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The Futility of Coerced Benevolence
Tibor Machan’s Generosity: Virtue in Civil Society provides a fascinating and thorough treatment of the role of virtue in a society characterized by limited government, freedom of association, and economic liberty. Its thesis, according to Machan, is that “Generosity is a moral virtue that cannot flourish in a welfare state or in any sort of command economy, because to be generous is to voluntarily help others in certain ways.Does a business corporation have a responsibility to society?
- In 1946, Congress enacted changes in the tax code that permitted publicly held business corporations to deduct charitable donations in amounts up to five percent of their federal taxable
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The phenomenon of globalization
One of the great resources Christianity brings to the mission of ensuring that globalization serves the human person is its universality.
The triple bottom line: Authentic new model or tripartite nonsense?
“Social” justice, if it has any distinct meaning at all, is a disingenuous attempt to turn justice on its head by claiming legitimacy for a redistributive agenda.Hope VI: HUD's Program of false hope
Like most government programs, HUD aims to achieve its goals by doing little more than throwing money at the problem.Mediating Institutions
One of the most vital insights of modern social thought is the importance of mediating institutions–churches, schools, fraternal organizations, professional associations, and even clubs–for a free society. Not only are they effective, sometimes crucial, in providing services of all sorts, they are, as Tocqueville pointed out, a bulwark of freedom against the encroaching power of the state.Choice Brings Peace
The Supreme Court’s ruling that it does not violate the First Amendment for parents to use school vouchers to send children to religious schools has set off a firestorm of debate over the establishment clause of the Constitution. For a society that is so overwhelmingly religious, as much now as ever before in American history, we seem to have grave difficulties reaching a balanced view of the relationship between faith and public life.George Orwell: A Study in Trans-Political Truth-Speaking
No writer of the twentieth century has touched popular political sensibilities with as broad an effect as George Orwell. There is enduring interest in his two antitotalitarian novels, Animal Farm and 1984, which together set forth a sort of intellectual prophetic ground for the Cold War that Orwell only just glimpsed, dying as he did in 1950 of tuberculosis.Why Should Businessmen Read Great Literature?
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. —Sir Francis Bacon Leisure without human letters amounts to death, the entombment of a living man. —Saint William Fermat Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library. —Sir Winston ChurchillWhat's Right for Labor
Monsignor George G. Higgins, who died at the age of eighty-six on May Day 2002, dedicated his social ministry to improving the lives of workers. A priest with a doctorate in labor economics, he was uniquely qualified to speak on behalf of Roman Catholic social teaching concerning the dignity of the worker. Father Higgins was also a passionate defender of religious liberty in the American tradition and was very influential in the Second Vatican Council’s statement on behalf of human dignity and freedom.
Thomas Jefferson and the Mammoth Cheese
On New Year’s Day, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson received a gift of mythic proportions. Amid great fanfare, a mammoth cheese was delivered to the White House by the itinerant Baptist preacher John Leland. It measured more than four feet in diameter, thirteen feet in circumference, and seventeen inches in height; once cured, it weighed 1,235 pounds.The Political Is Personal
The horrors of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath have so occupied our minds for the past nine months that the serious social pathologies of our urban centers have receded from our attention. The actions of a few terrorists somehow make even mugging, robbery, drug peddling, and inadequate education seem like minor troubles. These problems are not going away, however, and they may not be ignored.