In every stage of my formal schooling – from high school to college to graduate school – I took courses in economics. Yet with all that education I struggled to understand a seemingly simple question: How does the economy actually work? Sure, I can still draw supply and demand curves or give the equation for GDP (Y = C + I + G + (X − M)). But when es to picturing a reasonably functional model of how it all...

Following up on yesterday’s post “Samuel Gregg on David Bentley Hart and Murderous Markets,” Rev. Gregory Jensen, author of the Acton book The Cure for Consumerism, observes that “Hart’s assertion that ‘the New Testament treats such wealth not merely as a spiritual danger, and not merely as a blessing that should not be misused, but as an intrinsic evil’ is simply wrong.” Writing at his Palamas Institute site, Jensen, an Orthodox Christian priest, added that “it is a gross overstatement...

One of the mon criticisms of capitalism is that the system exploits workers. It’s an old claim (dating back to at least Karl Marx). But is it true? Philosopher Matt Zwolinski argues that even if individual capitalists want to exploit workers the free market tends to prevent them from doing so. However, government interference in labor markets does allow some parties to gain at someone else’s expense. ...

The Venezuelan economy is buckling under the weight of its severe socialist policies, and even as its president admits to a nationwide economic emergency, the government continues to affirm the drivers behind the collapse,blaminglow oil prices and global capitalism instead. This was supposed to be the dawn of “21st-century socialism,” as the late President Hugo Chavez proclaimed over 10 years plete with the right tweaks and upgrades to its materialistic, mechanistic approach to the human person. “We have assumed mitment...

Your writer lives beyond the outskirts of Midland, Michigan, a small Midwestern town that is buoyed fortuitously by a Fortune pany. It’s a nifty place: Population around 50,000, a plethora of parks and bike trails, three rivers converging west of town, relatively low crime rate, and plenty of establishments of both the local and national variety in which to dine out. One of these eateries is the Darden Restaurants, Inc. chain Olive Garden. Can’t say I’ve ever dined there, but...

Today at The Stream, I examine the dissonance between the goals of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and his mended means: [W]hile Sanders’ goals may parable to Scandinavia, there’s little Nordic about his means. It all reminds me of a quip from the Russian Orthodox philosopher S. L. Frank, a refugee from the brutality of actual, Soviet socialism. “The leaders of the French Revolution desired to attain liberty, equality, fraternity, and the kingdom of truth and reason, but they...

I want to be very clear from the outset that moral concerns surrounding transgender identity are not unimportant. But in the likely event that we e to any national consensus on that question any time soon, it is important not to overlook other moral and social concerns that are far more pressing. In particular, there are legitimate concerns regarding safety and privacy, no matter which side one favors, but resorting to the force of law will leave some real victims...

Is the dominant economic system we have today, the market economy or patible with Christianity? Orthodox Christian theologian David Bentley Hart in a June 2016First Things article titled,”Mammon Ascendant: Why global capitalism is inimical to Christianity,” is skeptical. As you might gather from the title of his article. On Public Discourse, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg takes a closer look at Hart’s curious economic postulates such as the one about the “purely financial market” and his rather overbroad claim that...

What just happened? On May 18, the Obama administration announced the publication of a new Department of Labor rule updating and expanding overtime regulations. Why did the overtime rule change? Since the 1930s some white collar jobs (i.e., those performed in an administrative setting) have been exempt from the overtime requirement. The white collar exemption salary level was adjusted in 2004 to $455 per week or $23,660a year. The new rule will entitle most salaried white collar workers earning less...

In announcing the Obama administration’s new overtime rule (for more on this news, see this explainer), Vice President Joe Biden panies will “face a choice” to either pay their workers for the overtime that they work, or cap the hours that their salaried workers making below $47,500 at 40 hours each work week. “Either way, the worker wins,” Biden said. Biden has held political office for more than four decades, and yet he has still not learned one of the...