On November 29 the Acton Institute filled the Pontifical Gregorian University’s aula magna to maximum capacity with at least 380 participants, a record attendance during Acton’s 17 years of academic programming in Rome. The international mix of students, professors, diplomats, journalists and lay professionals representing all continents came in droves for the afternoon conferenceGlobalization, Justice, and the Economy: The Jesuit Contribution which was co-sponsored by Acton and the Gregorian’s Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage of the Church. The discussion,...

History’s worst tyrannies began as attempts to create utopia. This longing to inaugurate the heavenly kingdom on earth – to “immanentize the eschaton,” in William F. Buckley Jr.’s memorable phrase – empowers politicians who promise peace and prosperity in exchange for power. The Brexit vote shattered one such imitation kingdom, according to Stephen F. Copp in an insightful and scholarly new essay for the Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website. “Brexit has profound implications for those who care about religion and...

The Fund for American Studies has a superb It’s a Wonderful Life-style video about life without capitalism. The video not only shows what life would be like if we banned free enterprise (i.e., a lot like Soviet Russia) but also makes the point that when you lose economic freedom you lose other freedoms too. As the angel says, “When you take away the carrot, all you’re left with is the stick. My favorite part of the video: Anti-capitalist activist: “I...

Note: This is post #59 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Do unions raise wages for workers as a whole? If not, can unions raise the wages of some workers? The answer, says economist Alex Tabarrok, is . . . it depends. Unions have the ability to restrict the supply of labor to a job, which can increase wages for some workers. However, unions can also lower wages. For example, work stoppages and strikes supported by unions can...

In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, Catholic theologians, many of whom were members of the Society of Jesus, studied the intersection of morality and merce. Jesuits includingJuan de Mariana, Luis de Molina, and Leonardus Lessius explored the ethics of money, economics, and trade.In his famousHistory of Economic Analysis, the distinguished economist and historian of economic ideas, Joseph Schumpeter, described many of these Jesuits’ insights as anticipating similar ideas expressed by Adam Smith two centuries later. The Jesuits contributed greatly...

A series of governments across the West have crafted policies designed to help women achieve their goals. However, they failed to ask women what those goals might be. Economic interventions designed to nudge women into careers they don’t want, or to enter the workforce full-time even if they prefer to work in the home, uniquely disempower the women they are intended to help. Juan A. Soto, executive director of the Barcelona-based think tankFundación Arete, tackles the issue in a new...

Sebastian Kurz made history when Austrian voters elected him the world’s youngest leader on October 15 at the age of 31. His ascent has been met with jubilation or trepidation across the transatlantic space. Some European media say paint him as dangerously far-Right. For instance, the satirical Titanic magazine in neighboring Germany, has repeatedly called Kurz “Baby Hitler” and depicted his assassination. On the other hand, the Catholic Herald of London dubbed Kurz “Europe’s Christian Chancellor.” Where does the young...

As supporters of economic freedom, we frequently find ourselves in vigorous defense of personal choice, whether in business, trade, consumer goods, education, or otherwise. But while the elevation of economic choice is based on plenty of principle, not to mention historical and empirical analysis, we ought to be careful that our views about freedom aren’t confused or conflated in the process. Given our cultural appetite for turning choice into an idol above all else, it’s a risk we’d do well...

When thinking and talking about principle of subsidiarity I’ve tended to resort to using metaphors of size and space (i.e.,nothing should be done by a higher orlargerorganization which can be done as well by a smalleror lower organization). But philosopher Brandon Watson explains why that is not really what subsidiarity is all about: The subsidiarity principle is often paired with the principle of solidarity, and there is a real connection between the two. Solidarity is the active sense of responsibility...

Several years ago, in a discussion on Charles Murray’s bookComing Apart, Ross Douthat included a brilliant observation about what he dubs the “persistent advantage of private virtue“: Finally, Murray makes a very convincing case . . . for the power of so-called “traditional values” to foster human flourishing even in economic landscapes that aren’t as favorable to less-educated workers as was, say, the aftermath of the Treaty of Detroit. Even acknowledging all the challenges (globalization, the decline of manufacturing, mass...