When es to basic definitions of work, I’ve found fort in Lester DeKoster’s prescient view of work as“service to others and thus to God” — otherwise construed as “creative service” in For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles. Our primary focus should be service to our fellow man in obedience to God, whether we’re doing manual labor in the field or factory, designing new technology in an office or laboratory, or delivering a range of “intangible” services...

The fight for religious liberty is only beginning to intensify in America, whether for retail giants, restaurant chains, bakers and florists, sacrificial nuns, or the imminent obstructionson the path paved byObergefell vs. Hodges. Yet even when facing these pressures for themselves, many American Christians still seek to withhold such freedoms from those of differing religiousbeliefs. Forgettingour position of exile,such a stancetrades the first of our God-given freedomsfor narrow self-interest and self-preservation. Suchprofound disconnect was recently on vivid display at the...

You don’t necessarily have to be a member of the Libertarian Party to appreciate it. In a new piece for the Federalist, Acton’s director of programs, Paul Bonicelli suggests that there are libertarian questions that voters of all parties should be asking. Libertarians, with a focus on limiting federal power, question the size and scope of the state and its bureaucrats, as anyone supporting individual freedom should. Some of the questions Bonicelli offers are: Does the U.S. Constitution permit the...

Unclear on how capitalism and/or socialism got started? John Green provides a 12-minute crash course that answers how we got from the British East India Company to iPhones and from Karl Marx to Swedish-style socialism. Warning: Green’s style and digressions can be a bit grating, but overall the material is worth watching. (I’d also mend increasing YouTube’s speed setting to 1.5 or 2 for faster viewing.) ...

On June 16, His Eminence Metropolitan Tarasios of Buenos Aires spoke at Acton University at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His remarks touched on a wide range of subjects including the ing Orthodox Christian council in Crete, which begins on June 19, Catholic-Orthodox relations, and other topics. The American-born bishop serves in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. According to his official biography, Met. Tarasios was born Peter (Panayiotis) C. Anton in Gary, Indiana, in 1956 to Peter and Angela...

There are numerous forms of crony capitalism, but one of the most subtle and damaging to the economically vulnerable are occupational licensing laws. For millions of Americans, occupational licensing continues to serve as a barrier to work and self-sufficiency. Take, for example,Melony Armstrong. When Armstrong began her hair braiding business, she was required tohave a cosmetology license, which required 1,500 hours of training and $10,000 in tuition. What makes this state occupational licensing requirement so unreasonable? None of the training...

Poverty Inc.,an award-winningdocumentary thatgrewout of the Acton Institute’s PovertyCureinitiative,is now available on Netflix. Duringthe past yearthe film has been in over300 screenings around the world attended by more than 21,000 people. But now we have an opportunity to spread the key message of the film to a larger audience: the most effective solutions to poverty lie in unleashing entrepreneurs to find new, innovative, and efficient ways to meet people’s needs. Please help us spread the word bytelling your friends, co-workers,...

This Sunday is the day Americans set aside to honor their fathers. Here are 5 facts you should know about dads and Father’s Day. 1. After listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909, Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Wash. wanted a special day to honer her father, a widowed Civil War veteran who was left to raise his six children on a farm. The first Father’s Day celebration, June 17, 1910, was proclaimed by Spokane’s mayor because it was the...

Today at the FEE (Foundation for Economic Education), Zachary Slayback has an excellent overview of the decline in entrepreneurship among those under 30 since the late 1980s. He writes, Between local, state, and federal regulations placed on everything from who isallowedto braid hairtowho can tell you what color to paint a wall and where to place a doorand a schooling culture and system that encourages young people to waste away the first 22-30 years of their lives away from the...

Philadelphia may like to think of itself as the “city of brotherly love,” but its latest tax increase is not so friendly to the poor. Last week the city council passed a regressive soda tax proposal that will levy 1.5 cents per liquid ounce on distributors. According to Quartz, the tax will apply to regular and diet sodas, as well as other drinks with added sugar, such as Gatorade, lemonades, and iced teas. This tax on sugary drinks is what...