August 01, 2018
July 24, 2018
The welfare state threatens vulnerable life
Poland has an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population, a putatively pro-life government, and a popular initiative to protect the lives of children suffering from genetic conditions like Down syndrome – so, why has it gone nowhere? Continue Reading...
July 11, 2018
Corporations: moral, immoral, or amoral?
Is the free market moral? To hear its opponents describe it, the free market is an unethical system that exploits workers, consumers and the environment to make a quick buck. To critics such as Marx, capitalism leaves “no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest,” replacing human connections with cost-benefit analyses and supply-and-demand charts. Continue Reading...
June 21, 2018
What can I possibly (and practically) do to help fight human rights violations?
My head is swimming with thoughts, my heart filled with emotion, and my coffee is getting cold next to me. I opened my social media this morning and no matter where I go, all my feeds are bursting with news of violations of human rights and dignity taking place in all corners of the globe – far away and right next door. Continue Reading...
June 15, 2018
Humanity’s biggest surprise: dematerialization
May 07, 2018
Don’t save Barnes & Noble!
First it happened to Toys ‘R’ Us, but we did nothing (except complain).
Now it may be happening to Barnes & Noble, and we will do nothing again. (Nothing except complain, that is. Continue Reading...
May 07, 2018
Bernie Sanders, jobs, and what work really is
Last month the Washington Post reported, “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will announce a plan for the federal government to guarantee a job paying $15 an hour and health-care benefits to every American worker “who wants or needs one,”…” These jobs would be the product of hundreds of government projects initiated in, “…infrastructure, care giving, the environment, education and other goals.” Continue Reading...
April 24, 2018
How not to think clearly on faith and economics
Mark Labberton, President of Fuller Seminary, recently addressed a meeting of Evangelical leaders held at Wheaton College and has released a reconstruction of his remarks. It is an interesting address which spends four paragraphs explicitly addressing questions of economics and economic policy. Continue Reading...
April 18, 2018
A polite rebuke of Pope Francis’ economic confusion
Review of Pope Francis and the Caring Society, edited by Robert M. Whaples; The Independent Institute, Oakland, CA; 2017, 234 pp.
Having toiled in the free-market research universe for nearly two decades, perhaps the most common misperception I’ve encountered is “whataboutism.” Continue Reading...
April 18, 2018
Is economics an ideology?
Richard H. Spady, research professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins, has recently published a piece at First Things entitled ‘Economics as Ideology’ in which he explores some contemporary trends among economists and their use of economics as a Procrustean bed to reshape society in its own image,
A body of thought is “ideological” when it willfully projects its own first principles on its subject matter and actively seeks, perhaps unconsciously, material changes to bring social realities into conformity with these first principles. Continue Reading...