A consensus has developed among activists on the left that Wal-Mart is bad for America, and particularly bad for the poor, not only in America (where wages are supposedly driven down) but also abroad (where suppliers allegedly abuse and exploit their workers). Check out this litany of social harms alleged to be caused by Wal-Mart. The organization piled that list – Wal-Mart Watch – even has a “faith resource guide” that pastors can use to whip up anti-Wal-Mart sentiment within...

Alan Anderson of the Sydney Morning Herald notes that Ronald Reagan’s joke about the Government’s view of the economy has e United Nations policy toward the internet. The Belmont Club blog notes that placing control of the Web into the hands of UN regulators will have far reaching negative consequences: One of the reasons the Internet has been so successful is that it has so far escaped the restraints of Filipino judges, Tunisian government officials and United Nations bureaucrats. Addresses...

What, exactly, was the point of the recent Summit of the Americas in Argentina? President Bush’s participation there seemed to plish little more than to excite street mobs and vandals. And then there was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, doing his best Fidel impersonation as he led opposition to a U.S.-backed free trade agreement. Alejandro Chafuen, president of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, uses the occasion of the summit to succinctly catalog the ills that plague Latin America. “With few exceptions,”...

The system that administers special education in the United States is one that “parents find unresponsive, and schools find expensive,” writes Jennifer Morse, Acton Senior Fellow in Economics. She takes a look at the implications of a recent Supreme Court ruling es up with a solution that involves the dreaded V-word: Vouchers. Read the mentary here. ...

Join us in ing poverty. Acton is starting a new ad campaign which aims to raise awareness of effective ways to e poverty and world hunger. We encourage everyone to view our ads and to consider them seriously as they join the rest of the developed world in extending a hand to those in need. If you’re interested in promoting real solutions to poverty, join our partnership of religious leaders. Visit our website to access valuable educational materials and connect...

A good story on Moses Maimonides in this weekend’s Washington Post, “The Doctor Is Still In: Medieval Rabbi-Healer Maimonides Linked Body, Soul.” A key contention is that Jewish doctors like Maimonides “associated healing with basic religious duty.” The main source for the article is author Sherwin Nuland, whose most recent book is on Maimonides. While Nuland caricatures Christians in opposition to Jewish religious interest in healing, the perspective is a valuable one. The article does note that beyond Nuland’s interest...

Hans Mahncke, an International Law and Trade scholar at Hong Kong’s Lion Rock Institute, takes to task recalcitrant NGOs in a recent TCS article (Tech Central Station no longer active). The essential sticking point is the inability to reform the WTO: The WTO is plagued by two major faults. On the one hand, its rules have grown plex, feature too many loopholes and allow for too much discretion on the part of those who actually understand them. On the other...

The newest phase in the fight for digital/intellectual property rights involves the recent Digital Rights Management software from Sony. Apparently, Sony’s “protected” audio CDs have been installing a “rootkit” onto puter, and opening up puter to yet more malicious software on the Internet (as if it isn’t bad enough already without a Sony rootkit). There are a couple of things I want to say about this – first, a short description of exactly what the problem is; and secondly, a...

For those of you who are fluent in Portuguese, from a Portuguese speaking country, or who are just interested in Português, please check out our newly updated Portuguese language section. We have many translated articles, papers, editorials, interviews, and a whole catalog of biographies from “In The Liberal Tradition.” ...

Every now and then e across something in the news that makes you want to laugh and weep at the same time. Today’s International Herald Tribune contains one such article. Titled “Poles on ramparts of EU culture war”, it relates how the newly-elected Polish members of the European Parliament are causing so much rancor in Brussels. Their crime: being Christian, pro-economic growth, and friendly to the United States. It turns out that some of the new members of the European...