For the first time in its history, the EU has invoked Article 7, a provision of its constitution intended to censure and punish a member nation for violating European values. Just before Christmas, the European Commission took the first step in the process against Poland over a series of laws taken by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) that it says threatens the independence of the judiciary. Ultimately, the EU could set out changes it expects Poland to make to...

One hundred years ago today—on January 8, 1918—President Woodrow Wilson gave an address before Congress in which he outlined his goals for ending World War I. American forces had entered the war almost nine months earlier and Wilson wanted to let the world know exactly what he believed the Allies were fighting for. In the introduction to what became known as the Fourteen Points speech, Wilson said, What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It...

“While popes and bishops preach about the duties to the poor and suffering,” says Kishore Jayabalan in this week’s Acton Commentary, “the dilemma of how to help is usually left for the laity to figure out on their own” While CST explicitly speaks of ing all, it implicitly recognizes that unlimited multiculturalism is not feasible. The burdens and costs of ing ers are real and must be shared to be made acceptable. But what happens when some refuse to do...

On this week’s episode of Radio Free Acton, Caroline Roberts speaks with Liz Forkin Bohannon, CEO and Founder of Sseko Designs, on wealth creation and effective poverty alleviation. Then, on the Upstream segment, Bruce Edward Walker hosts a roundtable discussion with Acton staffers on Godless, a new Western show by Netflix. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Register for the Acton Institute’s lecture series event: Family Breakdown and the Economy Sseko Designs ‘Godless’ IMDb Learn more...

Note: This is post #63 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Common resources are nonexcludable but rival, says Alex Tabarrok in this video by Marginal Revolution University. For instance, no one can be excluded from fishing for tuna, but they are rival — for every tuna caught, there is one less for everyone else. Nonexcludable but rival resources often lead to what we call a “tragedy of mons.” In the case of tuna, this means the collapse of...

The game of Monopoly has brought generations of people together, even as it’s somehow managed to tear friends and family apart. Indeed, amid all the fun and frivolity, it’s still a cut-throat game driven by luck, exploitation, and money-lust. Just like the actual marketplace, right? Alas, despite being “just a game,” Monopoly has surely done its share of feeding the various pop-culture caricatures of plete with a twirly-mustached mascot. But despite those subtle distortions, perhaps it can still teach us...

Intellectuals like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk increasingly worry about an apocalyptic world awaiting in the not-too-distant future, when automation replaces all human work(and, in time, artificial intelligence displaces humanity). A new UK study finds the robots may have found an ally: a higher minimum wage. A looming increase in the minimum wage will likely result in a robots replacing a growing number of workers, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The UK’s minimum wage – the National...

Series Note: Jobs are one of the most important aspects of a morally functioning economy. They help us serve the needs of our neighbors and lead to human flourishing both for the individual and munities. Conversely, not having a job can adversely affect spiritual and psychological well-being of individuals and families. Because unemployment is a spiritual problem, Christians in America need to understand and be aware of the monthly data on employment. Each month highlight the latest numbers we need...

What can the incarnation teach us about Christian cultural witness and economic action? When God became a man, He showed us the power of embodied truth. But that divine act wasn’t just meant to rescue us from a fallen world; it was meant to model what transformation actually looks like in the here and now. As Rev. Robert Sirico recently noted in his reflections on Christmas, the incarnation reminds us “how seriously God takes the material world which he made,...

As they shiver through the season, this frosty winter reminds Americans and Europeans how much they have mon. However, more and more Europeans find themselves out in the cold thanks to environmentalist policies that have caused too many to be unable to afford adequate home heatingthis winter. Environmentalist policies have undermined the stability of the energy supply itself.A Swiss newspaper, the Basler Zeitung(literally the “Basel newspaper”) reports that one German pany alone “spent almost a billion euros last year on...