Right to Work laws are state laws that guarantee a person cannot pelled to join or pay dues to a labor union as a condition of employment. Hearing that definition, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Right to work laws sound a lot like slavery.” What’s that? That’s not at all what you were thinking? Well, you must not work for Detroit-based Teamsters Local 214: A Michigan union invoked the provision of the state constitution that bans slavery in their argument...

Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico had intended to join host Neil Cavuto in his New York studio to discuss questions of economics and religion, but Friday’s events in Centennial, Colorado prompted a different discussion altogether. ...

Today at Ethika Politika, I look at the busyness of the Advent season through the lens of Orthodox Christian asceticism in my essay, “Busyness and Askesis: An Advent Reflection.” The Advent season in the United States is typically ransacked by shopping, parties, visits with family, and the like. Perhaps worst of all, it can seem impossible to avoid the bombardment of holiday and Christmas-themed advertisement. People work overtime in order to earn a little extra to buy gifts for friends...

On some snowy winter afternoon, bored with everything in the house, you probably tried to build a house of cards. From this experience, you know you have to build a large base, and work your way up to a smaller and smaller peak. That’s the only sensible way to do it. Obamacare, on the other hand, is a house of cards inverted. It is structured in a way that the young must hold up the aging population. And the young...

Concepts you should know about, explained in five minutes (or less). Leo Linbeck III, President and CEO of Aquinas Companies, provides a description of subsidiarity and its importance in American governance. ...

Acton Institute Director of Research Samuel Gregg sat down with Daniel McInerny, the Editor of the English edition of Aleteia, to discuss his latest book,Tea Party Catholic.McInerny and Gregg explore what Catholics should believe regarding limited government, free markets and capitalism. Check out Sam’s book here, and view the interview below. ...

Dan Clements, an American student studying at the University of Leuven, and I help greet conference attendees Last week, an exciting new organization called the Transatlantic Christian Council(TCC) hosted its inaugural conference. The theme of the conference was “Sustaining Freedom”, which aligns well with the Council’s mission “todevelop a transatlantic public policy network of European and North American Christians and conservatives in order to promote the civic good, as understood within the Judeo-Christian tradition on which our societies are largely...

Yesterday, there was a panel discussion on religious liberty sponsored by the Center for American Progress in Washington. Joel Gehrke has an excellent summation of the event in the Washington Examiner that highlighted some remarks by C. Welton Gaddy. Later in the talk, Gaddy agreed with an interlocutor who asked if liberals “need to start educating, and calling out, Christians for trying to exercise ‘Christian privilege.'” “As a Christian” — a big part of Gaddy’s rhetorical power seemed to derive...

While working on a recording together, Johnny Cash asked Bob Dylan if he knew “Ring of Fire.” Dylan said he did and began to play it on the piano, croaking it out in typical Dylanesque fashion. When he was done he turned to his friend and said, “It goes something like that, right?” “No,” said Cash shaking his head. “It doesn’t go like that at all.” I can understand how Cash felt; I often get the same feeling when people...

Acton’s busy week of media appearances continued last night with Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico joining guest host Arthur C. Brooks – president of the American Enterprise Institute – onThe Hugh Hewitt Showto discuss Pope Francis,Evangelii Gaudium, and patibility of Catholic social teaching with free market capitalism. We’ve embedded the interview for you below, and added the video of Arthur Brooks’ 2012 Acton University plenary address after the jump. Arthur Brooks speaks at Acton University 2012 in Grand Rapids,...