Matthew Schmitz’s article “How classical liberals paved the way for white nationalists” in the Catholic Herald borrows a conceit from Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: Both place two unrelated phenomena in their titles for dramatic effect. Pirsig admitted his fictionalized autobiography “should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodoxZen Buddhistpractice. It’s not very factual onmotorcycles, either.” It is a pity Schmitz was not as ing about his column....

As the West has e progressively more interventionist, concern with e inequality” has been eclipsed by “wealth inequality.” However, that focus betrays a certain blindness to a vital economic reality. Measures of equality and inequality tell us nothing about what really matters: a society’s prosperity or poverty. Communist societies were far from equal in practice. However, modern concerns about inequality focus on the fact that the free market does not reward all labor evenly. Yet the West’s efficiency creates the...

The days in which many Westerners celebrated what many thought was mainland China’s inevitable march towards freedom as a consequence of its limited opening to global trade are now well and truly over. The present battle over Hong Kong, one of the world’s most economically-free regions, is plainly a proxy for a wider fight about China’s future—a future in which Beijing has made clear does not include much room for political freedom and rule of law. Then there is the...

Despite being surrounded by unprecedented levels of opportunity and prosperity, we live in a profoundly anxious age, fearful of economic decline and disruption even as we strive to resist idols of status, wealth, fortability. When observing such a state, many are quick to proclaim that “the market is not enough.” They are correct: We also need gratitude. “We should bow in gratitude to God for His many favors,” said President Calvin Coolidge in his 1925 Thanksgiving Proclamation, remarking on a...

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation recently released their annual poll for the year 2019, revealing that over one third of the millennial generation munism favorably, 15% believing that the world would be “better off ” if the Soviet Union still existed. History, however, tells a different story. Joining this episode is Valentina Kuryliw, the daughter of survivors of a forgotten genocide orchestrated by the Soviet Union in Ukraine, called the Holodomor. Valentina shares the story of the Holodomor, explains...

Senator Marco Rubio, R-FL, touched off a debate about the values of capitalism with his remarks on mon-good capitalism” on November 5 at the Catholic University of America. Today, Acton Institute Director of Research Samuel Gregg offers his assessment at Law & Liberty, where he traces Rubio’s thought to one of the most influential political philosophies in postwar Western European history. Sen. Rubio’s speech, titled “Catholic social doctrine and the dignity of work,” holds that the state must do more...

If you enjoyed a hearty Thanksgiving meal last week with your family, you have a personal incentive to oppose socialism. Extreme egalitarians would like to ban these kinds of family celebrations – by abolishing the family. The purveyors of woke ideology have long asserted that only collectivizing the family can bring true social equality. However, they are now casting the blame on the free market. As if suffering from a guilty conscience, the New York Times published an article the...

Britain’s 2019 General Election is unusual for many reasons. It’s not odd for British religious leaders to express their views about what they think their congregants should consider before they go to the polls. But the entire country was taken aback late last month when Britain’s mild-mannered Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (who heads what’s called the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth) published a public letter in the London Times in which he effectively advised people not to vote for...

In this week’s Acton Commentary I examine Sen. Marco Rubio’s case for “Common-Good Capitalism”: Americans are searching for answers for the disintegration of the family, falling participation in religious and civic institutions, drug dependency, suicide, and economic dislocation. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., believes he has found the answer to the social crises of our time in Catholic social teaching. He describes his own reading of Catholic social teaching as “Common-Good Capitalism,” drawing principally on Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum...

“Our society needs reasoned faith,” writes Rachel Lu at Law and Liberty. “Fortunately, Samuel Gregg has reminded us with his recent book, Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization.” In a review of Gregg’s latest book, Lu writes that it serves to remind us how faith and reason cannot flourish when separated and that bination is an integration that the West depends on. Faith and reason are not star-crossed lovers; they are literally a match made in Heaven. Gregg’s...