Today – November 7, 2017 – marks the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, touching off worldwide events mourning or celebrating the event. At its centenary, Communism deserves to be remembered as the most successful false religion to take root in the West in two millennia, unparalleled in the swiftness of its destruction and unequaled in its potential to generate misery from abundance. Communism determined to overthrow the entire Judeo-Christian cosmology 100 years ago today. Karl Marx’s promise of an...

Over the past year there has been an ongoing debate carried out online in outlets like the Acton Institute blog, Public Discourse, and First Things magazine over the legitimacy of free markets. Many of us advocates of the free market have been dismayed at the openness—if not outright embrace—of socialism as a better option than free enterprise by conservative Christians. A prime example is the recent essay by First Things editor R. R. Reno revisiting Michael Novak’s 1990 classic The...

This week is the hundredth anniversary of the second Russian Revolution, one of the most transformative political events in the history of the modern world. Here are five facts you should know about the world’s most destructive revolution: 1. The second Russian Revolution (the Bolshevik Revolution) began on November 6 and 7, 1917. (Because the Russians were still using the Julian calendar, the date for them was October 24 and 25, which is why the event is often referred to...

It’s not just millennials and other young people who are souring on free markets (44 percent according to a new poll) — there’s also a growing disenchantment among some conservatives. Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg explains the conservative angst as rooted, among other things, in the threat that upheaval in market economies presents to the “permanency, order, tradition, and strong and munities.” Conservatives who advocate for free markets should take this critique seriously and “rethink about how to integrate their...

As the world remembers the hundredth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, memorates the thousands of Christians martyred by the Communists during the Spanish Red Terror. Historian Stanley G. Payne calledthis periodthe “most extensive and violent persecution of Catholicism in Western history, in some way even more intense than that of the French Revolution.” Every November 6, the Roman Catholic Church in Spain remembers those martyred for their faith by socialists during this anti-Christian persecution, whichpeaked at the outset of the...

The implications of the Reformation are more than ecclesiastical or theological, says Timothy Terrell,professor of economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They include shifts in economic thought as well, and Protestant ideas have had a lasting impact on our way of thinking about markets and liberty. There is, of course, no one religious—or irreligious—group that can claim to have birthed Austrian economics, and certainly Protestants, Catholics, Jews, atheists, and others have had a part in its development. However,...

Note: This is post #55 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Do you learn about things, because the learning itself matters, or is education all about the signal you—and your degree—send out to the world? Is education really about building skills, or does it serve only to transmit intangible traits, like your level of talent or your persistence? In this video by Marginal Revolution University, economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok debate these questions and consider education’s effect...

“We discovered a rampant amnesia about the crimes munist regimes,” says Marion Smith, “and a growing inclination among younger Americans toward favorable views munism and socialism.” Their latest survey was recently released—and the responses are just as troubling: • 7 in 10 Millennials (like most Americans) either don’t know the definition munism or misidentify it for socialism. • 7 out of 10 underestimate number killed munism. Less than one third know more than 100 million people were killed munism. •...

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...

The deepest division running through the West is not between Right and Left, or liberty and collectivism. Western civilization must choose this day whether it is grounded in a covenant or a degraded and authoritarian form of populism, according to the former Chief Rabbi of the UK. While receiving AEI’s highest honor, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks distinguished between two rival views of society derived from his exegesis of I Samuel 8. A social contract creates a government, while a covenant...