Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economics

August 28, 2014

Explaining Social Mobility Using Legos

“Can you explain that important economic concept using Legos?” Apparently, someone must have said that to Richard Reeves, an economist at the Brookings Institution economist, because he’s made a brief video using Legos to visualize social mobility. Continue Reading...
August 28, 2014

The Accra Confession after Ten Years

The Accra Confession, a document arising out of the Reformed ecumenical movement, was promulgated ten years ago. At the time, Rev. Jerry Zandstra and I wrote with some rather harsh criticisms of the document. Continue Reading...
August 27, 2014

Which Inequality? Trends Toward Equality in Lifespans and Education

Earlier this month, I wrote a two part article for the Library of Law & Liberty, critiquing the uncritical condemnation of income inequality by world religious leaders. In part 1, I pointed out that “while the Pope, the Patriarch, the Dalai Lama, and others are right about the increase in [global income] inequality, they are wrong to conclude that this causes global poverty—the latter is demonstrably on the decline. Continue Reading...
August 26, 2014

Oikonomia: New Blog at Patheos’ Faith and Work Channel

The Acton Institute has just launched Oikonomia, a new blog at Patheos’ Faith and Work Channel, which will provide resources specific to the intersection of faith, work, and economics. Other partners at the channel include The High Calling, Steve Garber’s Visions of Vocation, and Theology of Work Project, among others. Continue Reading...
August 21, 2014

What Are the Conditions for Human Flourishing?

“A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian… I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him.” Continue Reading...
August 20, 2014

Every Market Form in a Single Chart

Reading through the German economist Walter Eucken’s work The Foundation of Economics (1951), I came across one of the most helpful charts for economic analysis I have yet to find. In it, Eucken gives every possible form of market in a single table: Eucken adds four qualifications that are important to keep in mind: “These forms of market are actual forms which have been or are to be found in actual economic life (often blended with one another, and existing alongside the forms of a centrally directed economy). Continue Reading...
August 20, 2014

Radio Free Acton: The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke, Part II

This week on Radio Free Acton, Michael Matheson Miller continues his conversation with David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English at Yale University, on the thought of Edmund Burke. Bromwich is the author of The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke, the first volume of what will be a two-volume intellectual biography of Burke. Continue Reading...
August 19, 2014

Acton Institute to Sponsor ‘Faith at Work Summit’

Conversations about “faith-work integration” are alive and well, whether in the church, workplace, or academia, and the Acton Institute continues to offer a variety of resources on the subject, from its growing series of tradition-specific primers to various books and lectures to educational video curricula. Continue Reading...
August 19, 2014

Will A Sharing Economy Be A Growing Economy?

John O. McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, says we are in the midst of a sharing economy, and that’s a good thing. (Don’t get all socialist on me; a sharing economy is one driven by service and technology. Continue Reading...