On September 12-14 the Acton Institute’s Rome office hosted its third annual “Economics, Development and Human Flourishing” conference in Assisi for seminarians and formation staff of the Vatican’s Pontifical Urban College. Intense discussion and open debate was stimulated by challenging lectures on economics, political philosophy, anthropology, and Catholic social doctrine. The lectures were reinforced by showings of the Institute’s video curriculum “PovertyCure”, a six-episode DVD rich in graphic content, intellectual analysis and dramatic stories about poverty in Africa, Asia and...

Is the ultimate repository of authority and control human or divine? While that is a religious question, how we answer has profound ramifications on policy and law. In fact, as Marc Degirolami notes, the answer may determine whether free exercise of religion can survive as a legal concept: One of the ways that modernity has answered this challenge is by appropriating “religion” and transforming it from a duty that one owes a creator to a duty that one owes to...

On this edition of Radio Free Acton, we speak with Karl Zinsmeister, Vice President at Philanthropy Roundtableand former chief domestic policy advisor to President George W. Bush, about efforts to improve public education es over the years, why charter schools are succeeding where past reform efforts have failed, and the role of private philanthropy in fostering that success. Karl will be kicking off our Evenings at Acton seriesthis fall on Monday, October 3rd with a lecture entitled Indispensable: How Philanthropy...

Today at The Federalist, Acton associate editor Sarah Stanley penned an article profiling an artist from North Korea who goes by the name of Sun Mu.This profile is inspired by a recent documentary that highlights the lifeof the artist. Sun Mu defected from the oppressive state in the late 1990s and since then has been creating art that depicts the story of his life in North Korea. In order to protect his family, Sun Mu can’t use his real name....

The current problems with the school-to-prison pipeline often start with poor school discipline policies. Various school discipline policies and tactics have e under criticism for being overly harsh—often causing students to drop out of school. The frequent use of suspension and expulsion for minor offenses has monplace in many schools across the country. Over the summer Gina Raimondo, the Democratic governor of Rhode Island, signed a bill into law making it harder for schools to suspend students for minor infractions....

Samuel Gregg lecturing at Acton University. Samuel Gregg’s most recent book For God and Profit continues to receive great reviews. The most es from author and speaker John Horvat, II at The Stream. Horvat begins his review by highlighting the way Gregg reconciles the pursuit of profits with Christianity. He says this: Early in the book, Gregg establishes that profit through finance can be realized “provided that es first and that the profit is (1) understood as a means to...

But was anyone listening? That’s my question after attending the 2015 Nobel-prize-winning economist‘s talk last night in Rome at the Vatican-sponsored Cortile dei gentili(Court of Gentiles). Like the other speakers, Deaton voiced his concerns about e inequality. Unlike the others, however, he said much of it is caused by crony capitalism, a term whose meaning seems to have been lost on the Italian interpreter and hence the audience. She described it as “a type of capitalism” and “negative capitalism” but...

Note: This is the latest entry in the Acton blog series, “What Christians Should Know About Economics.” For other entries inthe series seethis post. The Term:Fractional Reserve Banking What it Means:Understanding fractional reserve banking is easier if we separate what it is (which is rather simple to explain) and the effects the system produces(which is slightly plicated). Let’s start by taking the term fractional reserve banking and working backwards. First, there is the banking part. For our purposes we mainly...

“I have a simple hypothesis,” writes economist Tyler Cowen. “No matter what the media tells you their job is, the feature of media that actually draws viewer interest is how media stories either raise or lower particular individuals in status.” Cowen believes this explains why people “get so teed off” at the media: The status ranking of individuals implied by a particular media source is never the same as yours, and often not even close. You hold more of a...

What is the role that Christians play in business and the marketplace? A recent episode of Equipped with Chris Brooks, titled “Is Capitalism bad business?” wrestles with that question and more. During his introduction, Brooks explains why he was pondering the question and there are a couple of reasons. The majority of “Equipped” listeners are not clergy, but men and women who work in the marketplace. Because of that, Brooks wants to talk about the “good that business does” and...