Stories can convey, so much better than raw data can, the human effects of the increased living standards that market-driven innovation has provided us, says Steven Horwitz. He notes how theBBC and PBS series 1900 Houseshows what a nightmare it was to live at the turn of the twentieth century. Mothers in particular had it especially rough: She has to get up early to make sure the range is warm enough to make breakfast, and by the time she is...

In the critically acclaimed, though rarely seen, movie Killer of Sheep (1978) there’s a scene that highlights why being poor can be so expensive. The film is about a black family living in the Watts section of Los Angeles in the 1970s. In an attempt to escape the drudgery of their everyday life, the family decides to join some friends one Saturday in taking a day trip out to the country. Before they can even get out of Watts, though,...

During CNN’s Democratic debate, presidential candidate, senator from Vermont, and self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders promised that if elected he would work to “raise the [federal] minimum wage to $15 an hour.” From an economic point of view, this policy would run the risk of sparking a wage/price spiral, where wages are tied to a cost-of-living index and their increase, in turn, raises the cost of living, sending inflation out of control and ultimately working against the intended goal of helping...

Last month Turing Pharmaceuticals felt the backlash after a medication they sold for $1 a pill in 2010 increased overnight to $750 a tablet. Politicians like Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders were quick to claim that this is why we needed more government intervention in the healthcare system. But at the time I pointed out that the reason Turing was able to raise the price so spectacularly was not because of a failure of the free market but because...

This year is shaping up as an annus horribilus for those opposed to public and private policy climate-change “solutions” that would reverse decades of advancements in wealth creation and the obliteration of poverty. This year’s capper is the ing Sustainable Innovation Forum in Paris, France, which will be held December 7-8 under the auspices of the at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21). As with any jet-airliner pilgrimage of this sort, we can anticipate all sorts of mischievous responses to...

“There is a kind of religious conservatism that can simply be another form of nostalgia,” says Russell Moore, “There is a kind of religious conservatism that can easily present itself as time travelers from the past. Those who are seeking to bring forward the values of the 1950s. We are not time travelers from the past. We are pilgrims from the future.” Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently delivered a...

On October 21st, the Acton Institute celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a dinner at DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The keynote address for the evening was delivered by Acton President and Co-Founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico, who reflected on how the world has changed in the quarter century since he and Kris Mauren founded the Institute, and on what challenges those of mitted to a free and virtuous society face as Acton embarks upon its next twenty-five...

Dramatic religious shifts over the next few decades will change the distribution of wealth around the globe, according to a new study by the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation. During this period, notes the study, the number of people affiliated with a religion is expected to grow by 2.3 billion, from 5.8 billion in 2010 to 8.1 billion in 2050. The growth in religious populations will also bined with religious diversity, which will change the makeup of the world economies:...

A television celebrity with no political experience beat out a former first lady to win the presidential election. No, this isn’t a prediction from the future Trump-Clinton presidential race. This really happened—in Guatemala. Jimmy Morales, who appeared in edy sketch show for 14 years, recently received 67.4 percent of the vote while Sandra Torres, who divorced her husband while he was still in office, received only 32.6 percent. Despite the landslide victory, though, the voters aren’t necessarily enthusiastic about Morales...

Margaret Thatcher famously said the problem with socialist governments is that, “They always run out of other people’s money.” Unfortunately, that’s true for almost all governments. Even more unfortunate, though, is that some people refuse to believe that government can ever run out of other people’s money. Some people claim, for instance, that the government can continue to borrow and spend (and should do more of both since interest rates are currently low) since the national debt is not a...