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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.

Empowering People through a Renewed Sense of Place

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Just Tariff Theory

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The notion that tariffs are bad has been supported by world-renowned economists for centuries. Yet we are currently in the midst of a trade war. Maybe what we need is a Just Tariff Theory: a system to weigh the economic harms of tariffs against the political benefits they may have.

How the Dust Bowl Undermined the Libertarian Ideology of Plains Farmers

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Eighty-five years ago, staunchly self-reliant American farmers encountered a crisis-the Dust Bowl-they simply could not overcome on their own. The story of the Dust Bowl is a story about American grit and perseverance, but also about the limits of libertarianism.

Integrating Catholic Social Teaching With Economics and Natural Science

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Thoughtful Catholics should integrate the discoveries and insights of economics and science with the principles of Catholic social teaching, and ultimately, with the natural moral law and revealed theology.

Happy Deficit Day!

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Reasonable people can claim that the government of the richest country in human history should provide certain things to its poorer citizens. But reasonable people cannot claim those things come without a price.

From the Great Recession to the Great Divide: Business and Economics in the Last Decade

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Americans today are anxious—not just financially, but socially. We despair even though we are materially better off than at any other time in human history. What happened? How did we get here?

Social Ecology and the Market Economy: Revisiting the Threefold Foundations of a Flourishing Society

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A full vision of the social structures of human flourishing must include three elements: the economic, political, and moral-cultural.

Love, Economics, and Cheap Sex

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According to sociologist Mark Regnerus, the birth control pill and the rise of internet porn decreased the cost of sexual access so substantially as to affect a fundamental shift from a world in which sex served higher goods to a world in which sex is the higher good.

An Exchange on Happiness, Freedom, and Spiritual Formation

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How should we understand hierarchies, markets, freedom, happiness, anthropology, and spiritual formation? Three Christian thinkers respond to each other.

Happiness, Freedom, and Spiritual Formation: A Response to Reichert and Maier

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Market economies are not inherently hostile to Christian spiritual formation. And expanding the scope of Church authority into the temporal realm is no substitute for traditional spiritual practices such as prayer and fasting.

Trump’s Tariffs and Why America Needs a Patriotic Case for Free Trade

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While the economic arguments for free trade remain compelling, the political rationale requires a long-overdue overhaul.

Economic Freedom and Economic Opportunity: R. R. Reno Discovers Economic Growth, Blames Capitalism

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Leaders should get the facts straight before they start theorizing.

Resisting the Fortress of Solitude: What’s Wrong with First Things’ Anxious Anti-Capitalism

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Young people today, especially the ones who are serious about religion and look to the editors of First Things for guidance, must resist the allure of an intellectual Fortress of Solitude where they can sit and feel superior to everyone. Griping about the state of society is a waste of time. Part two of two.

Notes from Reality About Economic Regulation: What’s Wrong with First Things’ Anxious Anti-Capitalism

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R.R. Reno’s manifesto on capitalism—in which he concludes, among other things, that expanding economic freedom leads to transgenderism—is based on empirically false claims. Part one of a two-part series.

Michael Novak: A Model for Social Scientists

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The “real human person” was the persistent subject of Michael Novak’s life’s work. Novak wanted real, gritty, ordinary persons, in ordinary life, and he wanted a political and economic order for those real, gritty, ordinary persons.

Capitalism, Conservatives, and the Intellectuals: A Reply to Matthew McManus

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Not only are there many forms of capitalism, but intellectuals exert great influence in determining what type of economy we embrace—for better and for worse.

Social Transformation and the Market Economy: A Reply to Samuel Gregg

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Capitalism in practice is crony capitalism. Profit-minded firms use every trick they can, including pushing for government intervention and protection, to pursue their self interest. Capitalism and liberal institutions are tremendously powerful social forces that operate both with and through the individuals who engage in economic and political activity. One of their primary features is the continuous revolution in values.

First Things and the Market Economy: A Response to R. R. Reno

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More than ever, religiously informed conservatives should underscore the importance of market economies for ordered liberty.

The Consuming Self

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Americans increasingly identify with our consumption. When combined with political tribalism, the result is the increasing refusal to do business with members of other political or cultural groups. In the end, an identity based on consumption will only consume itself.

The American Medical Association vs. Human Nature

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The AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics is a cautionary tale of what happens when medical ethics are grounded in social policy and personal intuitions rather than timeless, universal, and immutable moral truths.

Does the Right Have a Future? Assessing the Conservative-Libertarian Debate

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Nathan Schlueter and Nikolai Wenzel’s book-length conservative-libertarian debate is a helpful tool for understanding an important conversation and provides the basis for a robust defense of liberty in the public sphere.

Do Involved Parents Subvert the American Dream?

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The happiest, freest, and most prosperous future available to Americans might not be the most egalitarian.

Capitalism and the Quest for Community

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Defenders of capitalism need a more humane anthropology, sensitive to man’s social and communal nature, lest they forget to ask the crucial question of what economics is for.

Fountainheads of Fusionism

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The relationship between Edmund Burke and Adam Smith underscores a fundamental connection between virtue and liberty.

Bellevue: The Best and the Worst of America

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Bellevue reflects the worst and the best not just of its disadvantaged patients, its physicians, and its students, but of the American democratic project.
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