Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'free-market'

Free Book: ‘Judaism, Law & The Free Market: An Analysis’

For a limited time, the Acton Book Shop is offering a book by rabbinical scholar Dr. Joseph Isaac Lifshitz for free: Judaism, Law & The Free Market: An Analysis. Acton released this title at an academic conference late last year, and in it, Lifshitz examines the Jewish treatment of themes such as property rights, social welfare, charity, generosity, competition, and concepts of order. Continue Reading...

Was Gordon Gekko Catholic?

Is greed really good? Does self-interest equal sin? Samuel Gregg takes on these questions at Aleteia.org, in an excerpt from his new book, Tea Party Catholic: the Catholic Case for Limited Government, a Free Economy and Human Flourishing. Continue Reading...

What Distributists Get Wrong

Last week, we took a look at what distributists get right in terms of economics, through the eyes of David Deavel at Intercollegiate Review. Now, Deavel discusses where distributism goes off the rails in that same series. Continue Reading...

What is a Baptist Political Economy?

How should Protestant Christians think about faith, work, and economics? To help answer that question, the Acton Institute commissioned a series of primers about political economy and the church from four faith traditions: Baptist, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, and Reformed (forthcoming). Continue Reading...

The Market is a Moral Teacher

Does the free market encourage moral behavior? Virgil Henry Storr, Research Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University, recently wrote a report called “The Impartial Spectator and The Moral Teachings of Markets.” Continue Reading...

Civil Society and Social Eco-System: Seeking Solutions Beyond Market and State

Over at Fieldnotes Magazine, Matthew Kaemingk offers a good reminder that in our social solutions-seeking we needn’t be limited to thinking only in terms of market and state. By boxing ourselves in as such, Kaemingk argues, Christians risk an overly simplistic, non-Biblical view of human needs and human destiny: When presented with almost any social problem (education, health care, poverty, family life, and so on), today’s leaders typically point to one of two possible solutions—a freer market or a stronger state. Continue Reading...

Economic Justice IS Social Justice

All good people are concerned about the plight of the poor, and there are a multitude of ways to address this. The umbrella of “social justice” seems to get bigger every year, with Millenium Development Goals, the ONE campaign, and a host of other foreign aid projects that seek to remove the scourge of abject poverty. Continue Reading...

The Future of Free Enterprise

In a web exclusive preview to the latest issue of Renewing Minds, a new journal of Christian thought from Union University, Jordan Ballor considers the future of free enterprise: That the United States has been blessed with great prosperity is beyond argument. Continue Reading...

Redistribution and the Sacred Right of Property

“Scandinavian economies are some of the most market-oriented on the planet” says economist Scott Sumner, who adds “Denmark is the most market-oriented country on earth.” This peculiar claim is even more curious considering that it is based on the Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Economic Freedom. Continue Reading...