In our efforts to reduce poverty and spur economic growth, it can be easy to be consumed with top-down policy solutions and debates about the proper allocation of resources. Yet as many economists are beginning to recognize, the distinguishing features of flourishing societies are more readily found at the levels of culture – in our attitudes, beliefs, and imaginations. According to economist David Rose, for example, “it is indeed culture – not genes, geography, institutions, policies, or leadership – that...

The latest term of the Supreme Court, which wrapped up on July 8th, saw the Court decide several cases with major implications for religious liberty. While the es of Espinoza v. Montana, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania have been largely viewed as victories for advocates of expanding religious liberty in America, the court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch and holding that an employer who...

This week, a mittee plished the rarest of all achievements: It produced a government document worth reading. On Thursday, July 16, the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights released a clear, enlightened, prehensive report on the origins, authentic content, and illegitimate expansion of human rights. The report is perhaps the best civic education on the matter in decades. “[H]uman rights are now misunderstood by many, manipulated by some, rejected by the world’s worst violators, and subject to ominous new threats,” it...

Recently, conservative circles have seen a sharp uptick in support for “Integralism.” Integralism is the belief that “the state should officially endorse the Catholic faith and act as the secular arm of the Church by punishing heresy among the baptized and by restricting false religious practices if they threaten Catholicism,” according to Robert T. Miller, professor of law at the University of Iowa. Integralism’s proponents include thinkers such as Harvard legal scholar Adrian Vermule, King’s College philosophy professor Thomas Pink,...

As our country is engulfed in the flames of discord, our task is more than merely reporting on events, calling for an end to racism, or making emotional appeals to unity. As Thomas Aquinas reminds us, wrongdoing follows when emotions disobey mands. When our passions fetter reason and make it their slave, we cannot see how others are using us as pawns in an ideological game. Against the reign of passions, reason acknowledges two principles—both included by Aquinas as a...

In times of economic crisis, the planning class has routinely relied on a particular set of assumptions to construct their supposed solutions. This has been no less true in the policy responses to COVID-19, which prised a predictable mix of so-called stimulus and monetarist monkey business. Such interventionism has always been misguided, of course. But given the uniqueness of our present situation, those fundamental weaknesses have e especially pronounced. Unlike the economic crises of the past, ours is one predicated...

In June, Columbia University’s Teachers College Center for Educational Equity and a group called DemocracyReady NY issued a report that called for New York state to take “immediate and decisive steps to require media literacy education in K-12 schools throughout the state.” With that in mind, here is a proposed media literacy lesson. First, read the resignation letter of Bari Weiss, an op-ed editor at the New York Times. Discuss these key insights from her letter: 1. Twitter is not...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to ban singing inside churches — and in some cases, to close churches outright — is ringing some unpleasant bells. The government’s “infringement of our religious rights” reminds his flock of “the era of godless persecutions in the USSR,” says a leader of the Russian munity. As Americans returned to their workplaces after celebrating the Fourth of July holiday on July 6, the state of California rolled out a new “guidance” requiring all churches and...

On Wednesday, July 15, some of Twitter’s most prominent accounts – including those of President Barak Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Apple, and many others – were hacked in an unprecedented Twitter attack. Nick Statt, writing for The Verge, gives a nice summary of the unfolding of this attack: The chaos began when Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter account was promised by a hacker intent on using it to run a bitcoin scam. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ account...

Since 2006, economist Russ Roberts – the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution – has hosted the podcast EconTalk, a weekly deep conversation with economists and thinkers from other disciplines on ideas related both directly and indirectly to economics and the economic way of thinking. Economics is a powerful analytic tool which can empower us to choose more wisely as both individuals and groups. Such tools, however, should not be confused as either ends in...