Jay Nordlinger speaks at the Acton Lecture Series This week on Radio Free Acton, National Review Senior Editor Jay Nordlinger joins the podcast to talk about his latest book,Children of Monsters: An Inquiry Into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators, a book I enjoyed enough to create the “Radio Free Acton 5 Star Award of Excellence” in order to have an award to bestow upon it. Nordlinger joined us here at Acton on October 29 to deliver an Acton Lecture...

The global economy is ever-growing in plexity and interconnectedness, leading to a range of positive and transformative effects. Yet even as this web of human relationships expands and intensifies, many of the latest innovations are prodding us back to the simple and personal. Whether we look to the various offspring of the “sharing economy” (e.g. Uber, Airbnb) or the range of bottom-up trading tools and crowdfunding platforms (Craigslist, Kickstarter), we see an eager appetite for simple and direct exchange. In...

In Cuba, taxi drivers earn far more than doctors, raking in more money in one day than a doctor will make in an entire month. The reason? Unlike most of the Cuban economy, taxi licenses are privately held and wages are not set by the state. Johnny Harris explains: Although Cuba offers fewopportunities for private enterprise — outside of itssprawling black market, that is — the number of self-employed workers has slowly grown in recent years. Seven years after Raul...

Global warming alarmists at the U.S. Department of Energy are seeking to harsh Halloween’s mellow this year. The DOE’s website this week features stories on costuming children as solar panels and methane emissions from rotting jack-o’-lanterns contributing to climate change. I’m not kidding. It seems there’s no limit to the scarifying lengths some will go in their predictions for climate catastrophe. For example, Ceres – an organization that “mobilizes a powerful network of panies and public interest groups to accelerate...

A couple of months ago Arkansas’ Secretary of State rejected the request from the Universal Society of Hinduism to erect a statue on state capitol grounds. A good friend from college, himself a Hindu, sent me an email asking me what I thought about it. What could I say? It seemed patiently unfair: Arkansas had approved a monument for the Ten Commandments on state grounds, but rejected the Hindu organization’s privately funded statue. miserated with my friend, saying only that...

Reading Bradley J. Birzer’s Russell Kirk, one might quibble with the subtitle: An American Conservative, but only because the term “conservative” has been worried like a rag doll in the maw of a Doberman puppy since Kirk mitted ink to paper on the conservative matter nearly 75 years ago. In the context of his times and eventual legacy, “conservative” plete sense since Kirk’s genius for connecting the dots of political philosophy and history exploded fully formed in 1953 with his...

“If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?” The Apostle Paul asked the church in Corinth. “Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world?” Paul continues, And if you are to judge the world, are you petent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this...

1. Introduction Francis’ Apostolic ExhortationEvangelii Gaudium[1](EG) is not a text on economy: it is a fine and substantial magisterial reflection about the topic of evangelization in our days, a most extensive subject whose analysis exceeds the humble purposes of this article, and must await a later occasion. However, Francis’ diagnosis of current circumstances holds some judgments on economic issues that have once again caused admiration and adhesion among free market critics, as well as concern or outright rejection among free...

The network of leftist shareholder activism plex and wide-ranging. In the name of progressive causes, they panies to forfeit profitability, reduce investment returns, raise costs to customers and threaten both actual and potential jobs. It’s heartbreaking that religious shareholder groups not only willingly but passionately lend their support to secular causes promoted by US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment and Ceres. As I have noted previously, both organizations count religious shareholder groups among their respective membership rosters...

Fear is inevitable. We can either let it stop us in our tracks or use it as “feedback” that we have to do something to move forward. That’s the message in Laura Herring’s new book No Fear Allowed: A Story of Guts, Perseverance, & Making an Impact (Morgan James Publishing, 2015). It’s an inspiring read for entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and “intrapreneurs” (employees with an entrepreneurial mindset) who know they’d like to make their mark in the world through business. Laura’s...