Acton Line

In this episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Bill Courtney about coaching football, running a successful lumber business, and walking the red carpet with George Clooney and P. Diddy. In 2003, Bill began coaching the Manassas Tigers, an inner-city Memphis high school football team that had never once won a playoff game. By 2008, Courtney had helped build an award-winning football program that was chronicled in the Academy Award–winning documentary “Undefeated.” Today Bill coaches a different kind of team—an Army of Normal Folks. He’s the host of a podcast and leader of a movement that celebrates everyday people doing extraordinary things and that brings together Americans of all stripes committed to bridging our country’s divides and changing local communities for the better.Subscribe to our podcastsCoach Bill Courtney

Dr. Angela Dills, a labor economist, discusses the various factors contributing to the gender wage gap, including education levels, work experience, job characteristics, and career choices. She explores differences in employment between for-profit and non-profit sectors and highlights the impact of policies such as workplace flexibility and parental leave on addressing the wage gap. The chapter also discusses proactive measures to mitigate biases, the effectiveness of negotiation strategies for women, and the positive impact of pay transparency.

Dr. Joseph Stuart, expert in European Enlightenments, joins Dr. John Pinheiro to discuss misconceptions surrounding the Enlightenment, strategies used by Christians to engage with it, the Catholic Enlightenment in Italy, and the unintended consequences of integral Catholic states. They examine the practical Enlightenment in America through Benjamin Franklin, the experiences of women in the Italian Enlightenment, the persecution of Catholics during the French Revolution, the contrasting beliefs of Voltaire and nuns, and the importance of embracing complexity and learning from history.

Dr. Bradley J. Birzer, Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and professor of history at Hillsdale College, discusses his new book, Mythic Realms: The Moral Imagination in Literature & Film with Dan Hugger. How does Mythic Realms extend the author’s prior work on Christian humanism? What is the role of the moral imagination in navigating popular culture? What do the pulps have to do with romanticism? How did the Inklings seek to promote Christian humanism through genre fiction? How can the moral imagination be employed to answer life’s biggest questions and deepen religious faith?Subscribe to our podcastsBradley Birzer | Hillsdale CollegeBradley J. Birzer’s SubstackMythic Realms, Bradley Birzer | Angelico PressBeyond Tenebrae, Bradley Birzer | Angelico PressBradley J. Birzer, Author at The Imaginative ConservativeCronyism vs. free markets in ‘Stranger Things’ | Religion & Liberty OnlineSupernatural thriller Stranger Things shows the all-too-human evil of communism | Religion & Liberty OnlineThe Western Heritage to 1600 | Hillsdale CollegeThe Rediscovery of Mystery by Russell Kirk | Imprimis (hillsdale.edu)The Science Fiction Novel — Imagination and Social Criticism | Internet ArchiveA Means to Freedom: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (Volume 1) The Dark Virtues of Robert E. Howard | Modern AgeDe Descriptione Temporum by C. S. Lewis | Internet ArchiveChristian Humanism and the Imaginative Mysteries | Religion & Liberty Online

Joseph Lemoine, deputy director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council, joins Stephen Barrows, Acton’s COO, to discuss the Atlantic Council’s recently released 2023 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. The Freedom and Prosperity Center created these indexes to provide a snapshot of the current distribution of freedom and prosperity around the world; gain a sense of the evolution of both over the past 28 years at global, regional, and national levels; and facilitate an exploration of the relationship between freedom and prosperity. Lemoine and Barrows explore the Freedom and Prosperity Center’s expansive understanding of what constitutes a free and prosperous society.Subscribe to our podcasts.Prosperity that Lasts: The 2023 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes | Atlantic Council

Better WAY Detroit engages, pays, feeds, and counsels homeless persons, and connects them to services for housing, medical and mental health care, and stable employment opportunities.Through their efforts, participants inspire community spirit, pride of ownership, and confidence in the dignity of work. While serving as participants, we also mentor them so that they can best help them find permanent employment after their service.Subscribe to our podcastsBetter Way Detroit

Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan, Associate Professor, and Chair of the Department of Sociology at The Catholic University of America discusses organizational culture, exploring the Competing Values Framework, culture drivers, virtue's role, subsidiarity's guidance, and harmony through integration in social environments.

Dr. Rachel Ferguson, lecturer at Acton University, discusses the problem of political polarization, emphasizing the importance of resisting reactionary responses and staying grounded in one's beliefs. Topics include black liberation through the marketplace, nuanced thinking in polarization, navigating battles with love and boundaries, and the power of silence and changing one's mind.

The law of conservation of mass dates from Antoine Lavoisier's 1789 discovery that mass is neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions. Evidence of the past three decades leads Marvin Olasky to suggest a parallel Law of Conservation of Welfare regarding political reactions. In 1995-1996 the first GOP-majority House of Representatives in four decades changed AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) into TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) but left alone dozens of other programs. As work requirements and time limits reduced the number of AFDC/TANF recipients, programs such as SNAP, SSI, and SSDI expanded. The conservation of welfare is not good for many recipients who would be much better off with challenging, personal, and spiritual help, but changing the law requires a charge from outside current chemical configurations. 

In this episode of Acton Line, Dylan Pahman, executive editor of the Journal of Markets and Morality, and a research fellow here at Acton, interviews Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley about her lecture at Acton University on “Corporate Welfare and Inequality.” In this conversation, this discuss why  the prices of some goods, like education and healthcare, risen at astronomical rates while others, such as video games, remain fairly unchanged in price despite monumental improvements in quality and steady inflation over the decades. Also, what happens when companies use government privilege to secure special favors that push would-be competitors out of markets? What can be done about the unjust inequalities created by corporate welfare?Subscribe to our podcastsCronyism, Corporate Welfare and Inequality | Acton University 2023