She was the brightest girl in her class, and 13-year-old Maureen dreamed of an education that would get her out of the poverty that bogged down her hometown of Mudzi, Mashonaland, Zimbabwe. Her parents promised to pay her tuition – but her family hit hard times. Instead, her father married off the young adolescent to a middle-aged man. “When my parents told me about the marriage I couldn’t believe it, because they had always given me the impression that I...

In a creepy scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film, The Birds, Melanie (Tippi Hendren) is waiting outside a school to pick up a student. Behind her, crows begin amassing on the playground equipment. When she finally turns and sees them, pletely unnerved – and eventually, as she helps the children evacuate the school, the birds attack. Fifty-plus years onward, there’s a new ornithological thriller but it’s not playing at your local theatre. Just log on to Twitter and watch the...

“Most urgently of all,” asked George Weigel in The Cube and the Cathedral, “why is mitting demographic suicide?” Weigel’s book was published almost fifteen years ago, but his question on Europe’s infertility is as urgent as ever—even more urgent now, in fact. But have we learned yet? Weigel continued, “Why do many Europeans deny that these demographics…are the defining reality of their twenty-first century?” I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been mentioned before, even on this blog, but it needs...

As we continue to confront a range of top-down efforts to manage and manipulate prices, whether through tariffs, subsidies, or government-directed wage controls, much of the surrounding debate tends to focus on arbitrary notions about “just prices” and “the balance of economic power.” What’s less discussed is the actual function of prices in a free economy, and what’s truly at stake if we forget or neglect it. Most simply, prices are signals for service, giving us critical information about human...

Note: This is post #107 in a weekly video series on basic economics. In the last post in this series we learned that according to the quantity theory of money, if the amount of money in an economy doubles the price levels also double, causinginflation. The consumer, therefore, pays twice as much for the same amount of the good or service. Can we put this theory to the test? In this video, Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution University looks at...

TodayAmericans observe a U.S. federal holiday marking the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around the time of King’s birthday, January 15. Here are five facts you should know about MLK: 1. King’s literary and rhetorical masterpiece was his 1963 open letter “The Negro Is Your Brother,” better known as the “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” The letter, written while King was being held for a...

U.S. citizens today mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but the Baptist minister’s inspirational plea for civil rights and human dignity echoed across the Atlantic and inspired millions around the world. In his memory, here are nine quotations from MLK Jr. on work, trade, morality, and love. On international free trade: Maybe you haven’t ever thought about it, but you can’t leave home in the morning without being dependent on most of the world. You get up in the morning,...

Almost everyone has read Letter from Birmingham Jail – a brilliant essay. Just about everyone recognizes Martin Luther King Jr. as a great civil rights activist and orator. Which he certainly was. But this misses the full picture. Martin Luther King Jr. was not only an activist or simply an orator – he was a great moral philosopher. Frequent Acton Institute lecturer, Pastor Christopher Brooks, refers to Dr. King as the “greatest moral philosopher that this nation has ever produced.”...

Christian thinkers have divided virtue into seven categories: four Cardinal virtues—which all civilized people recognize—and three Theological virtues—which, as a rule, only Christians know about. In this video, which illustrates a section of Mere Christianity, Lewis looks at the four Cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude. The word ‘cardinal’ has nothing to do with ‘Cardinals’ in the Roman Church, Lewis notes. Rather, es from a Latin word meaning ‘the hinge of a door’. These were called “cardinal” virtues because...

Sadly, it is ing increasingly challenging to hold and freely express unpopular or unconventional ideas in the United States. If possible legal sanctions are not yet a reality, the social environment is increasingly hostile toward those who dare not pray according to the gospel of political correctness. In recent weeks, we had numerous examples of how media-fueled intolerance is slowly replacing the law of the land or, at least, making the fundamental freedom of expression fall by the wayside. Vice...