I just couldn’t pass this one up. Below is an ENI story on the installation of 800 “colourful miniature figures of the 16th-century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther” in the market square of Wittenberg. Just as last year there was a good deal of academic mercial interest around the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, you can expect a great deal of activity leading up to the 500th anniversary of the traditional date of the dawn of the Reformation...

During a recent conversation, a Chinese friend of mented on the lack of political involvement that she has observed in her peers, especially parison to American college students. She attributes this lack of involvement to the fact that the Chinese do not believe that political action can change the policies or even the identities of their leaders. As a result, non-politicians in China do not get involved in politics, and politicians there focus on achieving their own goals rather than...

Last Saturday’s New York Times contains an entertaining, edifying but ultimately sad tale on what ails the Italian economy. Entitled “Is Italy Too Italian?“, the Global Business article seeks to explain why Italy often tops “the informal list of Nations That Worry Europe” economically. Part of the problem may be the reluctance to use modern industrial techniques that can reduce costs of production – can you afford to pay $4,000 for a suit??? – or the large public debt run...

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a nice piece about the problem of graffiti in Rome and the obstacles to cleaning it all up. While the graffiti are certainly an eyesore in an otherwise beautiful city, there is also great economic damage done, which leads to impoverished understandings of private property and general urban decay. If cleaning up the graffiti on a four-story palazzo can cost as much as €40,000, there are surely people there to profit from the clean-up. And...

Are the Old Continent’s farmers showing that they have a real entrepreneurial spirit and serving as role models of courage and innovation during the Great Recession? Surely not all of them, but there are some inspiring examples to be found in Central and Southern Europe. This is somewhat surprising as Europe’s agricultural sector is usually among the most traditional, least open to market innovation and product flexibility, and heavily reliant on EU funding to keep the petitive. Alas, European leadership...

I think that the oppression threatening democracies will not be like anything there has been in the world before…. I see an innumerable crowd of men, all alike and equal, turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls…. Above these men stands an immense and protective power which alone is responsible for looking after their enjoyments and watching over their destiny. It is absolute, meticulous, ordered, provident, and kindly...

One of the charges sometimes leveled against classical liberal thought is thatit opposes all authority; that it seeks toreduce society to an amalgamation of atomized individuals, eliminating the role of munity, and vibrant social institutions. Historian Ralph Raico seeks to argue the very opposite in his dissertation, The Place of Religion in the Liberal Philosophy of Constant, Tocqueville, and Lord Acton.The work has been republished for the first time by the Mises Institute. (A particularly interesting note is that the...

Here is the new trailer for the 7-part Birth of Freedom DVD Curriculum, created by Acton Media and released next month by Zondervan. You can pre-order the curriculum at the Acton Book Shoppe. ...

A recent New York Times story reports that the new British government plans to “decentralize” the National Health Care system as part of its new austerity measures. Practical details of the plan are still sketchy. But its aim is clear: to shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. Under the plan, $100 billion to $125 billion a year would be meted out to general practitioners, who would use...

Those who love freedom were saddened to learn this morning of the passing of one of the most significant contributors to the cause of liberty and individual responsibility in Latin America, Manuel F. Ayau, affectionately known as “Muso” to his many friends and acquaintances, after a long and brave struggle with cancer. A humble, self-effacing but determined man, Ayau is a classic example of someone who made a difference. Whereas others confined themselves to talking about the free society, Ayau...