Acton Line
579 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 201 ratingsDedicated to the promotion of a free and virtuous society, Acton Line brings together writers, economists, religious leaders, and more to bridge the gap between good intentions and sound economics.
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Episodes
Closing the Gap Between Work and Life
March 13, 2024 09:00 - 41 minutesIn this episode, we bring you a conversation from our recent Business Matters virtual conference between Acton’s director of marketing and communications, Eric Kohn, and David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group. They discuss Bahnsen’s new book, Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, in which he makes the case that our understanding of work and its role in our lives is deeply flawed—we are unmoored from what he calls “created purpose.” He ar...
Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative
March 06, 2024 10:00 - 48 minutesIn 1980, Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman released a 10-part documentary series on PBS called “Free to Choose,” with each hour-long episode giving his perspective on important public policy debates and social issues. The series was a hit and possessed a staying power far beyond the 1980s. Through this and much of his other work, Friedman became one of the leading public intellectuals of his time, and his ideas have influenced economics and public policy deeply. In this episode, A...
Building a Strong Company Through Culture
February 28, 2024 10:30 - 57 minutesManaging a business is a challenge no matter the context. Talent comes and goes, supplies change, and you can’t always achieve everything you want. Every day, new constraints create roadblocks to the next goal. There may not be one solution to these problems, but co-founder and managing partner of Michigan Software Labs Mark Johnson says strong company culture is the foundation of any successful company. In this episode, Acton director of programs and education Dan Churchwell speaks to Mark ...
Growth and Development in Africa [Rebroadcast]
February 21, 2024 10:00 - 52 minutesAnyone of a certain age will remember the massive hit that was “We Are The World,” the Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones produced charity single by USA for Africa. The considerable profits from the that hit song went to the USA for Africa Foundation, which used them for the relief of famine and disease in Africa and specifically to 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. Even though Africa is an enormous and diverse continent with 54 sovereign countries, many people in the United States,...
Education for a Free Society
February 14, 2024 10:00 - 56 minutesOn today’s episode, Acton librarian and research associate Dan Hugger sits down with Acton research fellow and Journal of Markets & Morality executive editor Dylan Pahman to talk about education. They begin with the 18th-century vision of education advanced by America’s Founders. Why did they believe education was necessary for a free society, and what kind of education did they have in mind? The discussion then turns to attempts by St. John Henry Newman, F.D. Maurice, and Abraham Kuyper to b...
Questioning Questions
February 07, 2024 16:09 - 1 hourWe are living in the age of deconstruction. We are constantly bombarded online, in schools, and sometimes even in our homes by attitudes and arguments aimed at deconstructing our faith. Through this, do we know what it means to question well? Faith is not the sort of thing that endures so long as our eyes are closed. The opposite is the case: Faith helps us see, and that means not shrinking from the ambiguities and the difficulties that provoke our most profound questions. Professor Matthew L...
The Rise of Religious Anti-Liberalism
January 31, 2024 15:14 - 57 minutesIn this episode, we bring you a recent Acton Lecture Series event with Kevin Vallier. The 20th century featured an unusual phenomenon: global secularizing movements. In the 19th century, these movements were confined mostly to Western Europe, but in the 20th century they exploded, suppressing the influence of religion around the world. In some milder cases, as in Turkey and India, the political expression of only the great religions was throttled. In others, such as in the USSR and Mao’s Chin...
How to Experience Everyday Freedom
January 24, 2024 14:46 - 50 minutesOn today’s episode, Acton librarian and research associate Dan Hugger speaks with lawyer and chair of Common Good Philip K. Howard about his new book: Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society. Why do so many people feel powerless today? How can people experience “everyday freedom” at work, in school, and in all of life? What forces in American life today stifle our sense of freedom and responsibility, and how can they be counteracted to ensure flourishing for all? W...
Misconceptions About China
January 17, 2024 10:00 - 1 hourAfter decades of trade and investment with advanced democracies, China is far richer and stronger than it otherwise would have been. Simply put, the West’s strategy of engagement with China has failed. Democracies have underestimated the resilience, resourcefulness, and ruthlessness of the Chinese Communist Party. Growth and development have not caused China’s rulers to relax their grip on political power, nor have they accepted the rules and norms of the existing international system. In thi...
Connecting Family, Property, and Liberty
January 10, 2024 11:00 - 1 hourIn this episode of Acton Line, Dylan Pahman, Acton research fellow and executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality, interviews Dr. Clara Piano, assistant professor of economics at Austin Peay State University, about her recent paper “Familial Liberty: Property and Family in Late Scholastic Thought,” presented at Acton’s Third Annual Academic Colloquium. Their wide-ranging discussion addresses such questions as: What is the connection between family and property? What insights do lat...
