Given all the reassessment going on today about conservatism and its popularity and viability for governing, I mend picking up a copy of The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge, and the 1924 Election by Garland Tucker, III. The author is Chief Executive Officer of Triangle Capital Corporation in Raleigh, N.C. Over the years, I’ve highlighted how Coolidge’s ideas relate to Acton’s thought and mission. And while I’ve read and written a lot about Coolidge, I knew next to...

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary believes that Jesus had an economic plan. She’s written a book, #Occupy the Bible: What Jesus Really Said (and Did) About Money and Power, and claims that Jesus came to reverse economic inequality. When Jesus announced his ministry as “good news to the poor” and to “proclaim the Year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4: 18-19), he meant that he wanted his society to have a year when economic inequality...

Conestoga Wood Specialties of Pennsylvania, with 950 employees, has filed suit against the government’s HHS mandate. The Mennonites, who trace their religious roots to the 16th century, have about one million members worldwide. Mennonites understand that life begins at conception, and the owners of Conestoga Wood Specialties do not want to be forced ply with a mandate that conflicts with their faith. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Because of that provision in the policy, because our clients are paying for...

Alexandre Havard leading a recent “Virtuous Leadership” seminar with CEOs and entrepreneurs in Latvia, one of the most industrialized and wealthy republics of the former Soviet Union The Acton Institute’s Rome office led its recent Campus Martius Seminarwith Alexandre Havard, the Russian-French author of Virtuous Leadership(2007), Created for Greatness: The Power of Magnanimity(2011)and founder of the Moscow- and Washington, D.C.-based Harvard Virtuous Leadership Institute. Havard, speaking with Zenit’s Ed Pentin in an article following the seminar, said that during today’s...

The Michigan legislature’s historic vote today on the right-to-work issue raises the important question: Do labor unions offer the best protection for the worker? Liberating Labor: A Christian Economist’s Case for Voluntary Unionism by Charles W. Baird answers that question and explains the Catholic social teaching on the issue. In theory, unions foster good relations between employers and workers and prevent mistreatment or exploitation in the workplace. Pope Leo XIII sanctioned trade unions in Rerum Novarum during the Industrial Revolution;...

On Nov. 28, the Canada-based Fraser Institute released the eighth edition of its annual report, Economic Freedom of North America 2012, in which the respective economic situation and government regulatory factors present in the states and provinces of North America were gauged. Global studies of economic freedom, such as the Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Economic Freedom and the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World 2012, rank the United States and Canada as two of the most economically free...

The Michigan legislature passed right-to-work legislation today, a landmark event that promises to accelerate the state’s rebound from the near-collapse it suffered in the deep recession of 2008. The bills are now headed to Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk. The right-to-work passage was a stunning reversal for unions in a very blue state — the home of the United Auto Workers. Following setbacks for organized labor in Wisconsin last year, the unions next turned to Michigan in an attempt to enshrine...

Solidarity designed by Thibault Geoffroy, from The Noun Project When I moved to west Michigan, one of the things that struck me the most were distinct cultural differences between the different sides of the state. While I was pursuing a master’s degree at Calvin Theological Seminary, I worked for a while in the receiving department at Bissell, Inc. I remember being surprised, nay, shocked, that a manufacturer like Bissell was not a union shop. (All those jobs are somewhere else...

Prof. Giovanni Patriarca, recipient of the Acton Institute’s 2012 Novak Award given recently in Rome at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, was interviewed by RomeReports Television News Agency in a video released Friday. Articulating the main points of his lecture “Against Apathy: Reconstruction of a Cultural Identity,” Patriarca told RomeReports that Western democratic society is abandoning its traditional values and, therefore, its very culture of responsible freedom and creativity. He placed part of the blame of the West’s...

Rev. Sirico will be on the Hugh Hewitt Show today at 8:20pm EST to discuss his book, Defending the Free Market. Listen to the show on your local Salem station or live online here. ...