Emmanuel Macron may have won the first round of the French presidential elections on Sunday, but Marine Le Pen won a political victory of her own. The statist undercurrent running through her nationalist and populist policies successfully bridged the gap between France’s “far-Right” and socialist Left, according to Marco Respinti in a new essay for Religion & Liberty Transatlantic. Mainstream French politicians have sought bine disparate ideological strands since at least Charles de Gaulle, who presented his foreign policy as...

As Americans continue to face the disruptive effects of economic change, whether from technology, trade, or globalization, many have wondered how we might preserve or revivethe regions that have suffered most. For progressives and populists alike, the solutions are predictably focused on a menu of government interventions, from trade barriers to wage minimums to salary caps to a range of regulatory constraints. For conservatives and libertarians, the debate has less to do with policy and more to do with the...

Throughout history, societies have found peculiar ways to reinforce social hierarchies and class-based discrimination. mon way is to prohibit certain social classes from being able to purchase a good. These types of laws that regulate permitted consumption of particular goods and services are known as sumptuary laws. A prime example is the 16th-century French law that banned anyone but princes from wearing velvet. Modern America is mitted to the appearance of egalitarianism to make laws that directly ban poor people...

Victor Claar speaks at Acton University On Saturday, Victor Claar, Professor of Economics at Henderson State University and Affiliate Scholar at the Acton Institute, joins host Julie Roys and Jenny Eaton Dyer of Hope Through Healing Hands on Moody Radio’sUp For Debateto discuss how Christians should respond to President Trump’s first budget proposal, especially as it relates to proposed cuts in US foreign aid. Dyer argues that Christians should be deeply concerned about the proposed cuts, while Claar argues that...

A new study published in the science journal Nature Human Behaviour finds that in most situation people are unconcerned about economic inequality as long as distributions of wealth are fair: There is immense concern about economic inequality, both among the munity and in the general public, and many insist that equality is an important social goal. However, when people are asked about the ideal distribution of wealth in their country, they actually prefer unequal societies. We suggest that these two...

Longtime Acton Institute friend and supporter Kate O’Beirne passed away this past weekend. Below are Father Robert Sirico’s thoughts on this plished woman: I feel like I have always known Kate O’Beirne, so the passing of this woman of keen intellect, sharp wit and fearless rhetoric in confronting the nostrums of our day leaves me feeling very, very sad. It is painfully sad to think that the occasions of sharing National Review cruises or panel discussions with her or having...

The Acton Institute recently donated a number of titles on faith, work, and economics to the Theological Book Network which will distribute them to its partner institutions in what it calls the ‘Majority World’ (‘Majority World’ is a term coined to replace earlier sometimes anachronistic or misleading terms like ‘Third World’ or ‘Developing World’). The Theological Book Network is a Grand Rapids based non-profit, mitted to the creation and development of Majority World leaders by providing access to educational resources...

As of this month, I have joined the “What Good Markets Are Good For: Towards a Moral Justification of Free Markets” project as a postdoctoral researcher in theology and economics. The project is a multi-year, multifaceted endeavor, focusing on the central claim that “societies with free-market economies flourish because and in so far as the key market actors (states, businesses and individuals) respect morality, and act virtuously.” The project is headed by Govert Buijs at the VU UniversityAmsterdam, and includes...

With the first round of the French election results in, and no major candidates even managing to get a quarter of the total votes, two candidates remain: Marine Le Pen of the National Front, a populist and nationalist party, and Emmanuel Macron, the center-Left candidate of the “En Marche!” (“On Our Way”) political party. Samuel Gregg covers the current politically disjointed state of Francein a new article for First Things. He maintains an attitude of skepticism and uncertainty towards France’s...

Note: This is post #30 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. What happens when price controls are used munist countries? As Alex Tabarrok explains, all of the effects of price controls e amplified: there are even more shortages or surpluses of goods, lower product quality, longer lines and more search costs, more losses in gains from trade, and more misallocation of resources. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at 1.5...