Acton’s Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, recently addressed the myth of national sovereignty being a “relic of the past” and global governance being the singular solution for the West to move forward. In a new article for Public Discourse, he calls out recent reactions to global governance, namely Brexit, as long over-due and something to be expected in opposition to global governance that violates national sovereignty: Twenty sixteen was not a happy year for globalism. In different ways, Donald Trump’s...

Leaders of the 27 nations soon prise the European Union gathered in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the Treaty of Rome’s 60thanniversary. pact, signed by just six nations, created a European Economic Community (EEC) that gradually evolved into the EU. Among those present inside the Sala Degli Orazi e Curiazi of Rome’s Palazzo dei Conservatori was Pope Francis, who told the heads of state that a successful union must upholdthe importance of development and employment, the principle of subsidiarity, the...

On this edition of Radio Free Acton, we talk with Brent Waters, Jerre and Mary Joy Stead professor of Christian social ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and author of Just Capitalism: A Christian Ethic of Economic Globalization. The market economy is often criticized as being unjust and harmful to the poor, but Waters makes the argument that global capitalism is well-suited to provide the material goods that are a necessary prerequisite for human flourishing, thus offering the most realistic and...

With the delivery of Theresa May’s letter this afternoon, Brexit has begun. munique – which Sir Tim Barrow personally handed European Council President Donald Tusk – expresses her desire to replace the EU with “deep and special partnership,” or as she said in this afternoon’s speech to Parliament, “a partnership of values.”However, as we have documented, the notion of transatlantic values can stand for anything from religious tolerance to the social welfare state. What sort of partnership does the prime...

The popularity of the Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign revealed how popular socialism is with a large swath of Americans. But how has socialism worked out in other countries? Felipe Moura Brasil, a journalist and columnist for Veja magazine, explains how his country has fared under socialism. ...

Note: This is the tenth in a weekly series of explanatory posts on the officials and agencies included in the President’s Cabinet. See the series introductionhere. Cabinet position:Secretary of Defense Department:Department of Defense Current Secretary:Jim Mattis Succession:The Secretary of Defense is sixth in the presidential line of succession. Department Mission:“The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country.” (Source) Department Budget:$582.7 billion (FY 2017)...

Wait, why should I care about this topic? Americans tend to view partisan politics as being mostly binary—between Republicans and Democrats. But within Congress there are also factions that shape legislative agendas and determine the laws that affect our daily lives. For example, it was primarily opposition by the Freedom Caucus (about 40 members) that stopped the Republican healthcare proposal, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), from being voted on. What is a congressional caucus? A caucus is a faction...

Note: This is post #26 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Rent controls are a type of price ceiling where the government regulates the amounts charged for rented housing. In this video by Marginal Revolution University, Alex Tabarrox shows how rent controls reduce the quality of housing and create shortages by reducing the supply of apartments available on the market. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at 1.5 to 2...

A few weeks after leaving the presidency, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a message to the citizens of Maryland that, “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” For many conservatives and libertarians, the best way for government to make us happy is to stay out of our lives as much as possible. But since many Americans believe that government does have a role increasing flourishing, we should...

The world is facing its largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, according to the United Nations. “We stand at a critical point in history. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien recently told the UN’s Security Council. While many countries worldwide face food security crises, with large numbers of people hungry and unable to find enough food, only rarely do the conditions...