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The Problem of Nuclear Power Proliferation

In today’s Acton Commentary, I examine the overtures President Obama has been making lately to usher in “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” I call for in part a “level playing field” for nuclear energy, which includes neither direct subsidy from the government nor bureaucratic obfuscation. The key to the latter point is to avoid the kind of breathless concern over the countries involved in the manufacture of ponents for elements of the stations....

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RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE

Rev. Sirico on Catholicism in the 2016 presidential election

In a new article written in the Wall Street Journal, President and Co-Founder of the Acton Institute, Fr. Robert ments on the integrity of Catholic politicians. While respecting the traditions and doctrines of the Catholic Church, Sirico municant members should promise or adjust points of faith depending on institutional contexts. “Key doctrinal and moral rules apply to all Catholics in all contexts—in business, at home, or in elective office. One cannot “personally” oppose something while making a living advocating it.”...

The martyrdoms of labor

In recent years, Christian leaders, teachers, and pastors have putrenewed focuson the importance of integrating faith and work, recognizing the eternal significance of economic activity. Yet despite the array of resources and solid teaching on the subject,many Christianscontinue to struggle with feelings of apathy or ambivalence when es to their work.In my own discussions, it’s the mon responseI encounter: “I understand that God is glorified through my work,” they’ll say. “I understand that he’s gifted me and called me and...

Why Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom is still relevant today

As we approach what would be Milton Friedman’s 104th birthday this Sunday, July 31st, we should note the enduring significance of his evaluation of the connection between economic and political freedom. In his popular work, Capitalism and Freedom, in a chapter titled “The Relation between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom,” Friedman explains how a society cannot have the latter without the former. Friedman criticizes the notion that politics and economics can be regarded separately and that bination of political and...

Explainer: What you should know about the Democratic Party platform (Part II)

Note: This second article in a two-part series on the Democratic Party Platform. Part I can be foundhere. In the previous articlewe looked atsummary outline of the Democratic platform as it relates to several non-economic issues covered by the Acton Institute. Today, we’ll look at the party’s economic agenda as laid out in the platform. Because the document is lengthy (55 pages) and covers an extensive variety of economic-related areas (agriculture, energy) this list won’t be exhaustive. But it does...

How social-welfare policy is affecting family formation

In America, the most effective “anti-poverty program” is the institution of work (more specifically, ensuring people have a full-time job). The second most effective program for preventing people from being poor is the institution of marriage. The poverty rate among married couples in America is around 6 percent, and among married couples who both have full-time jobs the poverty rate is practically zero (0.001 percent). In contrast, the poverty rate among single-dads/moms is much higher: 25 percent for single dads...

Remembering Pope John Paul II’s advice: ‘Do not be afraid’

This week, the Catholic Church celebrates World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland. Fittingly, Pope St. John Paul II was chosen as one of the patron saints of the week, both as a figure who fits into the theme of the Year of Mercy and as a beloved Polish Saint who once served as the Archbishop of Krakow. John Paul II has a central place not only in the history and tradition of the Catholic Church, but also in world history...

Venezuela’s socialism leads to slavery

Because of high inflation and unemployment, Venezuela has themost miserable economy in the world. The country currently has aninflation rate of 180 percent (which is expected to increase1,642 percent by next year) and the currentunemployment rate is 17 percent, (which is expected to increase to nearly 21 percent next year). Shortages of basic goods like food, toilet paper, and medicine has devastateda nation where more than70 percent of the peoplealready live in poverty. The country has e so crippled by...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

It is true that democracy is the best of the political systems, in that it guarantees, through universal suffrage, a peaceful changeover of power. But democracy and its instrument, majority rule, is not a method to investigate the truth. Truth can be acquired with evidence, conclusive demonstration, or another's trustworthy testimony; but it must not be subject to a vote. There may be laws hereof which, although passed democratically, are ... not laws, but corruptions of the law, because...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Born on February 4, 1906, in Breslau, then part of Imperial Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer began his theological education in 1923 at the University of Tübingen. He later trained under liberal theologians Adolf von Harnack and Reinhold Seeburg. Following what he would later call a conversion experience, Bonhoeffer intensified his focus on contemporary theological problems facing the church. With the ascendancy of the Nazi party in Germany, Bonhoeffer was among the first of the German theologians to perceive the pervasiveness...

Anders Chydenius

Known as the Adam Smith of the North, Anders Chydenius laid out his economic prescription for mercantilist [Sweden-Finland] in The National Gain in 1765, suggesting a concept of spontaneous order eleven years before Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations: “Every individual spontaneously tries to find the place and the trade in which he can best increase National gain, if laws do not prevent him from doing so.” For Chydenius, freedom and diligence were the foundations of an economically...

When the Acton Institute was first established, part of our mission was to influence future leaders. We have done that in countless way through our array of programs, but this issue of R&L highlights one particularly important example. The Reverend John A. Nunes, a Lutheran minister, is our feature interview this month. Nunes was recently appointed to head up Lutheran World Relief. Aside from the genuine pride we have that one of our colleagues has been entrusted with such...

"The Culture of Charity"

R&L: What motivated you to write this book? What questions were you hoping to answer? Brooks: I’m an economist and I’ve been doing charitable giving research for a long time. When economists look at charitable giving now, they always ask these prosaic questions like, “what will happen to charitable giving if we decrease the death tax by a quarter?” They’re important questions, but they’re really all about economic incentives. Over the years I’ve been involved in a lot of...

Lord Ralph Harris of Highcross

Born in Tottenham in 1924, Lord Ralph Harris was a foremost champion for free markets in twentieth century Great Britain. After a first in Economics at Cambridge and a subsequent teaching stint at St. Andrew's University, Lord Harris became general director of the Institute for Economic Affairs in 1957 (Lord Harris would hold the post of founding director until 1987). This institute would lay the intellectual groundwork for the vast free-market reforms in late 1970s and 1980s Great Britain....

Solzhenitsyn and Russia's Golgotha

In the “Ascent,” one of the autobiographical sections of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, you will find the justly famous assertion that “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties—but right through every human heart.” And read just a little further and e to these words, not so well known but just as true, which describe the evil that roots itself not in the personal, but in the political: … I e to understand...

An intellectual architect of West Germany’s post-war economic miracle, Walter Eucken was the primary founder of the Freiburg ordo-liberal school of economics. The son of Rudolf Eucken—winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature—Walter Eucken studied history before turning his attention to economics during his studies at the universities of Bonn, Kiel, and Jena. Eucken became a professor of economics at the University of Freiburg in 1927, remaining there until his death in 1950. Though proficient in technical economics,...

Why is the Acton Institute producing documentaries?

In a word, audience. With this year’s release of The Call of the Entrepreneur, Acton is embarking on one of the most important – and potentially most influential – media programs in its seventeen-year history. Acton has always been a leader on munications front. This is true for our high-quality journals and newsletters and for our web presence, which makes use of the latest tools such as podcasts, video, and the Acton PowerBlog. The move into documentaries is a...

Edmund A. Opitz

God has laid down rules for us in every walk of life, including the proper organization of our economic affairs. The free economy is a system of voluntary arrangements that brings together people who have work skills, who use tools and machinery to increase their output, thus producing the incredible abundance of goods and services we enjoy as consumers. Economics … is in the realm of means, but it supplies the essential means for enriching our lives in the...

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