Imagining Hope for the Future
January 03, 2024 11:00 - 59 minutesOn today’s episode, Acton, director of marketing and communications, Eric Kohn, speaks with AEI economic policy expert James Pethokoukis about his new book: The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised. With a popular culture fixated on catastrophe, are we at risk of pushing a pro-progress future into the realm of the impossible? Pethokoukis argues there’s still hope if we choose to do more than just dream—we must act, too. Why suddenly are we threatened by chang...
The Great Unlearning
December 27, 2023 14:00 - 55 minutesIn the late 1960’s as the hippie movement was shredding norms of hygiene and cleanliness in order to live more ‘authentically’, diseases emerged not seen in so long they didn’t have a latin name. The hippies, and others, were relearning why we engaged in certain hygienic practices all over again. In an essay titled “The Great Unlearning” from the January 2024 issue of National Review, senior writer Noah Rothman observes similar patterns of people persuading themselves that inherited wisdom a...
A Christian Perspective from Visiting Israel
December 20, 2023 11:00 - 55 minutesOn today’s episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Mike Cosper, director of podcasting for Christianity Today, about his recent trip to Israel. How has the region changed since the October 7 terrorist attacks? What do Christians in the region think? What hopes do those caught in the middle of the conflict have? The stories Mike heard, the people he talked to, and the impression left on him by the experience are all part of Christianity Today’s newest roun...
Canceling Cancel Culture
December 13, 2023 12:00 - 59 minutesOn today’s episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), about his new book, The Canceling of the American Mind. Cancel culture appears to be pervasive, and this book is the first to examine the effect it has had—and is having—on the United States. How are both left and right using the power to “cancel” someone? Is cancel culture a relatively new phenomenon or has i...
Can We Solve Poverty?
December 06, 2023 14:00 - 1 hourOn today’s episode of Acton Line, we bring you a conversation about poverty recently held on our sister podcast, Acton Unwind. Acton’s Eric Kohn and Dan Hugger are joined by their colleague Michael Matheson Miller, who discusses his essay “The Poverty Pyramid Scheme,” and AIER’s Samuel Gregg on his book review “Mistaken About Poverty.” Both pieces appear in a special poverty-themed edition of RELIGION & LIBERTY magazine (Fall 2023) that contends that there isn’t one solution to poverty, but m...
Entrepreneurs Serving Entrepreneurs
November 29, 2023 20:45 - 38 minutesYour strengths, relationships, and self-awareness are all essential in determining how your business will operate—and whether it will succeed or fail. But how can you optimize each of these elements? How can you set realistic goals? How can your business overcome a plateau and continue to grow? SpringGR aims to answer these questions by connecting entrepreneurs with the intellectual, social, and financial capital needed to thrive.
A Classical Education for Contemporary Students
November 22, 2023 16:07 - 1 hourIn 2007, Thales Academy was born with a simple vision: provide an excellent and affordable education through the use of Direct Instruction and a Classical Curriculum that embodies traditional American values. In The Thales Way, Robert L. Luddy, the founder of Thales Academy and several other schools, explains the rationale for the school's educational approach and elaborates on his mission to better educate students. In this episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn sp...
A Consensus for the People
November 15, 2023 14:50 - 1 hourYou’ve probably heard the phrase “America isn’t a democracy—it’s a republic.” This is typically trotted out to make a salient point about the type of government we have in fact, but is it a distinction the Founding Fathers would have recognized and made themselves? Yes and no, says Jay Cost, the Gerald R. Ford nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the new book “Democracy or Republic: The People and the Constitution.” How is the system crafted by the Foun...
Aquinas and the Market
November 08, 2023 18:02 - 1 hourIn this episode, we present the most recent installment of the Acton Lecture Series, with Dr. Mary L. Hirschfeld. Economists investigate the workings of markets and tend to set ethical questions aside. Theologians often dismiss economics, losing insights into the influence of market incentives on individual behavior. Dr. Hirschfeld bridges this gap by showing how a humane economy can lead to the good life as outlined in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Maximum Innovation for Maximum Social Impact
November 01, 2023 13:00 - 53 minutesIn this episode, Acton director of programs and education Dan Churchwell speaks with Leah Kral, an expert facilitator and author who helps nonprofits doing the hard work of building civil society to innovate and be more effective. Good intentions alone don’t translate to impact, so why are nonprofits like the Mayo Clinic so successful when others fail? How can innovation, creativity, originality, and risk-taking be wedded to those good intentions? Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Succ...
Shining a Light on the Darkest Place in the World.
