The newest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality has been published both in print and online here. Scholarly contributions range from a study of joy and labor in Ecclesiastes, virtue and vice in the American founding, whistleblowing, and the economics and ethics of education, including a Controversy debating the merits and demerits of the tenure system. The first two entries of this four-part feature, authored by James E. Bruce and Aeon J. Skoble, respectively, can be read open-access...

The Acton Institute has posted a new translation as part of its ongoing outreach to the French-speaking world. The article, “La montée munisme dans des habits catholiques,” describes efforts to use Catholic rhetoric to promote the same statist aims once advanced by the former Communist Party in Eastern Europe. The article notes how history proves the encroaching power of the state, advanced under the guise of promoting Catholicism, can as easily be used to drive people of faith to society’s...

AsReligious Freedom es to a close, a survey captures a striking result: Fewer Americans mitted to the right of religious liberty, yet Protestant pastors are less concerned about the issue than they have been in years. The es in a recentpollfrom Barna Research. The good news is that 55 percent of Americans strongly agree with the statement: “True religious freedom means that all citizens must have freedom of conscience, which means being able to believe and practice the mitments and...

Willmoore Kendall defied the norms of many mainstream intellectual movements. Those who knew him recall a “typical strangeness” that characterized the man and his works. He was a solitary figure who has been largely forgotten in today’s conservative conversations. But, nonetheless, Kendall’s radically original ideas need to be rediscovered just as he was a “rediscoverer of the historic American political orthodoxy.” And what better time to engage his work than this, the fifty-second anniversary of his death. Willmoore Kendall Jr....

Last month’s Sohrab Ahmari-David French debate was the more recent skirmish about the meaning of American conservatism. Acton’s Joe Carter has piled a reading list without appearing to favor one side over the other. Such equanimity is admirable because each side has something to teach us about the still-exceptional character of the United States and its conservative movement. That these debates take place on the American right with some regularity is a sign of its vitality, not its decline. No...

This week the State Department released the 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report, a congressionally mandated report that looks at the governments around the world (including the U.S.) and what they are doing bat trafficking in persons—modern slavery—through the lens of the 3P paradigm of prevention, protection, and prosecution. “Human trafficking is one of the most heinous crimes on Earth,” says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “Right now traffickers are robbing a staggering 24.9 million people of their freedom and basic...

Lord Acton famously wrote that “liberty is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization.” Liberty, Acton argued was rare and required constant attention to be maintained. As many have noted, one of the challenges with political liberty is that it creates the conditions for its own demise from within. Whether es from decadence and abuse of liberty to revolutionaries within liberal society, or more likely bination of both. One would not normally associate the writings of Carl Jung with those...

Acton University, with alumni from over 100 countries worldwide, inspires many to defend liberty and promote virtue throughout the world. Garreth Bloor, a leader in the Acton Institute network and AU alumnus, serves as an inspiration as he has dedicated much of his life to defending freedom globally. Bloor first attended Acton University in 2006 when he was living in South Africa studying at the University of Cape Town, but his fight to defend liberty started at a much younger...

The documentary The Edge of Democracy is a personal memoir about the recent political scenario in Brazil. Released on June 19 on Netflix, it is directed by Petra Costa — a Brazilian filmmaker and actress who has close connections with leftist politicians. The film portrays events such as the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the Operation Car Wash — that arrested the ex- president Lula da Silva — and the rise of the current President Jair Bolsonaro with a leftist perspective....

Today’s demolition of the already half-collapsed Morandi Bridge is the definitive end of an economic revival that began over 50 years ago in the mega Italian port city of Genoa. The economic boom lasted well into the early 2000s thanks to what was then considered a perfect marriage of civil engineering and rapidly merce. Genoa (named from the Latin janua for “door” ) was since ancient Roman times considered one of the principle gates through which merce would be pass...