Latest Posts

July 27, 2016

Re-branding capitalism for millennials

“Over the last decade, millennials have been characterized as filled with a sense of entitlement, lazy, and disillusioned,” says Allison Gilbert in this week’s Acton Commentary. “In the past year they have acquired another label: socialist” Despite the fact that the Democratic Party has begun to adopt more policies of the far left — like the $15 minimum wage — many polls show that less than half of Sanders supporters say they will be voting for Clinton this fall. Continue Reading...
July 27, 2016

George Washington’s principles for the nation revisited

In a recent article titled “George Washington’s Constitutional Morality,” Samuel Gregg explores the views of the first President on the founding principles and guiding influences of the United States. Gregg identifies three key elements of Washington’s political wishes for the new nation: Washington identified a distinct set of ideas that he thought should shape what he and others called an “Empire of Liberty”—classical republicanism, eighteenth-century English and Scottish Enlightenment thought, and “above all” Revelation. Continue Reading...
July 26, 2016

Explainer: the prohibition on political speech in churches

Why is political speech in churches back in the news? During his speech at the recent Republican National Convention, Donald Trump said, “An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views.” Continue Reading...
July 25, 2016

Is free trade a form of warfare?

Throughout his presidential campaign Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Mexico is “killing us on trade” because of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This metaphor of trade as war or conflict is a common trope among leftists. Continue Reading...
July 25, 2016

Faded Memories Are Leading to a Rejection of Free Markets

After almost a hundred years of seeing the effects of socialism and other government interventions in the market, American attitudes began to change in the 1980s and 1990s. The benefits of deregulation and privatization began to seem obvious and more people began to embrace free enterprise. Continue Reading...