A few weeks ago Hunter Baker posted some thoughts on secularism and poverty, in which he wrote of mon notion that since private charity, particularly church-based care, had failed to end poverty, it seems only prudent to let the government have its chance. Hunter points out some of the critically important elements in creating a culture of prosperity and abundance, what Micah Watson calls “cultural capital.” But it’s worth examining in more detail the point of departure, that is, considering...

Heather Wilhelm of the Illinois Policy Institute examines the usefulness of Ayn Rand for political engagement by friends of the market economy in a WSJ op-ed, “Is Ayn Rand Bad for the Market?” She concludes, Rand held some insight on the nature of markets and has sold scads of books, but when es to shaping today’s mainstream assumptions, she is a terrible marketer: elitist, cold and laser-focused on the supermen and superwomen of the world. Wilhelm’s picture of Rand underscores...

With Afghanistan, health care, and economic distress devouring the attention of media, politicians, and the electorate, school choice may seem like yesterday’s public policy headline. Yet the problems in America’s education system remain. In fact, plummeting tax revenue highlights the necessity of increasing public school efficiency, while unemployment and falling household es heighten the recruitment challenges facing tuition-funded private schools. And quietly, the movement for school choice—improving education by returning power to parents—continues to make progress. This week, news from...

Kishore Jayabalan, Director of Acton’s Rome office, was asked by Vatican Radio ment on the debt crisis in Dubai that has been causing concern in world financial markets over the last week. To listen, use the audio player below. [audio: ...

Ryan T. Anderson, editor of the Witherspoon Institute’s Public Discourse site, reviews Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg’s new book, The Modern Papacy, in the Nov. 28 issue of the Weekly Standard. Anderson says the book is “a significant contribution to the study of John Paul and Benedict’s thought.” Excerpt of “The Holy Seers” follows (for plete article, a Weekly Standard subscription is required): Gregg presents John Paul and Benedict as more or less united in the main trajectory of their...

WashingtonA blessed Thanksgiving to PowerBlog readers. [New York, 3 October 1789] By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation. Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to mend to the People of the United States a day of...

It’s the end of the semester. A degree of giddiness creeps in. My students and I have been working through the political systems of a variety of nations. Yesterday, we talked about China. China is a wonderful subject because any professor pletely sold out to Marxist fantasy gains the license to speak judgmentally about Mao’s ridiculous policies of The Great Leap Forward (in which the nation stopped producing food and tried to manufacture steel in backyards) and The Cultural Revolution...

In advance of the Acton Institute’s conference, “Free Enterprise, Poverty, and the Financial Crisis,” which will be held Thursday, Dec. 3, in Rome, the Zenit news agency interviews Dr. Samuel Gregg, Director of Research. Recipe for Ending Poverty: Think, Then Act Scholar Laments Lack of Reflection in Tackling Issue ROME, NOV. 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The recipe for alleviating poverty is not a secret, and yet much of the work being done to help the world’s poor is misdirected, according to...

Got the socialism blues? Worried that a friend or maybe a teenage son or daughter may contract a nasty case of it? Marvin Olasky at World magazine mends former Acton research fellow Jay Richards’ 2009 HarperOne book, Money Greed and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and not the Problem: Among the myths Richards demolishes: The Nirvana Myth (contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its real alternatives), the Piety Myth (focusing on good intentions rather than results),...

I recently gave an interview to the Georgia Family Council (where I worked as a younger fellow) about my book for their website. Here is an excerpt I think might interest readers: What made you decide to write your book The End of Secularism? I wrote this book for a few reasons. I detected that the moment might be right for someone to lay out a very rigorous critique of secularism. While it was once plausible to people that secularism...