Posts by Samuel Gregg
August 20, 2019
It’s no secret that major rifts have opened up between advocates of free markets and social conservatives in recent years. As someone who (1) ascribes to what would be conventionally called socially conservative views (though I think they’re more accurately called the insights of natural law and right reason) and (2) regards a free market economy as the most prudent set of economic arrangements for individuals, communities, and nations, I find myself constantly exposed to these debates.
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August 14, 2019
With some Americans wondering whether the United States is headed for a recession, it’s worth looking across the Atlantic to see what is happening to the economies of Western Europe. Alas, there are many indicators that much of the old continent is headed, yet again, for a significant economic slide.
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August 08, 2019
In recent months, the question of America’s ballooning public debt has started receiving more attention. Far less interest, by contrast, has been given to the growing amount of private debt.
A recent
Wall Street Journal article, however, highlighted a growing phenomenon that, I think, merits more attention.
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August 01, 2019
In an age of deep partisanship and political division, there’s one thing about which America’s political class appears to agree—the public debt being incurred by the U.S. Government. This year, the United States Treasury expects to issue about $1.23 trillion in debt, down slightly from the $1.34 trillion issued in 2018.
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July 24, 2019
It’s not unusual for Europe—especially Western Europe—to be portrayed as a continent in which religion and, more specifically, religious practice is in decline. No doubt there’s much truth to that. When you start looking at the hard information, however, it soon becomes apparent that the situation is more complicated.
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July 19, 2019
When it comes to understanding the present plight of Middle-Eastern Christianity, one author to whom I usually turn is Father Benedict Kiely. He’s the founder
of Nasarean.org
, which tries to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Continue Reading...
July 10, 2019
“Old Whig” isn’t a political term that trips off the tongue these days. The phrase itself was coined by Edmund Burke in his August 1791 pamphlet
An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs in which he sought to explain to some of his erstwhile colleagues why his rejection of the French Revolution was entirely consistent with Whig principles rather than a betrayal.
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June 25, 2019
After a long gestation, I’m happy to report that my book,
Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization, published by Regnery Gateway, has just been released and is available for purchase at Amazon.
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June 04, 2019
Danish elections are usually not high on the list of must-watch political contests but the forthcoming election on June 5 is one that I think worth watching. As this
Guardian article illustrates, it is distinguished by the fact that the Danish Social Democrats—the main center-left party in Denmark—have revisited and substantially changed their approach to immigration.
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May 30, 2019
This week, I gave a public lecture at the Heritage Foundation as part of its speakers’ series on the theme “Free Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice.”
At a time in which many Americans, at least according to opinion polls, say that they are attracted to socialism, I thought it would be helpful to consider what two observers of socialism, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville and the American theologian Michael Novak, had to say about this subject.
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