October 25, 2023 15:29 - 57 minutesLearn more about Acton UniversityOn today’s episode, we present a discussion from Acton University 2023 between director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn and North Korean defector and human rights activist Yeonmi Park. At age 13, Park and her family made a daring escape from North Korea in search of a life free of tyranny. In her viral talks, viewed online nearly 250 million times, Park urges audiences to recognize—and resist—the oppression that exists in North Korea and around the w...
The History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
October 18, 2023 17:43 - 1 hourIn this episode, Acton’s director of marketing and communications, Eric Kohn, talks with Jonathan Greenberg, the Jack Miller Family Foundation’s director of freedom initiatives and the former Midwest director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee about the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the significance of the October 7 massacre, especially what it will mean for Israel and the region going forward. While the Gaza-Israeli dispute has been going on since at leas...
Bill Courtney and a Life Undefeated
October 11, 2023 13:44 - 1 hourIn this episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Bill Courtney about coaching football, running a successful lumber business, and walking the red carpet with George Clooney and P. Diddy. In 2003, Bill began coaching the Manassas Tigers, an inner-city Memphis high school football team that had never once won a playoff game. By 2008, Courtney had helped build an award-winning football program that was chronicled in the Academy Award–winning documentary “Unde...
The Gender Wage Gap with Dr. Angela Dills
October 04, 2023 19:47 - 48 minutesDr. Angela Dills is a labor economist who teaches at Western Carolina University and whose work focuses on the economics of education, crime, and health. In this episode of Acton Line, Angela and Dan Hugger discuss her research into the gender wage gap. Do women really earn only $0.83 for every $1.00 a men earn? Do the data represent a true “apples to apples” comparison? How much of the gender wage gap can be accounted for by discrimination? How do women participate in the labor market differ...
Enlightenment about the Enlightment(s)
September 27, 2023 13:25 - 42 minutesIn this episode, Dr. John Pinheiro speaks with Dr. Joseph Stuart about the complexity of the European Enlightenments: namely, the most common misconceptions and the mistake made by Christian and secular scholars alike who see in the Enlightenments only a simplistic conflict between faith and reason. Professor Stuart argues that Christians interacted with the Enlightenments by using one of three strategies: conflict, engagement, or retreat. Along the way, Dr. Pinheiro and Dr. Stuart uncover ...
Mythic Realms
September 20, 2023 13:00 - 52 minutesDr. Bradley J. Birzer, Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and professor of history at Hillsdale College, discusses his new book, Mythic Realms: The Moral Imagination in Literature & Film with Dan Hugger. How does Mythic Realms extend the author’s prior work on Christian humanism? What is the role of the moral imagination in navigating popular culture? What do the pulps have to do with romanticism? How did the Inklings seek to promote Christian humanism through genre fiction? How can ...
Freedom and Prosperity Around The World
September 13, 2023 16:32 - 29 minutesJoseph Lemoine, deputy director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council, joins Stephen Barrows, Acton’s COO, to discuss the Atlantic Council’s recently released 2023 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. The Freedom and Prosperity Center created these indexes to provide a snapshot of the current distribution of freedom and prosperity around the world; gain a sense of the evolution of both over the past 28 years at global, regional, and national levels; and facilitate an explor...
Engaging Homelessness with Better Way Detroit
September 06, 2023 15:45 - 41 minutesBetter WAY Detroit engages, pays, feeds, and counsels homeless persons, and connects them to services for housing, medical and mental health care, and stable employment opportunities. Through their efforts, participants inspire community spirit, pride of ownership, and confidence in the dignity of work. While serving as participants, we also mentor them so that they can best help them find permanent employment after their service. Subscribe to our podcasts Better Way Detroit
Organizational Culture with Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan
August 30, 2023 14:00 - 51 minutesDr. Brandon Vaidyanathan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at The Catholic University of America, shares his thoughts on “Organizational Culture” with Sarah Negri, Research Project Coordinator at the Acton Institute, at Acton University 2023. They discuss how culture affects us as humans without our being aware of it and how we in turn can affect culture through our free choices and actions. Conversation topics include the Competing Values Framework of evaluating a...
Navigating the Rising Tide of Political Polarization
August 23, 2023 16:08 - 48 minutesIn this episode, Dylan Pahman interviews Dr. Rachel Ferguson about her lecture at Acton University on the problem of political polarization. From social media to cable news to tribalism to racial injustice to transgender activism, Dr. Ferguson gets at the deeper roots of the problem and offers a path of hope grounded in her Christian faith and philosophical expertise. Subscribe to our podcasts Black Liberation Through the Marketplace | Amazon
The Law of Conservation of Welfare—And What Energy Source Can Transform It?
