Acton Line

Acton Institute
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Dedicated to the promotion of a free and virtuous society, Acton Line brings together writers, economists, religious leaders, and more to bridge the gap between good intentions and sound economics. 

  1. 4D AGO

    Peter Boettke Is Teaching the Humanistic Foundations of Austrian Economics

    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Peter J. Boettke, Distinguished University Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as the director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, about the importance of the history of economic thought and the Austrian School of economics. Why read the classics in economics? What is the place of the Austrian School in economics today? How is the humanistic and scientific nature of the Austrian School related to political ideology and commitments? What is the prehistory of the Austrian School in the theologians and jurists of early modern Europe? How do figures in the Austrian tradition relate economics to religion? Why have GMU and Mercatus been so successful in fostering research and educating the next generation of scholars in the Austrian tradition? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Why Read the Classics in Economics? | Peter J. Boettke After Samuelson, Who Needs Adam Smith? | Kenneth E. Boulding Competition and Entrepreneurship | Israel M. Kirzner Human Action: A Treatise on Economics | Ludwig von Mises Mercatus Center F. A. Hayek Program Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (First Series) Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (Second Series) The Peaceableness Project If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

    1h 3m

  2. DEC 3

    Stephanie Slade Is Chronicling the New Right

    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Stephanie Slade, senior editor at Reason magazine and a fellow in liberal studies at the Acton Institute, about the “New Right.” Who comprises the New Right, and what is their approach to politics? Has the old conservative movement failed? How does the New Right’s rhetoric relate to their larger political project? Who were the forerunners of the New Right? What are the religious currents of the New Right? Why should conservatives appeal to ideas rather than passions? Is there a moral dimension to conflicts within the American conservative movement? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Against Game of Thrones Christianity | Stephanie Slade The New Right Isn't So New | Stephanie Slade Liberalism Isn't Rule by Elites | Stephanie Slade The Devil Went Down to Wall Street | Dan Hugger National Conservatism and the Great Controversy Reborn | Dan Hugger Frank S. Meyer's Fusionism Melded Classical Liberalism with Traditional Religion | Stephanie Slade If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

    55 min

  3. DEC 1

    Acton Rundown | December 2026

    This month on the Acton Rundown Dan & Mark chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Essays: Fall 2025 Religion & Liberty American Religion by the Numbers by Miles Smith A Pope for the 21st Century   Video content: Anne Bradley Interrogates Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance Yasir Qadhi on LEAVING Salafism and Rejecting Sectarianism Peter Lipsett Is Podcasting to Answer the Question, "What Is the Right?" How to Rebel John Wilsey Is Priming Conservatives for Religious Freedom Andrew Abela Is Popularizing the Virtues with “Superhabits” Upcoming events: Artificial Intelligence, Human Dignity, and the Free Society | Acton Institute Acton University 2026 | Acton Institute

    10 min

  4. NOV 26

    Andrew Abela Is Popularizing the Virtues with “Superhabits”

    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Andrew Abela, founding dean of the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America and affiliate faculty member at Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Program, about his book Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life. How do we best popularize virtues? How does the positive psychology account of the virtues differ from St. Thomas Aquinas’s theological account? What are “superhabits,” and how do they differ from mere “habits”? How do constituent virtues relate to the four cardinal virtues? What resources has the Busch school developed to help students, faculty, and business leaders cultivate the virtues? How do you decide which virtues to cultivate?   Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life | Andrew Abela Superhabits Substack The Anatomy of Virtue | Andrew Abela Virtues, Jordan Peterson, and Thomas Aquinas | Andrew Abela Busch School Virtues Diagnostic GrowVirtue: The New Superhabits App Treatise on the Virtues | St. Thomas Aquinas The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change | Stephen R. Covey The Divine Center | Stephen R. Covey He Once Ran the Most Powerful Conservative Think Tank in D.C. Now He's a Self-Help Guru Writing Books with Oprah. | Ian Ward on Arthur Brooks If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

