Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economics

August 20, 2014

Every Market Form in a Single Chart

Reading through the German economist Walter Eucken’s work The Foundation of Economics (1951), I came across one of the most helpful charts for economic analysis I have yet to find. In it, Eucken gives every possible form of market in a single table: Eucken adds four qualifications that are important to keep in mind: “These forms of market are actual forms which have been or are to be found in actual economic life (often blended with one another, and existing alongside the forms of a centrally directed economy). Continue Reading...
August 20, 2014

Radio Free Acton: The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke, Part II

This week on Radio Free Acton, Michael Matheson Miller continues his conversation with David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English at Yale University, on the thought of Edmund Burke. Bromwich is the author of The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke, the first volume of what will be a two-volume intellectual biography of Burke. Continue Reading...
August 19, 2014

Acton Institute to Sponsor ‘Faith at Work Summit’

Conversations about “faith-work integration” are alive and well, whether in the church, workplace, or academia, and the Acton Institute continues to offer a variety of resources on the subject, from its growing series of tradition-specific primers to various books and lectures to educational video curricula. Continue Reading...
August 19, 2014

Will A Sharing Economy Be A Growing Economy?

John O. McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, says we are in the midst of a sharing economy, and that’s a good thing. (Don’t get all socialist on me; a sharing economy is one driven by service and technology. Continue Reading...
August 14, 2014

Teaching Kids About Work in a Prosperous Age

Last Saturday was hot and humid in our corner of the world, and thus, my wife and I quickly decreed a pool day on the front lawn. The kids were ecstatic, particularly our four-year-old boy, who watched and waited anxiously as I got things prepared. Continue Reading...
August 08, 2014

Learning To Mourn Amid Work That Wounds

I recently wrote about “wounding work,” a term Lester DeKoster assigns to work that, while meaningful and fruitful, is “cross bearing, self-denying, and life-sacrificing” in deep and profound ways. Take the recent reflections of a former Methodist minister, who, upon shifting from ministry into blue-collar work at a factory, struggled to find meaning and purpose. Continue Reading...
August 08, 2014

Hayek, Inequality, and Poverty Alleviation

Yesterday, Acton research associate Dylan Pahman made the connection between inequality and poverty alleviation. Today, he continues that argument and explains how the connection affirms the moral merits of economic liberty: Hayek argued for a stronger connection between inequality and economic progress in his 1960 work The Constitution of Liberty. Continue Reading...
August 06, 2014

How a Study on Hurricanes Proved Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy

After 6,712 cyclones, typhoons, and hurricanes the evidence is clear: Bastiat was right all along. In 1850, the economic journalist Frédéric Bastiat introduced the parable of the broken window to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is not actually a net benefit to society (see the video at the end of this post for an explanation of the broken window fallacy). Continue Reading...