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Pillar

Business & Economics

The fifth pillar, business and economics, is built upon concern for the common good and the ways in which the economic order contributes to—or detracts from—human flourishing. Public Discourse examines the ways in which the market is shaped by—and gives shape to—our understanding of the human person, the role of the family, the rule of law, and education and culture.

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Libertarianism and conservatism are often lumped together, but there are fundamental differences between the two philosophies that make them incompatible.
The challenge in preventing abortion of Down syndrome fetuses is not convincing mothers that their child is a human being with a right to life, but of assuring expectant mothers there will be support for their children after they are born.
The controversy over the HHS mandate is not a spat about wonkish detail or tribal privilege. It remains a struggle for the principle of religious freedom, the soul of civil society.
The fundamental problem with the mandate is that it coerces some people into doing what they think is wrong, and this problem remains regardless of whether the coercion excuses the actions of the people being coerced.
An ancient example of resistance to a tyrant’s attempt to coerce violations of religious conscience provides an interesting perspective on resistance to the Obama administration’s recent healthcare coverage mandate.
Neither liberal nor libertarian, a principled conservative way of helping the poor.
It’s time to end the corporate income tax: it strains job-creating businesses, punishes workers rather than capital owners, encourages wealthy companies to find loopholes in the tax system, and allows some of the richest among us to pay strangely low personal income tax rates.
A successful account of social justice must affirm the primacy of communities, and institutions directed by communities, over both the individual and the state in promoting human flourishing.
The Obama administration’s efforts to regulate the cellular-phone service market through a decades-old trust-busting ideology is at odds with the courts’ more recent “new learning” approach to market competition. And there are lessons here for pro-lifers.
Economic, political, and ethical principles that encourage limited government must interact in our effort to secure long-term economic stability.
The eurozone’s current crisis is an opportunity for Europe to explore new monetary options that challenge the hitherto dominant vision of the European Union’s economic future.
Conservatives shouldn’t ignore or attack social justice, but must articulate sound principles of social justice.
Rawlsian “public reason” approaches to human capabilities are insufficient bases for social justice.
Private property should be preserved and protected because of its deep contribution to human well-being.
New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse refuses to see the truth about contraception, conscience, and religious liberty.
Growing national debt-to-income ratios need not become a threat to American solvency or a long-run impediment to implementation of our social policy choices. Historically-based approaches to social objectives can be improved through advances in economics.
The health-care debate presents us with a moral imperative to solve an economic problem, but how we solve this economic problem has moral implications: allowing individuals and families greater freedom to choose among treatment options in a market that drives down costs, or establishing centralized control that makes utilitarian calculations of the worth of different people’s lives.
Candidates in the 2012 presidential race should champion two principles for reviving America’s economy: the Adam Smith principle for limiting government and the subsidiarity principle for regulating government intervention.
Contraception does not respond to an authentic healthcare need, and the state acts untruthfully and beyond its legitimate authority when it mandates contraception coverage.
The attempts by both the right and the left to politicize our Constitution must be firmly rejected for the sake of our nation’s health and prosperity.
Five suggestions for how our nation can regain a healthy marriage culture and the economic prosperity and personal flourishing that comes with it. The second in a two-part series.
Research shows the positive economic effect of two-biological-parent families on our society. Single parenthood and other alternative family structures not only hurt our economy, they hurt our children, those who care for them, and those for whom our children will care later in life. The first in a two-part series.
Planned Parenthood must account for its disregard for the law if it wishes to retain state funding.
Our current economic debates underscore the case for an approach to political economy that rejects social contract theory and embraces a robust conception of human flourishing.

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