On this week’s edition of Radio Free Acton,Burt and Anita Folsom discuss their latest book, Uncle Sam Can’t Count.Weexamine whether the government has a good track record in subsidizing industry and innovation, and look at some of the unforeseen consequences of subsidies in society. You can listen via the audio player below, and then be sure to check out the video of Burt’s Acton Lecture Series address as well. ...

It monplace in Christian circles, whether Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Protestant, to appeal in public discourse to the inviolable good of human dignity. Today at Ethika Politika, I seek to answer the question, “What does human dignity look like in real life?” It is fine to talk about it in the abstract, but what does it look like on the job or as a parent? I write, Real, flesh-and-blood human persons do not evoke our respect as naturally as an...

It is not often that women of the American Revolutionary War era are described as “formidable” and “intellectual,” but Mercy Otis Warren is such a woman. Born to wealthy Cape Cod family in 1728, Warren received no formal education but was tutored by her uncle. In 1754, she married James Warren, who became a Massachusetts state senator. It was the murder of her brother at the hands of colonial revenue officers that drove Warren to political writings and action. Combining...

Writing for The Federalist blog last week, American Energy Alliance Vice President of Strategic Initiatives Dan Ziegler remarked: The environment isn’t getting worse—it’s rapidly improving, even as our economy grows and our energy use increases. The EPA recently released new data on air quality showing that total emissions of the six major air pollutants have dropped by 68 percent since 1970. This is all the more impressive considering that during this same period, America’s population has grown by 54 percent,...

Robert Putnam says our children are in a state of crisis. Those who live in poverty or near-poverty seemed to be doomed to stay there. Those born into families with money will likely go on to enjoy the lives that money affords. His book, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, follows a number of individuals, tracking a list of factors, including the ability to move up or down the economic spectrum. One pivotal factor is marriage: Highly correlated is...

Supporters of surrogacy tend to believe it is a win-win situation. Someone who desperately wants a child is given the opportunity to be a parent by someone who can have a baby, and is willing to do so either for money or out of benevolence (such as a sister acting as a surrogate for a sibling.) The truth is that the majority of surrogacy cases are ones where money changes hands. And when money changes hands, and the very lives...

In the wild, a lion does not chase down the strong animal at the front of the pack; the lion chooses its prey by doing the least amount of work. The lion picks off the weak, the young, the vulnerable. ISIS and human traffickers are animals, and they choose their prey accordingly. They seek out the vulnerable, the lonely, the searching. The internet is a fine hunting ground. There have been several stories of late of teen girls being lured...

Can the world put an end to extreme poverty within the next 15 years? That’s the current goal of the World Bank, and its expected that the United Nations will adopt that same target later this year. In 1990, the UN’s Millennium Development Goals included a target of halving poverty by 2015. That goal was achieved five years early. In 1990, more than one-third (36 percent) of the world’s population lived in abject poverty; by 2010 the number had been...

Former Oklahoma University student Levi Pettit and his friends did a terrible thing. The frustration and anger at the very racist chant about the lynching of African Americans by the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity is understandable and justified. However, in light of Levi Pettit’s act of public repentance, our response reveals how we understand a key aspect of Easter. Those who painfully forgive Pettit demonstrate a central pillar of the Passion of Christ whereas those who refuse to forgive Pettit...

President Cristina Kirchner and Oliver Stone (Wikimedia Commons/Presidencia de la Nación Argentina) Earlier this month, Acton and Instituto Acton Argentina hosted a daylong conference exploring the relationship between religious and economic freedom. Scholars from around the world, including Acton’s director of research Samuel Gregg, traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina to discuss the ways in which Christianity has contributed to building the foundations of freedom. In a new article for the American Spectator, Gregg discusses some issues he observed while visiting...