I have seen the best minds of my generation take the Beat gospel as dogma – much to their respective detriment. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road – considered with Allen Ginsberg’s poetic rant “Howl” the pinnacle of the small (in actual numbers), loosely aggregated Beat Generation literary movement. But what hath the Kerouac novel specifically wrought upon our culture these past three-score years? Frankly, it’s a mixed bag. For...

Anyone can fulfill an entrepreneurial vocation. Everyone today is a critic of “soulless” market economies and the machine-like view of economies taken by professional economists who, on the neo-classical side, think of that abstraction of humanity called homo economicus and, on the Keynesian side, see only aggregate views of supply and demand. Do we have to leave markets behind to find real flesh-and-blood humanpersons and allow them to flourish? Fr. John McNerney, an Irish priest who served as head...

Sometime in the early 1960s, a teenager attended a church retreat on the problem of hunger in Yakima, Washington, with his youth group. There he heard a missionary speak about working with children in India and the difficulties they faced. Suddenly, this kid had a dream. He wanted to start an orchard and he wanted to use his profits to help Indian children. Today that teenager is the founder and owner, with his wife, of the largest employer in...

A review of Anne Applebaum's Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine. “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” – Abraham H. Maslow in Toward a Psychology of Being And if that hammer is the power of the state, and if the wielder is unconstrained by morality or a worthy goal, then the result is bound to be a hell on earth for everyone but the...

As we reach the end of 2017, we look back on several important anniversaries. The waning of 2017 invites a recap of all the year represented to me and the entire Acton universe. This is one reason why we recognize significant anniversaries. Among the events marked by anniversaries in 2017 is the centenary of Fatima, which resonates strongly in my personal history. I was ordained to the priesthood on May 13 – the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima,...

Our Founders always wondered about how long it would last. The price of liberty is everlasting vigilance. You've got to be on your guard every minute or you will lose it. Michael Novak was born in Pennsylvania on September 9, 1933. His parents instilled in him an appreciation for reading and critical thinking. His lifelong love of Catholicism came from his mother and led him, at 14, to seriously consider the priesthood. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy...

Elinor Ostrom was a professor at Indiana University and the senior research director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, which she and her husband founded in 1973. Ostrom was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2009. She is the only female Nobel Laureate in economics. Elinor Ostrom was born Elinor Clair Awan in Los Angeles on August 7, 1933. A child of the Great...

For this fall edition of Religion & Liberty, the cover story focuses heavily on an autumn staple: the apple. Over the summer I observed an Acton-sponsored event for pastors in Walla Walla, Washington. During this event, several Acton staff and event attendees had a chance to tour Broetje Orchards in Prescott, Washington, and meet several members of the Broetje family. This family not only runs one of the biggest fruit providers in the nation but also constantly finds new...

A collection of short essays by Acton writers, click a link to jump to that article: Economic elites by Kishore Jayabalan Changing for the climate by Gregory Jensen How close are we to ending extreme poverty? by Joe Carter The immorality of the inheritance tax byÁngel Manuel García Carmona Property rights and water conservation by Sarah Stanley How Catholic social teaching strengthens the case for trade by Kaetana Leontjeva-Numaviciene How much does crime pay? by Joe Carter Three reasons...

One of the clearest consequences of school vouchers, tax credits for private schooling and other programs that provide parents with a nonpublic option for educating their children, is the growing demand for parochial placements – and not just because of their relatively low cost. The bold 2007 prediction by the Journal of Urban Economics that religious schools would prove to be the primary beneficiary of K-12 reform is turning out to be, if anything, an understatement. Today in Indiana,...