Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'trade'

September 23, 2015

What Pope Francis Misses About the Morality of Capitalism

“Defending capitalism on practical grounds is easy,” writes economist Donald Boudreaux at the Mercatus Center. “It is history’s greatest force for raising the living standards of the masses.” What’s more difficult, it seems, is understanding its moral logic, spiritual implications, and which of each is or isn’t inherent to private ownership and economic exchange. Continue Reading...
August 20, 2015

Overcoming ‘Anti-Foreign Bias’ in Trade and Immigration

Many conservatives exhibit a peculiar tendency to be pro-liberty when it comes to business, trade, and wages, but protectionist when it comes to the economic effects of immigration. It’s an odd disconnect, and yet, as we’ve begun to see with figures like Donald Trump and Rick Santorum, one side is bound to eventually give way. Continue Reading...
June 09, 2015

The Poison of Anti-Immigration Protectionism

As the number of Republicans vying for the presidency reaches new levels of absurdity, candidates are scrambling to affirm their conservative bona fides. If you can stomach the pandering, it’s a good time to explore the ideas bouncing around the movement, and when necessary, prune off the poisonous limbs. Continue Reading...
October 17, 2014

Why American slavery wasn’t capitalist

In his new book, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, Edward E. Baptist “offers a radical new interpretation of American history,” through which slavery laid the foundation for and “drove the evolution and modernization of the United States.” Continue Reading...