Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economics and Social Problems

March 18, 2020

Coronavirus and spontaneous order

As the COVID-19 pandemic affects more and more people across the globe, there are many duties that become plain to us as individuals, communities, and citizens. Many workplaces have innovated in response to these challenges, and churches have looked to the past for inspiration to bring hope to our present. Continue Reading...
March 18, 2020

Empty store shelves? Thank price controls

The COVID-19 pandemic panic has caused an eerie, post-apocalyptic scene to become commonplace across the country: supermarkets with barren shelves. One would think that this is the time for an intervention to ensure that stores stay stocked with the things we need, but governors nationwide are taking the opposite approach. Continue Reading...
March 17, 2020

Coronavirus’ greatest threat: our social fabric

Over the weekend, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that her office received 75 complaints of retailers gouging coronavirus-panicked consumers on the price of basic necessities: Stores in Farmington Hills, Dearborn, Ann Arbor and Allendale have been accused of jacking up the price of hand sanitizers, face masks, and rice and lentils by up to 900%. Continue Reading...
February 21, 2020

Three books to help you think like an economist

Everyone knows that there is a difference between knowing about something and knowing how to do something. The first is a superficial way of knowing, not a bad way to begin, but it is no substitute for the mastery which comes by integrating knowledge into experience. Continue Reading...
January 23, 2020

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s crass Marxist materialism

During a Martin Luther King Day discussion with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made clear that she is not just a democratic socialist but a Marxian one. Evie Fordham of Fox Business has written a helpful summary of the remarks, including Ocasio-Cortez’s concise explanation of the Marxist theory of the exploitation of labor: “No one ever makes a billion dollars. Continue Reading...