Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Acton Line podcast: The socialist temptation with Iain Murray
Acton Line podcast: The socialist temptation with Iain Murray
Aug 17, 2025 2:08 AM

In his new book, The Socialist Temptation, author Iain Murray examines the resurgence of socialist ideology in America and across the world.

Seemingly discredited just thirty years ago by the failures of the Soviet Union and Communist block Eastern Europe, socialism has seen a revival of support and popularity in the West.

Murray sets out to explain why the socialist temptation endures even after it’s own massive failures, the inconsistencies in socialist thought that prevent it from ever working in practice, and how to show young people who didn’t learn the lessons of history the sorry truth about socialism.

Iain Murray at the Competitive Enterprise Institute

The Socialist Temptation – Iain Murray

Socialism as religion with Kevin Williamson – Acton Line

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Marriage and the Black Family
I recently received a letter from a reader of my Acton Commentary column, "Marriage as a Social Justice Issue," which she had seen reprinted in modified form at Town Hall. My correspondent was concerned that I had overlooked a key fact: the lack of marriageable black men. She said, in part: Education and the lower number of available black men are 2 major things you left out of your article. I know that marriage is important in the munity, but...
Hasta La Vista, Siesta
In this week’s Acton Commentary, Anthony Bradley takes a look at the Spanish economy as it faces a “dilemma,” as he puts it, “simultaneously needing immigrants and seeking to curb them.” Bradley also notes that “institutions like marriage and family seem silly to many Spaniards.” As APM’s Marketplace reports, shifting trends in Spain might claim another Spanish institution, the siesta. A variety of factors, including petition with labor forces in other nations, are leading some to question the viability of...
Christian Ecology vs Dominionism
In December of last year I had a great back and forth on the topic of Christian dominionism with fellow green blogger Elsa at Greener Side. A friend wrote recently asking about those posts and my take on dominionism specifically. After letting him know we were safely in the anti-dominionism camp, I said I thought there were more folks in progressive/secular circles that saw Christians as dominionists than Christians who actually bought into this trash. I liked his response: It...
Christianity is Big Business in America
“Christian consumption has gone far beyond the book as millions use their buying power to reinforce their faith and mitment to the munity,” reads an article in the current edition of USAToday (HT: Zondervan>To the Point) According to the piece, “Nearly 12% of Americans spend more than $50 a month on religious products, and another 11% spend $25 to $29, according to a national survey of 1,721 adults by Baylor University, out in September.” There has been a great deal...
‘Reforming Natural Law’
The January 2007 issue of First Things features a lengthy review of Stephen Grabill’s new book on Protestant natural law thinking (no link to the review, unfortunately). J. Daryl Charles, an assistant professor at Union University, has this to say about Grabill’s Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Eerdmans, 2006): Grabill’s examination of theological ethics in the Protestant Reformed mainstream is pelling, and it represents a shot across the bow of theological ethics, as it were. Protestants for...
Creepy Libertarianism, Creepy Statism
Rick Ritchie responds to this New Atlantis article by Peter Lawler, “Is the Body Property?” in a recent post on Daylight. Lawler discusses the increasingly broad push modify the human body, especially in the context of organ sales. Lawler writes of “the creeping libertarianism that characterizes our society as a whole. As we understand ourselves with ever greater consistency as free individuals and nothing more, it es less clear why an individual’s kidneys aren’t his property to dispose of as...
Today’s Word from Solzhenitsyn
From the new Solzhenitsyn Reader, which I highly mend (especially if you are behind on your Christmas shopping): Human society cannot be exempted from the laws and demands which constitute the aim and meaning of individual human lives. But even without a religious foundation, this sort of transference is readily and naturally made. It is very human to apply even to the biggest social events or human organizations, including whole states and the United Nations, our spiritual values: noble, base,...
Politicians and Pigskin
Geoffrey Norman at NRO offers a delightfully sarcastic discussion of the move by a couple of Michigan state senators to use the BCS title game controversy as an opportunity for political grandstanding. “Keep your hands off our football,” is Norman’s message to government. In point of fact, however, there is a long history of government intervention in American sports. An early and famous example is the Supreme Court’s 1922 decision granting Major League Baseball an exemption from antitrust laws. The...
Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics
Stephen Grabill delivers his address at today’s Lord Acton Lecture Series Event Stephen J. Grabill, Acton’s Research Scholar in Theology, delivered an address today based upon his new book which explores plex and often-overlooked relationship between Protestantism and natural law. In Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics, Grabill calls upon Christian ethicists, theologians, and laypersons to take another look at this vital element in the history of Christian ethical thought. He appeals to Reformation and post-Reformation era theologians...
Would You Change the Sign?
Seth Godin wants to know. ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved