This issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality features a scholia translation of Cardinal Cajetan’s (1469-1534) influential treatise On Exchanging Money (1499). Cajetan is the author of the officially mentaries on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, which are easily available in the magnificent Leonine edition of this magnum opus. He is even more famous as the papal legate whom Leo X (1513-1521) dispatched to Germany in a futile effort to bring Martin Luther back into the Roman fold. Economic...

Well…except Goliath is mostly a good guy too– and he’s the one putting rocks in the air– and David got beat in this case by the government. From yesterday’s (Louisville) Courier-Journal, Charlie White and Sara Cunningham report on the stand-off between homeowner David McCarty and the local Wal-Mart under construction in Lebanon, KY. Complying with a court order, a Central Kentucky man yesterday ended his sit-down protest a few feet from a blasting site — part of the construction of...

The folks over at the Reformation21 blog, produced of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, have a great discussion going about the spiritual, cultural, and pastoral implications of pornography (here, here, and here). The first post takes up the Naomi Wolf article, “The Porn Myth,” which also occasioned in part my reflections on the pornification of culture in general and technology in particular. Carl Trueman aptly wonders (in the second post), Could it be that pornography is the ultimate free market...

The mammoth Congressional expansion of SCHIP is such a bad idea, even the normally big spending President Bush vetoed the bill. I wrote a piece titled, “Abandon SCHIP: Big Government Returns,” which is now available on the Acton Website. The political posturing concerning the program has reached a troubling level. Supporters are using using kids as props to usher in socialized medicine and government expansion. But one of the main problems with the bill is the regressive characteristic of the...

I used to have more regular and extensive interaction with people whose worldviews were starkly different from my own. That’s not so much the case anymore, so it’s good to be reminded occasionally that some people live in different worlds that are sometimes hard prehend. That happened today when I came across an announcment for a conference, “The Secular Society and Its Enemies.” In the strange universe in which the conference’s organizers live, “The world is finally waking up to...

Erika Andersen reviewed the “The Call of the Entrepreneur” for Human Events in a piece titled, “Entrepreneurship Preserves Life as We Know It.” The Call premiered last week to DC audiences at the E Street Cinema, as part of the Renaissance Film Festival. In her article Andersen noted the international interest in the film: Though it initially seems like the tale of the American dream, “The Call of the Entrepreneur” is an international story and is now being translated into...

Sonny Bunch reviewed “The Call of the Entrepreneur” and discussed the significance of the American Film Renaissance (AFR) in The Weekly Standard. His article is titled, “The Right Stuff: Conservatives decide if you can’t beat Hollywood, join it.” In his piece, Bunch discussed the goals of AFR: AFR has been hosting film festivals across the country since 2004, but the Hubbards hope to set up permanent shop in Washington and push the festival into the mainstream. Jim Hubbard says he...

The Free Exchange blog at (HT) concludes a long and thoughtful post on fair trade, specifically in response to this recent NYT article, “Fair Trade in Bloom,” by wondering: And how does this affect coffee supply? If a premium is available for fair-trade coffee, shouldn’t other growers enter the market to take advantage of it until the price of coffee is bid down to market levels, leaving total producer take–baseline coffee price plus premium–where it stood before? Such a scenario...

The new issue of Philanthropy Magazine features a cover story on Frank Hanna, vice chairman of the Acton Institute board of directors, and winner of the 2007 William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership. The story is titled “Call of the Philanthropist,” a play on Acton’s Call of the Entrepreneur documentary, which features Hanna prominently. The lengthy profile by Christopher Levenick offers insights into Hanna’s philanthropic activities and his philosophy of giving. Rev. Robert Sirico is quoted extensively, as are...

Normally, I’m not a huge fan of Congressman John Dingell. But on this issue, I have to at least give him points for honesty: Democrats took over Congress vowing to make global warming a top priority, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to notch a quick victory with a bill that was long on political symbolism and cost, if short on actual emissions reductions. Standing in her way has been Mr. Dingell. Much to the speaker’s consternation, the powerful chairman...