Individual Liberty

January 08, 2020

Doug Bandow: China exports its ‘social credit’ system to Venezuela

China’s social credit system seeks to tie each individual’s credit rating and privileges to his support for the Communist regime. Venezuela’s socialist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, has moved to import “perhaps the creepiest tool of repression” to his own country, writes Doug Bandow in this week’s Acton Commentary. Continue Reading...

January 08, 2020

Tyler Cowen’s “State Capacity Libertarianism”: A Straussian Reading

On a recent episode of the excellent podcast Conversations with Tyler the economist Tyler Cowen reflected on the direction his and co-author Alex Tabarrok’s blog Marginal Revolution has taken over the last ten years: [I]n 2009 I was still experimenting in some fresh way with blogging as a new medium and what it meant. Continue Reading...

December 31, 2019

Gertrude Himmelfarb (1922-2019): The historian of moral revolution

I just heard some devastating news. Gertrude Himmelfarb, historian, moralist, wife, and mother, has passed. David Brooks has written a touching obituary detailing the life and legacy of this fascinating woman: Economists measure economic change and journalists describe political change, but who captures moral change? Continue Reading...

December 23, 2019

Clarence Thomas on the harmony of faith and reason

In the Christmas season, the secular West begrudgingly nods toward its faithful past. Yet amidst the darkness, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas joined with one the nation’s most distinguished colleges to highlight the compatibility of faith and reason. Continue Reading...

December 11, 2019

Wilhelm Röpke on liberalism and Catholic social teaching

This week’s Acton Commentary, adapted from my preface to the newest Acton Institute publication The Humane Economist: A Wilhelm Röpke Reader, illustrates what makes Röpke such an interesting and vital economist: Röpke saw his project in holistic terms involving intersecting and interdependent spheres or orden that to be fully appreciated and understood scientifically must be examined in their economic, social, and moral dimensions. Continue Reading...

November 27, 2019

Marco Rubio’s ‘Common-Good Capitalism’ lacks sound economics

In this week’s Acton Commentary I examine Sen. Marco Rubio’s case for “Common-Good Capitalism”: Americans are searching for answers for the disintegration of the family, falling participation in religious and civic institutions, drug dependency, suicide, and economic dislocation. Continue Reading...

November 13, 2019

The human person, economy, and state

In this week’s Acton Commentary I explore Presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris’s proposal to federalize day care to align school and work schedules as, “an economic growth and child development strategy”: Economists, politicians, and even everyday people often talk of “the economy” as if it were a separate and distinct thing from the values, choices, and actions of everyday people. Continue Reading...

November 08, 2019

Conscience for life in fiction, Newman, and Acton

I’m just about halfway through my third reading of Umberto Eco’s marvelous first novel The Name of the Rose. Every time I return to it I find something new. It is a murder mystery set in a medieval monastery but it is also so much more. Continue Reading...

November 01, 2019

Lord Acton on true liberalism

Early last month there was a great debate over the question “What is Liberalism?” on the Free Thoughts Podcast. The debate was between Helena Rosenblatt, professor of history at City University of New York and Daniel Klein, professor of economics at George Mason University. Continue Reading...

October 15, 2019

LeBron James repeats communist China’s party line

In last week’s Acton Commentary I expressed my hope that LeBron James wouldn’t just shut up and dribble in the wake of NBA appeasement and a coordinated sports media blackout regarding the protest movement in Hong Kong. Continue Reading...

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