Note: This is post #78 in a weekly video series on basic economics. You could fit most of the U.S., China, India, and a lot of Europe, into Africa. But if pare Africa to Europe, Europe has two to three times the length of coastline that Africa. Why does this matter? As this video by Marginal Revolution University explains, geography can have profound effects on a nation’s economic growth. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d...

I recently gave a presentation to students about foreign aid in the developing world. I tried to explain that many ing to the conclusion that what is really necessary is to establish conditions suitable for a market-based society. In other words, there must be a transparent administration of justice, the predictable rule of law, private property rights, ease in doing business, a real lack of arbitrariness, etc. Both as I prepared and as I spoke, however, I realized that some...

A majority of Americans—55 percent—now say the U.S. Supreme Court should base its rulings on what the Constitution “means in current times,” while only 41 percent say rulings should be based on what it “meant as originally written,” according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. Not surprisingly, the divide is mostly along partisan lines. According to Pew, nearly eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (78 percent) now say rulings should be based on the Constitution’s meaning in current...

A recent episode of the very fine podcast EconTalk reminded me of one of the more remarkable episodes during my time here at the Acton Institute involving our internship program. The EconTalk episode is about the price of cancer drugs, and the various factors that go into the often astronomical prices of the latest cancer-fighting drugs. These can run up to an in excess of $300,000 per year. A question implicit in the discussion is whether such high costs are...

A few weeks ago The Gospel Coalition ran a review of Jonathan Leeman’s book, Why Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age. A snip: Leeman’s analysis is guided by a few central convictions. One is represented in Psalm 2 and the title itself. He explains, “History’s greatest political rivalry, it would seem, is between the nations of the earth and the Messiah.” Another guiding insight is that all of life is religious, including politics. This is true...

Ray Dalio is a fascinating character. Founder of the“world’s richest and strangest hedge fund,”he’s been dubbed the “Steve Jobs of investing” and “Wall Street’s oddest duck.” He’s currently #26 on Forbes list ofrichest people in Americaand Time magazine once included him on their list of the world’s 100 most influential people. In 2011, Dalio outlined his personal philosophy on life and business in a self-published 123-page PDF called “Principles.” (It was re-released as a book in 2017 and e the#1Amazon...

In exploring the various connections between morality, theology, and economics, we routinely long for philosophers and theologians who understand economics, just as we crave economists who understand the bigger picture of self-interest and human destiny. That sort cross-disciplinary dialogue and mutual understanding can be beneficial, but for economist Peter Boettke, it can also serve as a distraction. In an article for Faith and Economics, Boettke argues that economics as a scienceoffers plenty of tools for “moral assessment,” and that economists...

The great British political thinker Edmund Burke regarded what some call “liberalism” today as prehensible, unworkable and unjust in the absence of mitment to natural law.A similar argument can be made in our own time, says Acton research director Samuel Gregg: Without natural law foundations, for instance, how can we determine what is and isn’t a right other than appeals to raw power or utility, neither of which can provide a principled case for rights? Or, on what other basis...

In the Age of Information, much of our work now takes place in the realm of the “intangible”—creating and trading products and services that can feel somewhat obscure or abstract. Even still, in our technological, data-driven world, we should remember that we are cooperating withnatureandco-creating with our Creator. From the social-media giants to the sawmills, from the blockchain banks to the barbershops, we are using our God-given intellect and creativity to transform a mix of matter and information into something...

I spent my previous postexplaining that orthodox socialism is effectively dead and what remains is really different variations on societies that effectively accept the market as the standard frame. Here, I would like to explain, in part, why the Bernie Sanders approach to market-based socialism (after the death of socialism) is not the right way forward. As I stated in the previous post, this Americanized “socialism” is definitely of the half-hearted variety. Strong socialism would mean government ownership of the...