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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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In charting our future monetary policies, we should remember the trade-offs of competing alternatives.
Recent events suggest that Commonweal and Timothy Jost need to reassess their arguments about health care and abortion
The new health care law has endangered longstanding protections on conscience. We must act to address them or risk creating a dangerous precedent.
Under the new health-care law, pro-lifers may have to accept inferior health plans, rather than wrongly pay into abortion providing ones.
Expansive and expensive welfare programs have brought European social democracies to the verge of catastrophe. Now the dynamics of democracy may be an impediment to economic reform.
The bailout of Greece is a stunning about-face that calls into question Europe’s commitment to a stable currency.
In a first-time feature, the editors of Public Discourse respond to the editors of Commonweal.
The claim that health care reform “made history” highlights how fully the political debate hinges on ideas of progress.
Is it time to consider internationalizing or privatizing our money supply?
As we attempt to revive the global financial system, it may be time to reconsider the long tradition that warned against the dangers of borrowing.
The choice the country faces in health-care reform is a stark one with profound ramifications: What process will best deliver affordable quality health-care to all Americans, a government-driven or market-driven one?
In the wake of the financial crisis, market reform will require moral reform.
Attempts to regulate corporate misbehavior need to find a better instrument than intrusive regulations.
Having spent 20 years wrongly diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state, Rom Houben reminds us that disabled persons are capable of many more substantive opportunities for human fulfillment than we are initially inclined to believe. But is bodily life just as such worth preserving? Can care-givers rightly remove hydration and nutrition?
Calls for health-care reform confuse the basic right to healthcare and a desire for healthcare that is in all ways equal.
Is the current financial crisis simply a technical failure, or does it derive from some more basic problem? Economists may need to begin addressing fundamental questions concerned with value, and for that, they may turn to the natural law tradition.
If we are to restore confidence in free markets, we need a robust explanation of their moral value.
It is no simple matter to care for aging parents. But in the face of an uncertain future, concrete steps can be taken to make an unusual option more attractive.
The real health-care debate isn’t whether we should have reform, but which type of reform to pursue: good reform versus bad reform. A senior economist explains how we can make high quality health-care available to all.
Economists and other social scientists should take into account the integral flourishing of human beings and not just material utility. After doing so, defense of free trade becomes more—not less—important.
Free trade brings with it financial benefits and human rewards. However, it sometimes must be limited if communities and people are to flourish.
Those who favor providing health care to all shouldn’t necessarily oppose the “public option,” but they will be unable to support a bill if it endorses and entrenches the taking of innocent human life through abortion.
Debates over health care reform have focused almost exclusively on policy. Few have considered whether Congress even has the constitutional authority to enact its proposed reforms. Fundamental constitutional issues—such as the scope of the commerce power, the right of individuals to religious liberty, and the different natures of federal and state authority—must be recalled in order to have a more fruitful debate.
Free trade is not only good economic policy, it is a human right that should not be restricted lightly.

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