August 16, 2023 14:00 - 51 minutesThe law of conservation of mass dates from Antoine Lavoisier's 1789 discovery that mass is neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions. Evidence of the past three decades leads Marvin Olasky to suggest a parallel Law of Conservation of Welfare regarding political reactions. In 1995-1996 the first GOP-majority House of Representatives in four decades changed AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) into TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) but left alone dozens of other program...
Cronyism, Corporate Welfare, and Inequality
August 09, 2023 14:00 - 57 minutesIn this episode of Acton Line, Dylan Pahman, executive editor of the Journal of Markets and Morality, and a research fellow here at Acton, interviews Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley about her lecture at Acton University on “Corporate Welfare and Inequality.” In this conversation, this discuss why the prices of some goods, like education and healthcare, risen at astronomical rates while others, such as video games, remain fairly unchanged in price despite monumental improvements in quality and ste...
Filthy Rich Politicians
August 02, 2023 14:30 - 59 minutesIf you asked people to describe our current cast of politicians in America right now, they might say that some, if not most, are slyly taking advantage of the system. They are hoping no one is savvy enough to notice. Matt Lewis, senior columnist at The Daily Beast, believes that today’s politicians are an unsavory lot—a hybrid of plutocrats and hypocrites. And it’s worse (and more laughable) than you can imagine. In his new book, Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, ...
The New Catholic Integralism
July 26, 2023 13:45 - 1 hourKevin Vallier, political philosopher and associate professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, joins Dan Hugger to discuss Catholic Integralism and his forthcoming book All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism, which publishes with Oxford University Press in September. What is Catholic Integralism and what is its relation to Catholic Social Teaching? What is its history and the story of its contemporary rise? How has it caused controversy i...
Christian Workers and the Entrepreneurial Vocation
July 19, 2023 14:28 - 53 minutesIn this episode, Father Roger J. Landry, a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, and Catholic Chaplain to Columbia University in New York City sits down with Sarah Negri, Research Project Coordinator at the Acton Institute, to discuss the social teaching of Pope John Paul II and especially his emphasis on the vocation of the Christian entrepreneur. Father Landry shares some history on John Paul II’s three most famous social encyclicals and elucidates their importance for the ord...
The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism
July 12, 2023 14:00 - 48 minutesThis week, we’re bringing you one of the plenary lectures from this year’s Acton University, featuring Bishop Robert Barron speaking on “The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism.” "Wokeism” is arguably the most influential public philosophy in our country today. It has worked its way into the minds and hearts of our young people, into the world of entertainment, and into the boardrooms of powerful corporations. But what is it precisely, and where did it come from? I will argue in my presentation th...
Economic Potpourri with David Bahnsen
July 05, 2023 13:50 - 57 minutesOne of the campaign themes that launchd Bill Clinton into the White House in 1992 was, “it’s the economy, stupid.” While much of our politics is focused today on the culture war, the economy is the one issue that touches everyone. Much of the last few years have been spent concerned about the crushing effects of inflation. Previously on Acton Line, we’ve discussed the causes of the inflation we’ve experienced over the last few years with David Bahnsen — founder, managing partner, and chief in...
The Informant's Path to Faith and Redemption
June 28, 2023 14:55 - 54 minutesToday's episode starts with a clip from the trailer for 2009 comedy/drama “The Informant!,” directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, and Melanie Lynskey. It’s a wild based-on-a-true-story film about Mark Whitacre. In the early-1990s, Whitacre was the corporate vice president and President of the BioProducts Division of the agro-business giant Archer Daniels Midland. Whitacre would go on to become an informant in the FBI investigation into a conspiracy ...
Storks Don't Take Orders From the State
June 21, 2023 14:00 - 49 minutesIt’s 2007. Spider-Man 3 is the top grossing film at the box office. Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” is the biggest hit song. American Idol is the most watched TV show. It was also the last time that the United States was at replacement level fertility, which is 2.1 children born per woman. In the years following, through the ups and downs of the great recession, the 2016 election, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate has fallen to 1.66 children per woman. When you zoom out, you’ll see that American ...
Growth and Development in Africa
June 14, 2023 17:30 - 50 minutesAnyone of a certain age will remember the massive hit that was “We Are The World,” the Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones produced charity single by USA for Africa. The considerable profits from the that hit song went to the USA for Africa Foundation, which used them for the relief of famine and disease in Africa and specifically to 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. Even though Africa is an enormous and diverse continent with 54 sovereign countries, many people in the United States,...
