On July 5, 1852, nearly a decade before the start of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass, a freed slave and statesman-abolitionist, offered a profound speech on seeing the Fourth of July through th...
https://rlo.acton.org/archives/96286-how-frederick-douglass-found-hope-on-the-fourth-of-july.html
In defending the cause of economic freedom, it can be easy to focus only on the material fruits, whether it be new innovations and efficiencies or the ongoing expansion of opportunity and abundan...
Since 1925, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia has had a seat at the table in Czech parliaments. While momentarily sidelined by the Nazi occupation during World War II, the party managed to ce...
https://rlo.acton.org/archives/122565-czechs-vote-communists-out-of-parliament.html
The United States is facing a labor shortage of epic proportions. With over 10 million jobs currently available and almost 9 million available workers waiting on the sidelines, “the U.S. now ha...
Fears about job loss and human obsolescence continue to consume the cultural imagination, compounded by ongoing strides in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The job-killing robots are...
https://rlo.acton.org/archives/122537-rising-to-the-challenges-of-so-so-automation.html
In modern America, our view of vocation has become increasingly narrow and individualistic, focused only on economic action and our own preferred paths to self-actualization. As David Brooks expl...
https://rlo.acton.org/archives/122495-god-doesnt-need-your-good-works-but-your-neighbor-does.html
Abounding in freedom and plenty, Americans continue to grapple with competing forms of workism and careerism, struggling to find meaning and identity in an increasingly secular age. In response, ...
In April, the Sri Lankan government banned the import and use of fertilizers and agrochemicals, including insecticides and herbicides, marking a significant step in their goal to become the world...
One of the basic insights of economics is that trade is mutually beneficial, making both parties better off than they were before. It’s a proposition about human exchange that stretches back to...
https://rlo.acton.org/archives/122444-win-win-denial-the-roots-of-zero-sum-thinking.html
In 2000, columnist David Brooks wrote Bobos in Paradise, hailing the dawn of a new phase in America’s longstanding story of meritocracy. The “bobos” were a peculiar breed — part bohemian,...
https://rlo.acton.org/archives/122365-how-americas-creative-class-learned-to-love-conformity.html