Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Poverty

January 23, 2020

Global wealth inequality has been falling: Report

“Economic inequality is out of control,” according to Oxfam, which releases a dire-sounding report about inequality every year on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The 2020 edition faults the supposed “dominance of neoliberal economics, which values deregulation and reduction in public spending,” and the alleged existence of “monopolies,” for “accelerating economic inequality.” Continue Reading...
January 03, 2020

The 2010s: The decade we (nearly) won the war on poverty

As a new decade begins, it bears pausing to celebrate the strides the human race has made toward eradicating poverty at home and around the world. This is doubly important, as the television retrospectives not only omit our growing prosperity, but so many people believe things are actually getting worse. Continue Reading...
October 28, 2019

Amazon tribal chief: Liberation theology sustains primitive economy

  As the Synod of Bishops from the Amazon continues to make headlines, many are curious about the contents of its forthcoming report. According to Pope Francis, the synod’s goal is “to identify new paths for the evangelization of God’s people in that region,” with a particular emphasis on the region’s indigenous people, who are “often forgotten and without the prospect of a serene future.” Continue Reading...
Pope Francis greets indigenous representatives in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, Friday, Jan. 19, 2018
October 16, 2019

A Nobel for a technocratic approach to poverty

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Victor Claar looks at the work of the three economists awarded the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. Claar, associate professor of economics at Florida Gulf Coast University and an Acton affiliate scholar, says “economists are quite divided on this year’s prize” given to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. Continue Reading...
October 09, 2019

Video: Robert Doar on poverty in America

In July of this year, Robert Doar officially took the reins as President of the American Enterprise Institute, succeeding friend of Acton Arthur C. Brooks in that role. Yesterday, we were pleased to welcome Doar to deliver an address on poverty in America as part of the 2019 Acton Lecture Series. Continue Reading...
Robert Doar
September 23, 2019

10 facts about homelessness in America

The homeless represent the most vulnerable portion of Americans living in poverty. The latest U.S. government report on homelessness shows that a culture of secularism and statism is depriving Americans of church philanthropy, curbing the free market’s ability to provide, and leaving the most vulnerable reliant on the government – or the mercy of the streets. Continue Reading...
September 13, 2019

Charles Dickens, poverty, and emotional arguments

Why is it that the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century is so often our go-to mental paradigm for poverty? CapX’s John Ashmore, for instance, recently wrote of those who “feel an argument about poverty is incomplete without claiming we’ve somehow gone back to the 19th century.” Continue Reading...