The Bible as Agrarian Textbook

By |2024-02-27T20:06:17-06:00February 27th, 2024|Categories: Agrarianism, Bible, Economics, Political Economy, Ralph Ancil, Timeless Essays, Wilhelm Roepke|

Whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or orthodox Protestant, the Bible is the basic book of the Christian faith. One may well ask if it has anything to say about how we should live, not only about the fruits of salvation, but about what kind of government we are to have or what kind of economy? [...]

A Masterpiece of Cultural History: Jacques Barzun’s “From Dawn to Decadence”

By |2024-01-09T18:18:32-06:00January 9th, 2024|Categories: Books, Classics, Culture, Economics, Political Economy, Robert M. Woods, Timeless Essays, Virgil|Tags: |

In the annals of writing history, there are a handful of volumes that have become established as models due to tone, insightful content, and excellence of style. The most recent historical work by Jacques Barzun is such a work. It is a cultural history of the highest standard. As a historical volume of such scope, [...]

The Paradox of Choice

By |2023-12-13T15:58:03-06:00December 12th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Economics, Religion|

Our fundamental mistake is that we conflate freedom with a multiplicity of options. This view of freedom is actually paralyzing—we are enchained by our inability to make a decision. Thankfully, this is not how a Christian is expected to live! Ordering from a lengthy restaurant menu is a frightful experience. Your eyes scan desperately over countless [...]

An Introduction to Conservatism for “Well-Meaning Liberals”

By |2023-11-15T05:47:05-06:00November 14th, 2023|Categories: Books, Conservatism, Economics, Government, Natural Rights Tradition, Political Philosophy, Senior Contributors, Thomas R. Ascik, Timeless Essays, Western Civilization|

Instead of considering contemporary political issues, or politicians, Roger Scruton attempts to rebuild conservatism by looking seriously at its past. Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition, by Roger Scruton (176 pages, All Points Books, 2018) In his Conservatism, An Introduction to the Great Tradition (2017), long-time Anglo-American conservative champion and author Sir Roger Scruton says [...]

The Humane Economy of Wilhelm Roepke

By |2023-10-09T18:57:48-05:00October 9th, 2023|Categories: Economics, Featured, Political Economy, RAK, Russell Kirk, Timeless Essays, Wilhelm Roepke|

Wilhelm Roepke was the principal champion of a humane economy: that is, an economic system suited to human nature and to a humane scale in society, as opposed to systems bent upon mass production regardless of counterproductive personal and social consequences. Today I offer you some observations concerning Wilhelm Roepke, a principal social thinker of [...]

A Call to Reform: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Cry of the Children”

By |2023-09-12T18:50:02-05:00September 12th, 2023|Categories: Culture, Justice, Labor/Work, Literature, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “The Cry of the Children” recognizes the injustice of the exploitation of child labor, but her protest is not so much against the eternal class struggle as it is against the failures of her culture to remain true to its long-held beliefs. Her poem is thus a call to conserve culture [...]

Capitalism and the Gospel of Love

By |2023-09-06T19:06:29-05:00September 6th, 2023|Categories: Adam Smith, American Republic, Capitalism, Economics, Free Markets, George Stanciu, Love, Modernity, Timeless Essays|

In “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith was absolutely right: The widespread division of labor would cause the interior life to die; an unsurprising result, for under capitalism, the human person became a commodity, a resource, a thing used to further profits. My parents, Romanian gypsies, born in a Transylvanian village and raised in thatched-roofed [...]

Why Work Matters

By |2023-09-03T13:53:51-05:00September 3rd, 2023|Categories: American Republic, David Deavel, Economics, Labor/Work, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

I like the idea of celebrating “homo faber”—man the maker or worker. Work is something that is part of our dignity, a triumph of the human spirit. The celebration of work is something desperately needed in our culture today. “Why are we celebrating Labor Day? You don’t belong to a labor union,” one of my [...]

Wilhelm Röpke’s Magnetism of the Garden

By |2023-08-29T19:38:17-05:00August 29th, 2023|Categories: Economics, Family, Political Economy, Timeless Essays, Wilhelm Roepke|

Wilhelm Röpke grew mesmerized by population growth projections which counted 300 billion inhabitants on the Earth by the year 2300. In such an anthill existence, he asked, what would happen to those “unbought graces of life”: “nature, privacy, beauty, dignity, birds and woods and fields and flowers, repose and true leisure.” Wilhelm Röpke was an [...]

“The Hour of Fate”: Theodore Roosevelt & American Capitalism

By |2023-08-21T18:27:32-05:00August 21st, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Books, Capitalism, Economics, Politics, Presidency, Teddy Roosevelt, Timeless Essays|

Theodore Roosevelt was the obvious victor in both of the “battles to transform American capitalism.” He refused to do the bidding of the coal operators and instead helped engineer a compromise. American capitalism was not so much transformed as tamed in the process. The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan and the Battle to [...]

A Tale of Two Houses

By |2023-08-13T16:59:18-05:00August 13th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Education, Labor/Work, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning|

What if the fundamental problem in the American academy is a loss of institutional identity that has nothing to do with conservative or liberal ideology? What if the modern university simply is no longer dedicated to being a house of learning and a community of scholars? Jake Meador’s article in The Atlantic* about the decline [...]

Return to Order: Organic Remedies and Upright Spontaneity

By |2023-07-20T17:19:04-05:00July 20th, 2023|Categories: Books, Christendom, Economics, John Horvat, Political Economy, Timeless Essays, Virtue|Tags: |

Counting upon God’s grace, we must recognize and respect the organic nature of man, full of vivacity, spontaneity, and unpredictability. This is the essence of a truly organic—that is, living—society. An element of organic society involves the manner in which remedies are found. In searching for solutions, we must carefully observe the fact that organic [...]

Return to Order: Reviving the Heart and Soul of an Economy

By |2023-07-20T12:33:01-05:00July 15th, 2023|Categories: Books, Economics, Featured, John Horvat, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

Economists can analyze trends in production and consumption, but they cannot plumb the depths of the human soul; they can only observe the consequences of certain human commercial acts and take limited conclusions. Unlike the laws of the natural sciences, economic laws involve free and rational human beings and are consequently free of determinism. Given [...]

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