is the cover story of the newest issue of Religion & Liberty, explores survey data and anecdotal evidence that a socialist worldview can lead believers to lose their faith. A growing body of research reveals that as the welfare state grows, the church shrinks. Adam Kay of Duke University discovered that church and state have a “hydraulic...

When President Jimmy Carter first took office in 1977, America’s dairy farmers were struggling. Throughout the economic disruptions of the 1970s, the country had seen a shortage of dairy products, followed by a 30% spike in prices (due to government-inspired inflation), followed by a drastic decline in prices (due to government-inspired intervention). To solve the problem, President Carter and Congress took to a predictable solution: yet more government intervention. As part of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, the...

This year, California’s progressives decided to wage war on the nightmare of being your own boss. A new state law aimed at limiting the gig economy has already cost hundreds of people their jobs – and had a seriously harmful impact on women’s earnings and long-term happiness. Assembly Bill 5 curbs the ability panies like Uber and Lyft to classify their workers as independent contractors. The law, which codifies the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex decision into law, panies in the...

On May 22nd, 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson launched his program for a “Great Society” in a speech at the University of Michigan. “The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all,” Johnson began. “It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are mitted in our time. But that is just the beginning.” 84 bills later, Johnson’s war on poverty was in full effect, expanding to sectors in education, medicine, housing, and many more. Did the...