Human flourishing

July 05, 2019

Is income inequality acceptable?

In the past few weeks, democratic presidential hopefuls outlined income inequality fixes anywhere from $1,000 per month basic income to free college and single payer healthcare. While many operate on the assumption that income equality results in a fair economic system, I do not. Continue Reading...

July 01, 2019

Corruption’s consequences

Walmart agreed last month to a $282 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice, resolving charges of bribing foreign officials. While company leadership committed themselves to “acting ethically everywhere we operate,” reports indicate that Walmart allowed third parties in China, Mexico, India, and Brazil to make payments to government officials. Continue Reading...

July 01, 2019

Is social media the source of our social problems?

The British economist John Kay made a powerful argument in his 2011 book Obliquity: Why our goals are best achieved indirectly that the best way to achieve any complex of broadly defined goal is indirectly through a gradual process of risk taking and discovery. Continue Reading...

June 26, 2019

What does politics have to do with virtue?

One of the highlights of my summers working at the Acton Institute is leading discussions with our interns over major ideas, thinkers, and issues. This afternoon we had a spirited and thought provoking discussion about conservative critiques of liberalism. Continue Reading...

June 12, 2019

Sympathy as social virtue: Adam Smith’s solution for disruption

In our dynamic and disruptive economy, we see an increasing cultural anxiety about the automation and outmoding of all things, leading us to increase our focus on technical knowledge and “hard skills.” Continue Reading...

June 11, 2019

The folly of ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’

The New York Times has obfuscated about the reality of Communism since the days of Walter Duranty. An op-ed published on Tuesday titled, “The World Is a Mess. We Need Fully Automated Luxury Communism” adds another chapter to this decades-long trend. Continue Reading...

June 10, 2019

Moral and religious people created by God not the state

Last week Joe Carter helpfully gathered many of the contributions to what John Zmirak has called ‘The Iran-Iraq War Among Conservatives’. This at times heated exchange is largely between liberal and illiberal American conservatives and it is an important and lively one. Continue Reading...

June 03, 2019

Are rising education and healthcare costs our own fault?

Alex Tabarrok, professor of Economics at George Mason University and co-author of the Marginal Revolution blog, has co-authored a new book with Eric Helland exploring why prices have risen so sharply in healthcare and education. Continue Reading...

May 23, 2019

Unseen wonders: Man’s creative power and the sacramentality of nature

When I lived in Rome I taught a religious education class for a year, preparing kids for their first Communion. When they found out I was American, some of them were confused as to why I would come all the way across the Atlantic to study in Italy. Continue Reading...

May 10, 2019

Global poverty reduction slows – but there’s a fix

For the past many years, the news about extreme poverty around the globe has been extremely encouraging. The number of people living on $1.90 a day (2011 PPP), which the World Bank defines as extreme poverty, has been falling for decades. Continue Reading...

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