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Forgive us our deficits
This week’s Acton commentary: As 2010 unfolds, many countries are confronting a public deficit crisis of disturbing proportions. Since 2008, countless politicians have underscored that a cavalier...
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Latin America: After the Left
This week’s Acton commentary: The left is in trouble in Latin America. Sebastián Piñera’s recent election as Chile’s first elected center-right president in decades owes much to the inability of the...
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Acton Commentary: Fracasos de la izquierda latinoamericana
My recent Acton commentary, Latin America: After the Left, has been republished in a number of Latin American newspapers. For the benefit of our Spanish speaking friends, Acton is publishing the...
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Joseph E. Stiglitz: An Economist in Freefall
In this week’s Acton Commentary, I review a new book by economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. Text follows: A rare growth industry...
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Two Cheers for the Bishops of England and Wales
Choosing the Common Good from Catholic Westminster on Vimeo. In today’s Acton Commentary, I review a new statement titled Choosing the Common Good (download it here) from the Catholic Bishops’...
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What is the USCCB’s Problem with Subsidiarity?
On May 21, 2010, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a media statement which sought to identify the way forward for Catholic engagement in the healthcare debate in light of the...
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God, Gettysburg, and Sins of Omission
There’s a reason why history is important. History is about knowing the truth about our past and therefore about ourselves. Not surprisingly, those who meddle with it usually do so from less-than-noble...
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Manuel F. Ayau (1925-2010): A Life for Liberty, Justice, and the Truth
Those who love freedom were saddened to learn this morning of the passing of one of the most significant contributors to the cause of liberty and individual responsibility in Latin America, Manuel F....
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The Economist, Catholicism, and Europe
When it comes to the sophistication of its coverage of religious affairs, the Economist is better than most other British publications (admittedly not a high standard) which generally insist on trying...
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Think (and Read) before You Blog: A Response to Michael Sean Winters
Over at the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters makes some comments about my book Becoming Europe based on a review he had read by Fr. C.J. McCloskey. Here are the most pertinent of his...
View ArticleCronyism and conservatives
A major problem with America’s economy is what’s often called “crony capitalism” or simply “cronyism.” In other places, I’ve defined cronyism as the situation in which free markets are hollowed out and...
View ArticlePeter Jackson’s World War I film is superb
In 1909, the British scholar and later Nobel Peace Prize winner, Sir Norman Angell, published a short pamphlet entitled Europe’s Optical Illusion. Subsequently republished a year later as The Great...
View ArticleSaint businesswoman
I often notice that whenever we talk about faith and business, the discussion is mostly about businessmen and their faith. But what about women who seek to live a life of holiness in business? Continue...
View ArticleElites, markets and cronyism
It’s no great secret that France is facing social upheaval and has some longstanding deep-set economic problems. Nor is it revealing to say that France’s political class is despised across the spectrum...
View ArticleFaith and liberty in Guatemala
To say that the history of Latin America in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is marked by sadness and disappointment is hardly a novel insight. Whether it’s the persistence of cronyism...
View ArticleChina rewrites the Bible
It’s no secret that as the Chinese economy enters a slowdown, the Chinese government has been taking an ever-more authoritarian approach towards virtually every aspect of life in the People’s Republic....
View ArticleThe state of entrepreneurship in America
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is primarily and rightly regarded as a work of political science. But the book is also replete with economic observations. One of the most significant was...
View ArticleA Spaniard defends Conservative Liberalism
“Conservative liberalism” isn’t a term commonly used in the United States. Indeed, to American ears, it seems positively oxymoronic. In Europe, however, it constitutes a venerable tradition of...
View ArticleThe immortality of bureaucracies
Both The Hill and The Washington Post reported this week that the Trump Administration has decided to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management. Unless you work for the Federal Government, you are...
View ArticleStudent debt and moral hazard: To forgive or not to forgive?
During primary elections in the United States, it’s hardly unusual for those seeking their party’s nomination to make outlandish promises that aren’t likely to be kept. Thus we saw Senator Elizabeth...
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