131 Million. This is not a population statistic, nor is it the answer to some clever math problem. It’s the number of people you reached through Acton over the past year.
Your support made possible a wide range of conferences, publications, media products, television interviews, and social media outreach that impacted leaders around the globe. For this, we are truly grateful.
As you know, Acton has been promoting liberty and virtue for 25 years now. Alumni of our programs and users of our products include heads of state, members of the U.S. House, Fortune 500 business executives, influential clergy, and professors and students from preeminent universities and seminaries. Many of these individuals have gone on to promote Acton insights in their own realms of influence and authority.
But you did. Over the years, you’ve supported us generously with your prayers, encouragement, and resources. That generosity has made us one of the most unique and respected organizations in the free-market movement.
As you read this Founders’ Report – and all of them, for that matter – we hope you will see yourself not as a passive supporter, but as an active collaborator. Over the last 25 years, your support has brought us to this place. And of that, you ought to be proud.
With gratitude,
Kris Mauren
Annual Dinner Information
131 Million. This is not a population statistic, nor is it the answer to some clever math problem. It’s the number of people you reached through Acton over the past year.
Your support made possible a wide range of conferences, publications, media products, television interviews, and social media outreach that impacted leaders around the globe. For this, we are truly grateful.
As you know, Acton has been promoting liberty and virtue for 25 years now. Alumni of our programs and users of our products include heads of state, members of the U.S. House, Fortune 500 business executives, influential clergy, and professors and students from preeminent universities and seminaries. Many of these individuals have gone on to promote Acton insights in their own realms of influence and authority.
But you did. Over the years, you’ve supported us generously with your prayers, encouragement, and resources. That generosity has made us one of the most unique and respected organizations in the free-market movement.
As you read this Founders’ Report – and all of them, for that matter – we hope you will see yourself not as a passive supporter, but as an active collaborator. Over the last 25 years, your support has brought us to this place. And of that, you ought to be proud.
With gratitude,
Kris Mauren
Poverty Cure Information
Help us move people beyond their good intentions. Help us share a vision of the material poor as full of creative capacity, dignity, and potential. Only then will we see true, human flourishing in the poorest corners of the earth.
PovertyCure, being an initiative of the Acton Institute, seeks to connect good intentions with sounds economics. So often the efforts of well-meaning people and organizations to address poverty do more harm than good. Our goal is to equip these same people and organizations with resources that promote satisfying and fruitful work, within the context of a free and virtuous society, as the best, and most sustainable, pathway out of poverty.
Your donations will help us reach additional schools, churches, nonprofits, and other organizations with this message. Through screenings of the PovertyCure Video Series, simple training sessions with organizations, and conferences with influential nonprofit leaders, we hope more and more people will move away from aid and embrace enterprise in their fight against material poverty.
Listen to Acton content on the go by downloading the Radio Free Acton podcast!
Even most critics admit the free market is the greatest wealth-generating system in history, but they say the poor benefit more from interventionist economic systems. In fact, economic liberty elevates the least well-off in more laissez-faire nations to a better position than those living in unfree economies based on such factors as average income, life expectancy, literacy, and other forms of personal liberty.
“The link between economic freedom for all citizens and the prosperity they enjoy is undeniable,” said Fred McMahon, a resident fellow at the Fraser Institute.
Specifically, the report found:
People in the most economically free nations live 16 years longer (80.7 years vs. 64.4 years) than those in the least free;
The poorest tenth of the population in free countries earns 10-times as much money as the same cohort of poor people living in unfree nations ($11,998 vs. $1,124);
“Interestingly, the average income of the poorest 10 percent in the most economically free nations is almost twice the average per capita income in the least free nations,” the report says. That is, the least fortunate citizens of free countries make more money than the average person in unfree nations;
The average person makes six times as much money in free nations as unfree ones ($42,463 vs. $6,036). Since people in the free market enjoy considerable economic mobility, the poor have a better opportunity of moving into the economic mainstream, significantly pulling ahead of their disadvantaged counterparts in stifling environments;
Citizens of free nations enjoy greater civil liberties, gender equality, and reported levels of happiness. These social advantages benefit people of every social standing; and
The literacy rate is 30 percent higher in freer countries than in more restrictive economies (93 percent in free nations vs. 65 percent or lower in unfree ones).
These benefits do not account for the benefits revealed by surveys from Freedom House and the Pew Research Center showing that economically free societies enjoy a higher level of political freedom and religious liberty than statist economies.
These six figures show that all those living in proximity to wealth enjoy its benefits. The more wealth generated by free economies, which rely more on individuals acting upon their personal moral code than government direction, the more every member of society benefits.
U.S. Congress heard about the importance of stimulating economic growth and removing barriers to innovation from Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), in May.
“Increasing the growth rates of the labor force and capital investment are extremely important, as is improving the skills of the workforce,” he told the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget. He concluded:
Over long periods of time, nothing is more important to economic growth than innovation, than letting loose the creative power of individuals. New ideas, new inventions, new technologies – new things that rose along with a new culture around work, equality, and dignity – are what created the world we live in today. They took, and are taking, billions from poverty to wealth, from illness to health, from short to long lives, from ignorance to educated. Government should have in mind the importance of sustaining a culture that allows for creativity and energy. Public policy should not stifle human potential, the growth that comes with it, and the betterment that it creates.
The following video illustrates many of the benefits of economic freedom for the poorest people:
(Photo credit: Sacca. This photo has been cropped. CC BY-SA 2.0.)
Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is an Eastern Orthodox priest and served as Executive Editor of the Acton Institute (2016-2021), editing Religion & Liberty, the Powerblog, and its transatlantic website. He has extensively researched the Alt-Right. Previously, he worked for LifeSiteNews and FrontPageMag.com, where he wrote three books including Party of Defeat (with David Horowitz, 2008). His work has appeared at DailyWire.com, National Review, The American Spectator, The Guardian, Daily Caller, National Catholic Register, Spectator USA, FEE Online, RealClear Policy, The Blaze, The Stream, American Greatness, Aleteia, Providence Magazine, Charisma, Jewish World Review, Human Events, Intellectual Takeout, CatholicVote.org, Issues & Insights, The Conservative, Rare.us, and The American Orthodox Institute. His personal websites are therightswriter.com and RevBenJohnson.com. His views are his own.
