It is no secret that most American cities lack the dynamism and life that they once had. Cities used to be places where people lived, worked, met and spent their leisure together. Today, with the exception of a few cities like New York City, downtowns are largely vacant and lifeless. Roger Scuton, commenting … Read more
Among news commentators throughout the West, there is the constant complaint that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Numerous books and articles are quick to criticize the present economic system as the cause of these ills. They claim capital tends to concentrate indefinitely and propose a tax-the-rich solution as the … Read more
It is interesting to note the different perceptions of how people perceive what they do for a living. Finance professor Bernard Lietaer makes the distinction by noting the original meanings of the words ‘job’ and ‘work.’ He writes: The word ‘Job’ is recent; it dates from the Industrial Revolution. It was initially defined as a … Read more
Dr. Samuel Gregg is director of research at the Acton Institute. He has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, economic history, ethics in finance, and natural law theory. He has authored several books including Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and America’s Future, and most recently Tea Party Catholic. Dr. Gregg took some time out … Read more
American law’s attachment to higher law dates back before independence as can be seen in this reference from renowned English jurist Sir William Blackstone: “This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all … Read more
Our ability to know things beyond the local and the small leads us to affirm that there can also be proportion in bigness. We must, of course, reject monstrous proportions. Yet it cannot be denied that nature does give us as examples huge mountains, great plains, or immense oceans that convey the idea of a … Read more
“The philosopher George Santayana once observed that Americans don’t solve problems, they leave them behind. If there’s an idea they don’t like, they don’t bother refuting it, they simply talk about something else, and the original idea dies from inattention. If a situation bothers them, they leave it in the past” (David Brooks, On Paradise … Read more
My friends often write to me about ways they have found to apply the principles of the book Return to Order. They especially mentioned the ways they avoid the “frenetic intemperance” of daily life where everything is rushed and out of balance. One friend has a special way of dealing with e-mail. I am not … Read more
As I sat down to read Thomas Piketty’s bestselling book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, I must admit I was not well disposed toward the book. Here is a voluminous 700-page tome written by a Frenchman that has garnered scathing reviews from the conservative press and glowing praise from liberal economists. What can you expect … Read more
If there was ever an unlikely ally in the fight for the unborn, it would be Thomas Piketty. Piketty is a French economist and bestselling author, who is notoriously liberal. Inside his massive 700-page book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, he holds just about every liberal position imaginable. His strong secular outlook avoids the sticky … Read more
