Samuel Gregg, director of research at Acton Institute, was recently interviewed by Carl E. Olson of Catholic World Report about his new book For God and Profit. Gregg is a frequent contributor to CWR on the topics of political economy, economic history, ethics in finance, and natural law theory. The first question asked of Gregg was “Is it fair to say that Church teaching about money and economics is widely misunderstood and often misrepresented? If so, what are some of...

While the federal government’s “war on poverty” achieved some progress towards meeting basic material needs, says Ray Nothstine in this week’s Acton Commentary, it has no answers to the deeper dilemma of dependency and hopelessness faced by many Americans. One book that highlights the problem and that is receiving considerable attention this year is J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy.” Vance uses his own story to depict a crisis of culture among the white working class, especially in Appalachia. When President Lyndon...

Last night Chris Wallace moderated the third and final debate of this presidential season. mentators have remarked that it was the most substantial policy debate of the year. But because of the interruptions and recriminations, it can be difficult to ascertain exactly what each candidate was proposing. Below I’ve summarized the actual policy statements made by each candidate about the economy, and included the verbatim text of their remarks from which the summary is taken. In the summaries (the sections...

During tonight’s presidential candidate debate, Trump and Clinton should (but almost surely won’t) address America’s entitlement crisis. If they need some help to explain it to the public they can use this video, based on Nicholas Eberstadt’s book, A Nation of Takers, which provides a Seussian tale about the dangerous dependency of entitlements and the importance of liberty. ...

“Billions of souls have been able to pull themselves out of poverty,” says Arthur Brooks, “thanks to five incredible innovations: globalization, free trade, property rights, the rule of law and entrepreneurship.” By the way, these five things were all made possible by the historically anomalous peace after World War II that resulted from America’s global diplomatic and military presence. When I was a kid, when we Americans saw the world’s poor, they saw us, too. We saw their poverty; they...

In our discussions about politics, society, and culture, the vocabulary of “human flourishing” has e increasingly popular, moving dangerously close to the status of blurry buzzword. Yet at its best, the termcapturestheconnective tissue between the material and the transcendent, the immediate and the eternal, pointing toward a holistic prosperity that accounts for the plexity of the human person. In his latestbook, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing, Andy Crouch examines the broader ideal. ‘“Flourishing’...

C.S. Lewis wrote much about the tension between self-interest and selfishness, offering renewed clarity on these topics, says Art Lindsley. To Lewis, there is a huge difference between self-interest and selfishness, and there is a proper place for self-interest in our lives: When Lewis first came to faith, he did not think about eternal life, but focused on enjoying God in this life. Lewis later said that the years he spent without the focus on heavenly rewards “always seem to...

Despite the partisan rhetoric that tends to dominate in America, most of us realize that, for all our disagreements, our neighbors often have the best of intentions. But when es to public policy, good intentions are not enough to create human flourishing. That’s why a primary task of the Acton Institute is “connecting good intentions with sound economics.” Without sound economics as a foundation, good intentions tend tolead to detrimental unintended consequences. Convincing the public of this reality isn’t easy,...

This is a guest post by Philip Booth, Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics, St. Mary’s University, Twickenham; Academic and Research Director, Institute of Economic Affairs. Booth will be speaking in London on Dec. 1 at Acton Institute’s The Crisis of Liberty in the West conference (register here). This post is based on remarks prepared for delivery at the United Kingdom Government Foreign and Commonwealth Office conference on Preventing Violent Extremism by Building Inclusive and Plural Societies, Oct. 19-20....

On October 13, the fall 2016 Acton Lecture Series continued with a timelyaddress from Benjamin Domenech, publisherof The Federalist and host of The Federalist Radio Hour, who spoke on the rise of Americanpopulism. Domenech looks at the history of populism in America, from Andrew Jackson toWilliam Jennings Bryan, and traces that strain in American politics straight through to the rise of Donald Trump.According to Domenech, the roots of the current populist uprising in America can be traced to the failure...