We’re scolded for blaming the poor, judging their lifestyle choices, says Elise Hilton in this week’s Acton Commentary. But what good can we do if we refuse to look at systemic issues? We are told that we are guilty of blaming the poor, judging their lifestyle choices. But what good can we do if we refuse to look at systemic issues that indeed cause poverty: irresponsible sexual choices, dropping out of school, a revolving door of men in women’s and...

Ladies: are you upset that women make only 77 cents on the dollar pared to men? Are you sure that’s even accurate? It’s time for some straight talk about the so-called “wage gap.” Video courtesy of the Independent Women’s Forum. ...

Perhaps it’s because we Americans are still getting over Christmas, or talking about the Super Bowl, but National Religious Freedom Day doesn’t get a lot of press. But indeed: January 16 is National Religious Freedom Day, adopted originally by the state of Virginia and now remembered annually by the White House. Penned by Thomas Jefferson, the Statute for Religious Freedom reads, in part: Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall pelled to frequent or support any religious...

Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico made an appearance on The Price of Business with host Kevin Price on Business 1110 KTEK in Houston, Texas. The conversation focused on the importance of liberty and the vital need to understand the foundations of our freedoms. You can listen to the interview via the audio player below. ...

Michael J. Totten has a new piece on his travels through Cuba, this one focused on rural Cuba. “Most of the Cuban landscape I saw is already deforested,” he writes. “It’s just not being used. It’s tree-free and fallow ex-farmland. I’ve never seen anything like it, though parts of the Soviet Union may have looked similar.” Economists refer to this sort of thing as “the tragedy of mons,” and nobody does it well as munists. Parts of the travelogue are...

Acton’s second documentary, The Birth of Freedom, begins with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech and ends with an image from the Civil Rights movement. The documentary, which aired on PBS, explores how the speech is rooted deeply in the Western freedom project and how that centuries-old project is itself rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. If you watched one promotional about the documentary, it was probably the official trailer, but Acton also made a shorter teaser for...

wants to talk about disease and dysfunction. It’s not a medical condition, though; it’s an economic one. Far too few governments rein in their countries’ bloated welfare states before disaster strikes. As a result, some citizens eventually suffer the economic equivalent of a heart attack: wrenching declines in living standards as they are victimized by unsustainable programs’ endgame. Greece and the city of Detroit are only the most recent grim examples. The Dutch, Boskin says, seem to be making a...

Christian’s Library Press has just released the first-ever English translation of Abraham Kuyper’sOur Program (Ons Program),under the titleGuidance for Christian Engagement in Government. Firstpublished in 1879,Ons Programserved as an outline for Kuyper’s Anti-Revolutionary Party. As Greg Forster argues in his endorsement, the work is as “equally profound and equally consequential” as Edmund Burke’s response to the French Revolution. Read additional praise for the bookhere. To celebrate the release,CLP will be giving awaythreecopies of the book. To enter, use the interface...

If you want to improve the material conditions of the poor and working classes, what is the one economic metric you should consider most important? For progressives the answer is e inequality, since a wide disparity between the es of the rich and poor is considered by them to be an obvious sign of injustice and a justification for using the force of the government to redistribute wealth. But for conservatives, the answer is upward economic mobility, the ability of...

The morality of the market, important as it is in a free society, says James Stoner, is not the only kind of morality that matters mon life: So is there a moral basis for the free market? Sure, but it is part of plex moral environment that rightly limits market freedom even as it supports it. The morality of the market, important as it is in a free society, should not be mistaken for the only kind of morality that...