Gas prices are beginning e down, but for many people prices are not falling fast enough. The pain caused by high gas prices is spread widely, but it is felt intensely on the working poor and the unemployed who are trying to find a job. A recent story in the Chicago Tribune highlights Alicia Madison, a resident of the Chicago suburbs who is unemployed. Madison is looking for a job, but because of high gas prices she, at times, cannot...

The Acton Institute captured the attention of the Italian secular press when advocating a Judeo-Christian, value-based economic model to ensure continued free and healthy economic growth in Asia. The press was eager to interview the conference speakers who articulated this perspective at the Institute’s international conference held at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University last May 18: “Family-Enterprise, Market Economies, and Poverty: The Asian Transformation” . In the following Video, Istituto Acton Director and conference moderator, Kishore Jayabalan, spoke candidly to UniRoma...

Last week in Rome the Acton Institute presented a promotional video for the PovertyCure initiative before an international audience of businessmen, scholars, journalists, graduate students and missionaries in attendance at the Institute’s May 18 development economics conference: “Family-Enterprise, Market Economies, and Poverty: The Asian Transformation.” The Acton Institute is one of many partners in this new initiative made up of a network of individuals and organizations looking for free-enterprise solutions to poverty. The video caused quite a stir in the...

In this week’s Acton Commentary I briefly survey the prospects for urban gardens and farming in the city of Detroit. As Aaron M. Renn wrote in New Geography a few years ago, Detroit represents one of the places where significant urban innovation is possible. “It may just be that some of the most important urban innovations in 21st century America end ing not from Portland or New York, but places like Youngstown and, yes, Detroit,” writes Renn. Detroit’s woes are...

One might think that Muslim women, in traditionally Muslim countries, are under severe constrictions when es to ing entrepreneurs. After all, in Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive, and in places like Iran, women are forced to veil themselves under the law. Do such restrictions create undue burdens for women wanting to start and maintain businesses in the Muslim world? In a study published in International Management Review (Vol. 6 No. 1 2010), John C. McIntosh and Samia Islam of the...

Doubtful, at least on these terms. Does the institutional church have to officially advise the government in order to have influence? — European institutions “more open than ever” to church co-operation By Jonathan Luxmoore Warsaw, Poland (ENInews)–A senior ecumenist has ed growing co-operation between leaders of European institutions and churches, and predicted a growing advisory role for munities. “I think we’re seeing a greater openness today than ever before,” said Rudiger Noll, director of the Church and Society Commission of...

When I first went to work for former Mississippi Congressmen Gene Taylor, I was going through a file cabinet and spotted a thick folder with the name “J.C. Wheat.” I sat down and read through it. J.C. was the father of Marine Lance Corporal Roy Mitchell Wheat. The folder contained all the things Congressman Taylor had done in helping to pay tribute to J.C.’s son. A Naval ship was christened in Roy Wheat’s name in 2003. I felt a little...

Long-time Acton Institute friend and Markets and Morality contributor Jean-Francois Orsini has a new book out. In Fight the Left (yes, it has a polemical edge!), Orsini argues that there are essentially two approaches to the world: liberalism and conservatism. His use of liberalism is decidedly contemporary (i.e., modern, not classical liberalism). His conservatism is sympathetic to the free market but, more importantly, it is “first principled,” meaning that he lays out the foundation on which conservatism must be based....

Recently, the Acton Institute announced a partnership with Kuyper College to translate Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace. Understanding the importance of reaching out to the munity, Kuyper’s work is essential in developing evangelical principles and social thought. The Common Grace translation project is summarized by the Acton Institute: There is a trend among evangelicals to engage in social reform without first developing a coherent social philosophy to guide the agenda. To bridge this gap, Acton Institute and Kuyper College are partnering...

Andreas Widmer makes a point as Michael Miller looks on last week in Boston Last week in Boston, Acton’s Director of Media Michael Miller and Seven Fund co-founder Andreas Widmer joined host Scot Landry on The Good Catholic Life on 1060 AM to talk about enterprise solutions to poverty, the intersection of faith and business, and the PovertyCure initiative. You can hear the interview via the audio player below: [audio: ...