The China Nexus
June 07, 2023 14:04 - 56 minutesJune 4 marked the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, in which the Chinese Communist Party put down a pro-democracy protest movement that had bubbled up in Tiananmen Square and throughout mainland China. For many, it served as a stark reminder the brutality of the country that, under the autocratic leadership of Mao Zedong killed between 40 and 80 million of its own people, could still be just as brutal. Tiananmen happened just three years before Benedict Rogers moved to China ...
Friendship in a Democratic Age
May 31, 2023 13:50 - 1 hourIn this episode, we dive into some of the profound changes occurring in American society. Back in the day, social scientist Robert Putnam observed a concerning trend—he called it "bowling alone"—where Americans were becoming increasingly disconnected from community bonds and support systems. Fast forward to the present, and we see not only a retreat from these vital sources of communal life but also a rise in loneliness, anxiety, depression, and overall mental and physical distress. Marriage ...
Rev. Tim Keller on The Problems of Modern Identity
May 24, 2023 13:45 - 42 minutesFor this episode of Acton Line, we’re bringing you the remarks by Rev. Timothy J. Keller at the Acton Institute’s Annual Dinner in 2018, in which he spoke on identity, business, and the Christian gospel. Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, New York Times bestselling author, teacher, and arguably the most influential evangelical preacher of his generation died May 19, 2023, after a three-year struggle with pancreatic cancer. He was 72. He leaves behind his wife ...
Against the New Paganism
May 17, 2023 14:45 - 50 minutesThere’s been much discussion of how “wokeness,” for lack of a better term, operates as a form of civic religion for the political left. Less discussed, according to Jack Butler of National Review, is the emerging form or forms of paganism on the political right. Most prominent among them is Costin Alamariu, a Romanian political-science Ph.D. from Yale, who goes by the moniker “Bronze Age Pervert.” Alamariu is the author of Bronze Age Mindset, which Butler describes as “an intentionally provoc...
Mere Natural Law
May 10, 2023 13:55 - 58 minutesWe live in what appears at first glance to be a highly skeptical age, one characterized by moral relativism in public discourse and ‘value-freedom’ in science. But is this really the case? Hadley Arkes believes that, despite many people’s protest to the contrary, what they do is informed–perhaps unwittingly–by an understanding of natural law. In this wide-ranging conversation, the founding director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding unpacks this paradox ...
A Closer Look at Aircraft Industrial Policy
May 03, 2023 13:50 - 54 minutesThe last time you took a commercial airline flight, odds are that you were on a plane that was manufactured by one of two companies: American-based Boeing, or French-based Airbus. Together, these two companies have almost the entire market for commercial airplanes. A piece published recently at the website American Compass makes the argument that Airbus is a success story for industrial policy: European government decided they needed to compete with foreign manufacturers of airplanes, they ma...
Free Enterprise and the Common Good
April 26, 2023 15:16 - 49 minutesFor this episode of Acton Line, Dylan Pahman, the editor of the Journal of Markets and Morality and a research fellow here at Acton, speaks with Alexander Salter. Salter is the author of the recent article "Free Enterprise and the Common Good,“ published at the Heritage Foundation. The article has generated a lot of buzz, particularly online, where the Salter’s ideas have been the subject of much debate. Before delving into specific questions about the article and its reception, we start wit...
Unleashing the Entrepreneur
April 19, 2023 13:32 - 1 hourFor this episode of Acton Line, we’re bringing you a panel discussion from the Grand Rapids edition of the Free Market Road Show, an event the Acton Institue recently co-hosted along with the Austrian Economics Center. In this conversation, entitled “Unleashing the Entrepreneur,” the panelists explore the theme of entrepreneurship and how it can be a key driver of economic growth and prosperity, as well as examine the challenges that entrepreneurs face, such as regulatory barriers and access ...
The Mainstreaming of Marx
April 12, 2023 13:30 - 48 minutesKarl Marx. If you’re listening to this podcast, it’s unlikely that I need to explain to you who Karl Marx is. You know he’s the author of The Communist Manifesto, and the father of one of the most significant and impactful philosophical and economic theories of the late 19th and the 20th century. It would be fair for you to assume that Marx was always celebrated in the way he was throughout the 20th century, as numerous countries, like the Soviet Union, sought to put his theory into practice....
Hope and Transformation at New City Kids
April 05, 2023 13:30 - 39 minutesOver the course of the last year here at the Acton Institute, we’ve been bringing in local social providers so that our staff can gain a better understanding of the critical work that they do here in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, metro region to help alleviate poverty. Today, Eric Kohn sits down to talk with the leader of one of those social service providers, Trevor Rubingh of New City Kids. New City Kids offers after school programming for local low-income youth. Children and teens get a chan...