Last week the Think Tank and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania released their 2018 think tank rankings. These results rank think tanks both overall and by category, with various classifications according to geography, policy focus, and so on. The survey results cover more than 8,000 think tanks around the world; the Acton Institute was ranked #158 in the world and #27 in the US overall. Acton was also ranked in several individual categories. Acton University, for instance,...

There’s been some chatter about the partisanship of concerns about the federal debt recently. Debt is fine if the party you prefer is in control, but otherwise is bad it seems. It doesn’t help that the only mention of “deficit” in President Trump’s State of the Union speech last night had to do with trade deficits rather than the deficits that have been accruing during his administration. A couple of pieces this week (here at Public Discourse and here at...

Last night President Trump delivered his second State of the Union address before Congress. And within hours media outlets had already produced dozens of articles fact-checking the claims made by the president. While fact-checking is an essential and necessary function, such articles are often justly criticized because they attempt to establish the veracity of claims that are subjective or require interpretation. This makes the task of fact-checking State of the Union addresses even more questionable since they always include a...

Back in 2008, we began producing Radio Free Acton, the official podcast of the Acton Institute. The name, a play on “Radio Free Europe” of the Cold War era, suggested to some that the podcast was a radio program. That name served us well for a decade, but given the rapid pace of change in technology and podcasting, we thought it was time for a refresh more in keeping with today’s audience. Today we’re introducing our podcast’s new name: Acton...

Surrounded by economic abundance, it can be easy to be distracted by what we see—products, tools, technology, resources—and assume our newfound prosperity stems from material causes. In turn, given the stability of many institutions and the increasing pace of innovation, continuous economic progress now seems somewhat inevitable. Economists like Deirdre McCloskey have challenged such notions, pointing instead to the power of rhetoric, virtues, and ideas to shape all else. It takes a special something to cultivate a society wherein basic...

In an age of receding religious faith, politics always borders on idolatry. The latest politician to elevate polemical differences to eschatological significance came on Wednesday, as European Council President Donald Tusk condemned the souls of his enemies to eternal damnation. At a press event at 10:42 a.m. local time, Tusk said, “I’ve been wondering what that special place in Hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.”...

Back in 2008, we began producing Radio Free Acton, the official podcast of the Acton Institute. The name, a play on the “Radio Free Europe” of the Cold War era, served us well for many years. Given the rapid pace of change in technology and podcasting though, we thought it was time for a refresh more in keeping with today’s audience. We’re pleased to introduce our podcast’s new name: Acton Line. On this episode of Acton Line, Rev. Ben Johnson,...

In The Idol of Our Age: How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity (Encounter Books, 2018), Daniel J. Mahoney confronts a central heresy of our age, the “remarkably truncated view of human beings” that fails to “acknowledge the hierarchy of goods and values that characterize the moral order and the life of the soul.” He traces the genealogy of contemporary humanitarianism and its critics from Auguste Comte through Pope Benedict XVI. Happily, he includes among the critics of humanism two...

More than 20 years after his death, Murray Rothbard continues to surprise us with his unique interpretations and insights that go far beyond the realm of economics. Rothbard’s The Progressive Era, (Mises Institute, 2017) is the latest example of this genial mind ranging over U.S. history. Rothbard’s book is a series of different studies, some already published and others not, written over decades, which focus on the Progressive Era and its direct consequence, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Over...

If you’ve never watched Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, please do so. This is one of the best films about World War II ever made. Nolan, known for such works as The Dark Knight and Interstellar, was able to seize all the intensity, despair, courage, and hope present in one of the most dramatic moments of that war and in all of modern British history. The result is a claustrophobic film. For one and a half hour, it is practically impossible to...