    40 min

  5. NOV 19

    John Wilsey Is Priming Conservatives for Religious Freedom

    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with John Wilsey, professor of church history and chair of the Department of Church History and Historical Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, about his new book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer. How have the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty existed harmoniously in the American tradition? What contrasts between French and American society did Alexis de Tocqueville observe in his own day? Has the American experiment failed? How does Peter Viereck’s conservative nostalgia for the permanent beneath the flux chart a course distinct from both progressive and reactionary utopian politics? Is religious traditionalism antithetical to dispositional conservativism? Why does the human imagination loom so large in conservative thought? What should secular dispositional conservatives make of religion? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer | John Wilsey The Man vs. the Myth: Who Was John Foster Dulles? | Acton Line Democracy in America | Alexis de Tocqueville The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856) | Alexis de Tocqueville Conservatism: From John Adams to Churchill | Peter  Viereck Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology | Peter Viereck The Leopard | Giuseppe Di Lampedusa The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education | Robert Maynard Hutchins If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

    57 min

  6. NOV 12

    Peter Lipsett Is Podcasting to Answer the Question, "What Is the Right?"

    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Peter Lipsett, vice president at DonorsTrust, about the recently concluded 11-part series “What Is the Right?” for the Giving Ventures podcast. What is “the Right”? What are its largest and most influential factions? Does it share a common intellectual culture or merely political interests? How does the bottom-up nature of populism complicate the story we tell about intellectuals’ influence on political movements? What are the prospects for conservatives after the Trump administration? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here DonorsTrust Giving Ventures Podcast Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 85 — Freedom Conservatism Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 86 — The Libertarians Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 87 — The New Right Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 88 — The Traditionalist Conservatives Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 89 — The Fusionists Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 90 — Catholics on the Right Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 91 — Jewish Conservatism Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 92 — Christian Conservatism Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 93 — The Defectors Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 94 — The MAGA Right Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 95 — Reflecting on the Right with Yuval Levin and Chris DeMuth My Simplistic Theory of Left and Right | Bryan Caplan National Economic Planning: What Is Left? | Don Lavoie If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

    59 min

  7. NOV 5

    Anne Bradley Interrogates Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance

    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Anne Bradley, vice president of academic affairs at The Fund for American Studies and professor of economics at The Institute of World Politics, about Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book Abundance, which she reviewed for Religion & Liberty Online. What is the concept of “abundance,” and who comprises the book’s audience? How do Klein and Thompson think through regulatory obstacles to material abundance? For Thompson and Klein, what drives innovation and growth? How much of the book’s rhetorical criticism of markets might be misdirection to potential critics from the left? Do Klein and Thompson really understand the economic way of thinking? Are there better programs for material abundance? How do you respond to conservatives who believe we had greater “abundance” in the past? Why are utopian visions of the future or the past dangerous? Do Klein and Thompson have a conception of civil society beyond the state? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here The Curious Task of ‘Abundance’ | Anne Bradley Abundance | Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson Eat Today, Feed Tomorrow (Yogurt Commercial) History | Thompson-Markward Hall Building the Future the Past Promised | The Daily Economy The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised | James Pethokoukis Bootleggers and Baptists in Retrospect | Bruce Yandle Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet | Marian L. Tupy, Gale L. Pooley The Devil Went Down to Wall Street | Dan Hugger Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community | Robert D. Putnam If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

    55 min

  8. NOV 3

    Acton Rundown | November 2025

    This month on the Acton Rundown, Dan & Dylan chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Essays and Books:The Kingdom of God and the Common Good: Orthodox Christian Social Thought God at Work: Loving God and Neighbor Through the Book of Exodus Super Habits: The Universal System for a Successful Life | Andrew Abela Can Nigeria’s Church Survive the Storm | Kelechi L. Nwannunu Are Americans Too Political? | Thomas Dias   Video Content: What We Gained from 8 Weeks in the Emerging Leader Program | Alums Share Their Story   Upcoming Events: Poverty, Inc. in Detroit Acton Institute Fifth Annual Academic Conference: Character, Commerce, and Human Flourishing Virtues, Not Values: Reclaiming the Human Core of Business | Acton Institute Rethinking Charity: Local Agency, Commercial Society, and the Human Person | Acton Institute Annual Calihan Lecture and Novak Award Presentation | Acton Institute Artificial Intelligence, Human Dignity, and the Free Society | Acton Institute Acton University 2026

    15 min
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4.8
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About

Dedicated to the promotion of a free and virtuous society, Acton Line brings together writers, economists, religious leaders, and more to bridge the gap between good intentions and sound economics. 

Information

  • Creator
    Acton Institute
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2025
  • Episodes
    531
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 375388 - Acton Institute 2023
  • Show Website
    Acton Line

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