An assortment of radical socialist chums gathered in Caracas, Venezuela for a lively discussion on the issue, “United States: A possible revolution.” The event was part of the third annual Venezuela International Book Fair on November 9-18, and featured the usual campus radicals, anti-American crusaders, and Marxist activists. As usual among committed Marxists, the main target of evil and oppression in the world is the United States.
Read more on Latin America’s Messengers for Recycled Marxism…
An interesting article in the Los Angeles Times detailing how badly wrong Robert Mugabe’s supporters in the West have been from the very beginning (requires “free” registration; may I suggest BugMeNot?):
Perhaps not from its inception, but certainly in the post-WWII era, the global Christian ecumenical movement, as represented by groups like the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, has been increasingly dominated by Marxist economics, liberation theology, and transformationalist ethics.
Read more on Reinhold Niebuhr, the Ecumenical Movement, and a Global Government…
After World War II, Winston S. Churchill delivered his famed address warning of the descending Iron Curtain across the captive nations of Eastern Europe. Critics said Churchill engaged in unnecessary warmongering with an allied nation. His address was given at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. Churchill declared in his address:
A number of comments have been floating around the blogosphere related to the news coming out of Colorado last week that a professor at Colorado Christian University was terminated because “his lessons were too radical and undermined the school’s commitment to the free enterprise system.”
If you haven’t checked out this piece in the most recent issue of Religion & Liberty, you owe it to yourself to do so: “The Leaky Bucket: Why Conservatives Need to Learn the Art of Story,” by David Michael Phelps.
At last year’s Acton University, a few Austrian attendees made an interesting youtube video celebrating their rediscovery of the huge and obvious contributions Austria has made to free-market economics. But what about the countries that don’t have an entire school of economic thought named after them? My conversations with international participants at this year’s conference underscored two themes over and over again. First, that even the unlikeliest countries have some philosophical heritage undergirding capitalist thought. Second, that AU attracts the kind of people who want to recapture — not necessarily import — foundational principles to apply them within their own cultural context.
From Poland, a place where communism was much more than a nebulous ideology not so long ago, Jakob Baltroszewicz learned at AU how to frame capitalism in a more positive light for those in his country who are still “infected” with traces of the old regime’s tendencies. Despite Pope John Paul’s profound contributions to the capitalist legacy, “People still think in Poland that being a good Catholic and being a good capitalist are incompatible,” said Baltroszewicz. “We have a word for it — homo sovieticus. It means someone who is still sick with the Soviet way of thinking about the market and his role in it.” Baltroszewicz is currently studying Michael Novak’s moral theology at the Pontifical Academy in Krakow. He plans to stay connected to Acton as he works to revive Poland’s interest in the principles of its own free-market philosophers, especially as expressed in John Paul’s Centesimus Annus. Read more on No Place Like Home…
For a quick overview of the current state of appreciation for economics and capitalism among various ‘academics,’ see the newly inaugurated e-journal Fast Capitalism. It might as well be subtitled: Marxism, Alive and Well. Most of the contributors to the first issue are in sociology, communications, or political science. Here’s a sampling:
