Acton Institute Powerblog

Promoting free societies characterized by liberty & religious principles

Faith and liberty in Guatemala

To say that the history of Latin America in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is marked by sadness and disappointment is hardly a novel insight. Whether it’s the persistence of cronyism throughout the region, the constant presence of Marxist ideology among intellectuals and in popular culture, the challenge of poverty, the crime and political violence, or the rampant populism that rears its head at regular intervals, many Latin Americans will tell you that theirs is the continent in which many things went backwards throughout the twentieth century. Continue Reading...

Socialism, by any other name

At the end of January I had the pleasure to speak with my friend of many years Ricardo Ball about the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.  The conversation was livestreamed from the Acton Institute allowing an international audience to listen in as we discussed recent developments from the streets of Caracas. Continue Reading...

Business Matters: Meaningful Work in the Modern Age

Like everything else in 2018, business has an emotional and often polarizing effect in our society. There are, of course, legitimate stories of business behaving badly. One high-profile example: the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica debacle that thrust the social media giant into the spotlight with a data breach affecting 87 million users. Continue Reading...
Business Matters: Meaningful Work in the Modern Age

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...