Progressives are known for making blanket denunciations of “corporate greed” with little distinction or discernment, rushing to support a range of regulations, price controls, and market manipulations to mitigate the supposed vices of free and open exchange. Yet amid such sweeping disdain, we also see an emerging fondness for particular kinds of businesses, namely, those that market themselves as pursuing more “moral” or munitarian” ends. Epitomized by terms like “localist consumerism, “artisanal quality,” and “social entrepreneurship,” these businesses are somehow...

Note: This is the post #22 in a weekly series of explanatory posts on the officials and agencies included in the President’s Cabinet. See the series introductionhere. Cabinet position:Director of the Office of Management and Budget Department: Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Current Director:Mick Mulvaney Department Mission:“The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) serves the President of the United States in overseeing the implementation of his vision across the Executive Branch. Specifically, OMB’s mission is to assist the President...

George Soros is synonymous with a well-funded, highly partisan brand of “philanthropy,” which begs the question: Why are U.S. taxpayers underwriting it? During the Obamaadministration, USAID granted Soros’ Foundation Open Society-Macedonia (FOSM) and its counterparts$4.8 million,earmarking an additional$9.5 millionthrough2021. Macedonia’s center-Right president, Gjorge Ivanov,has charged Soros’organizations with rallying to destabilize his government and askedwhyAmerican foreign aid is attemptingto foist unpopular, EU-centric policies on his nation. One Macedonian official called these groups “the Soros infantry.” In a fascinatingnew essayfor Religion &...

“The city of Seattle has the highest minimum wage in the United States,” notes Dylan Pahman in this week’s Acton Commentary. “While economists and policy-makers continue to debate the issue, a recent working paper from researchers at the University of Washington (UW) raises serious questions about the effectiveness of minimum wage hikes.” In short, the study concludes that the “increase to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs by around 9 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs increased by...

On Monday, June 26, the Washington Examinerpublished an article by Ryan Lovelace titled “Conservatives cheer Gorsuch amid flurry of decisions on final day of Supreme Court term.” After concurring with Chief Justice John Roberts on Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, a 7-2 decisionin favor of a church preschool in Missouri,Justice Neil Gorsuch leaves his firsttwo months inthe high court with the approval of many conservatives. In the article, Joe Carter, a senior editor at the Acton Institute, applauds Gorsuch: In his...

In 2014 the city of Seattle announced it would be raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The minimum wage would increase from the state’s $9.47 minimum to as high as $11 on April 1, 2015. The second phase-in period started on January 1, 2016, when the minimum wage reached $13 for large employers. Under the law, by 2021 all businesses must raise the minimum wage for theirworkers to $15. At the time I noted that while this policy...

Many Christians have a distant, even negative, view of economics and business. Pastors discuss the need for moral activity within the business world, but often ignore whether business in itself is morally justifiable. Some even assume that business activity is a sort of necessary evil; that economics is an academic discipline with little connection to their faith, and often church leaders support economic proposals without understanding plexity of the issues involved. This harms the witness of the Church. In his...

Note: This is post #39 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. In this video by Marginal Revolution University, economist Alex Tabarrok shows how bees and pollination demonstrate the Coase Theorem in action: when transaction costs are low and property rights are clearly defined, private arrangements ensure that the market works even when there are externalities. Under these conditions, the market properly manages externalities. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at...