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 [...]

How Modernity Diminishes the Human Person

By |2023-06-22T17:04:34-05:00June 22nd, 2023|Categories: Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Apple, Capitalism, Community, Democracy, Democracy in America, Featured, George Stanciu, St. John's College, Technology, Timeless Essays|

Because of the strong secular faith instilled in us by education, most of us trust that science and technology, democracy, and capitalism, the three legs of Modernity, can bring about only good ends and fail to see that these three triumphs of humankind can diminish the human person. With the publication of the book The [...]

Capitalism Produces Socialism

By |2023-07-30T11:12:35-05:00June 19th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Free Markets, Liberalism, New Polity, Socialism|

There is a lot of talk these days about an increasing interest in socialism. It is quite the conundrum if approached within the assumptions of late liberalism: why indeed would the victors in the Cold War seek to become their vanquished enemies? Pope Pius XI helps us through this problem. He helps us see that [...]

The Most Interesting (Business) Man in the World

By |2023-08-20T14:11:43-05:00June 2nd, 2023|Categories: Character, Christianity, Economics, Peter F. Drucker, Timeless Essays|

Peter Drucker is best known to the world as the author of massive bestsellers in the category of business management. But Drucker thought a lot about such things as totalitarianism, decentralization, limited government, an American type of conservatism, social harmony, the impact of mass production on human beings. A number of readers of this essay [...]

Is Capitalism Intrinsically Woke?

By |2023-05-31T15:43:10-05:00May 31st, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Capitalism, David Deavel, Distributism, Economics, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

“Capitalists” are often accused of wanting unfettered markets in which the only value is the almighty dollar and nobody cares about anything that is not related to making money. But others claim that capitalism is progressive by nature. Which is it? Is capitalism itself intrinsically “woke”? In “The Distributist” column in the latest issue of [...]

John Randolph of Roanoke & the Formation of a Southern Conservatism

By |2023-05-23T17:50:16-05:00May 23rd, 2023|Categories: American Founding, Civil Society, Conservatism, Economics, History, John Randolph of Roanoke, South, Timeless Essays|

John Randolph of Roanoke, one of the great exponents of the Southern political tradition, knew that what was proper to any state government was the preservation of the received order. The duty of the citizen of the commonwealth was to resist any legislative or constitutional changes to the received order, and to grant a broad [...]

Distributism and the Restoration of Freedom

By |2023-05-18T20:55:59-05:00May 18th, 2023|Categories: Books, Distributism, Economics, Hilaire Belloc, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Alexander Salter’s "The Political Economy of Distributism" is a much-needed scholarly work on the ideas of distributism, as presented in the writings of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Written in such a way that it will pass muster in the ivory towers of academe, it is also accessible for any reader interested in politics and [...]

“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” as a Fable of Modern America

By |2023-05-16T14:02:40-05:00May 16th, 2023|Categories: Books, Economics, Fiction, History, Mark Malvasi, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Literary scholars have long interpreted “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” as a fable of populism, but it is more than that: It is a celebration of consumer culture as the the very meaning of America, this bright and shining land where men and women are happy to deceive themselves into believing a fairy tale, which, [...]

Demonizing Distributism by Association

By |2023-05-12T22:27:48-05:00May 11th, 2023|Categories: Books, Distributism, Economics, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

In a recent essay, Veronique de Rugy focuses her ire on Alexander Salter, author of a forthcoming book entitled "The Political Economy of Distributism." She apparently seeks to discredit the book by discrediting its author as an admirer of the "antisemitic" Hilaire Belloc. This is really all too silly to be taken seriously. We live [...]

Trinity and Society: Economics & the Search for a “New Way”

By |2023-04-20T16:23:04-05:00April 20th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Communio, Distributism, Economics, Essential, Featured, G.K. Chesterton, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Stratford Caldecott, Timeless Essays|

The logic of individualism may now almost be played out in the West. In the society which we see all around us, people are brought up to think of themselves as free floating social particles, individuals whose only fulfillment lies in choice. The only alternative now to accepting the dissolution of the self is to [...]

A Theology of Gift: The Divine Benefactor & Universal Kinship

By |2023-03-19T19:13:51-05:00March 19th, 2023|Categories: Christian Humanism, Christianity, Economics, Essential, Philosophy, Stratford Caldecott, Timeless Essays|

Creation is an act of the Trinity, and existence is a participation in the Trinity—a participation in the Trinitarian act of giving, receiving, and being given. Each creature called into existence by God receives its own life as a gift. My topic is a theological appreciation of the notion of “gift”, and how this throws [...]

Spending Time and Money With Our Lord

By |2023-01-25T09:44:23-06:00January 25th, 2023|Categories: Books, Christianity, David Deavel, Economics, Free Markets, Senior Contributors|

Much of what Jesus had to say on debts, taxes, death, and charity, as well as other aspects of money, economic life, and discipleship, was expressed in his parables. Thus, this might be a very good time to pick up Fr. Robert Sirico’s new book, "The Economics of the Parables." The Economics of the Parables [...]

Consumer Materialism and Christian Hope

By |2023-01-07T15:58:22-06:00January 7th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Civil Society, Civilization, Community, Economics, Pope Benedict XVI|

Man needs ethos in order to be himself. Ethos, however, requires belief in creation and immortality. The impossibility of a human existence cut off from this is indirect proof for the truth of the Christian faith and its hope. Without the glad tidings of faith, mankind cannot endure in the long run. This lecture was [...]

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