Acton Line

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Entrepreneurs Serving Entrepreneurs Nov 29, 2023

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Your strengths, relationships, and self-awareness are all essential in determining how your business will operate—and whether it will succeed or fail. But how can you optimize each of these elements? How can you set realistic goals? How can your business overcome a plateau and continue to grow? SpringGR aims to answer these questions by connecting entrepreneurs with the intellectual, social, and financial capital needed to thrive.

A Classical Education for Contemporary Students Nov 22, 2023

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In 2007, Thales Academy was born with a simple vision: provide an excellent and affordable education through the use of Direct Instruction and a Classical Curriculum that embodies traditional American values. In The Thales Way, Robert L. Luddy, the founder of Thales Academy and several other schools, explains the rationale for the school's educational approach and elaborates on his mission to better educate students.

In this episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Robert about the importance of a rigorous academic environment, virtuous leadership, lifelong learning, and truth seeking.

Thales Academy

The Thales Way | Robert L. Luddy

A Consensus for the People Nov 15, 2023

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You’ve probably heard the phrase “America isn’t a democracy—it’s a republic.” This is typically trotted out to make a salient point about the type of government we have in fact, but is it a distinction the Founding Fathers would have recognized and made themselves? Yes and no, says Jay Cost, the Gerald R. Ford nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the new book “Democracy or Republic: The People and the Constitution.”How is the system crafted by the Founders holding up in the 21st century? Is a government of the people still one for the people?

Democracy or Republic? The People and the Constitution | AEI Press

Jay Cost | AEI

Aquinas and the Market Nov 08, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, we present the most recent installment of the Acton Lecture Series, with Dr. Mary L. Hirschfeld. Economists investigate the workings of markets and tend to set ethical questions aside. Theologians often dismiss economics, losing insights into the influence of market incentives on individual behavior. Dr. Hirschfeld bridges this gap by showing how a humane economy can lead to the good life as outlined in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Maximum Innovation for Maximum Social Impact Nov 01, 2023

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In this episode, Acton director of programs and education Dan Churchwell speaks with Leah Kral, an expert facilitator and author who helps nonprofits doing the hard work of building civil society to innovate and be more effective. Good intentions alone don’t translate to impact, so why are nonprofits like the Mayo Clinic so successful when others fail? How can innovation, creativity, originality, and risk-taking be wedded to those good intentions?

Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Successful Nonprofits Inspire and Deliver Results | Wiley, 2022

To learn more, visit LeahKral.com.

Shining a Light on the Darkest Place in the World. Oct 25, 2023

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Learn more about Acton UniversityOn today’s episode, we present a discussion from Acton University 2023 between director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn and North Korean defector and human rights activist Yeonmi Park. At age 13, Park and her family made a daring escape from North Korea in search of a life free of tyranny. In her viral talks, viewed online nearly 250 million times, Park urges audiences to recognize—and resist—the oppression that exists in North Korea and around the world.

The History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Oct 18, 2023

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In this episode, Acton’s director of marketing and communications, Eric Kohn, talks with Jonathan Greenberg, the Jack Miller Family Foundation’s director of freedom initiatives and the former Midwest director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee about the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the significance of the October 7 massacre, especially what it will mean for Israel and the region going forward. While the Gaza-Israeli dispute has been going on since at least 2006, the broader Israeli-Palestinian battle dates back decades, the contours of which are often poorly misunderstood as some subset of geopolitics or primarily about human rights or the specifics of a two-state solution. To fully grasp what’s going on, you have to understand that the conflict didn’t start in 1973 or even 1948. In fact, in some ways, it goes back millennia.

Why do some people hate the jews? | Acton Line

Bill Courtney and a Life Undefeated Oct 11, 2023

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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.

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Coach Bill Courtney

The Gender Wage Gap with Dr. Angela Dills Oct 04, 2023

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Dr. Angela Dills is a labor economist who teaches at Western Carolina University and whose work focuses on the economics of education, crime, and health. In this episode of Acton Line, Angela and Dan Hugger discuss her research into the gender wage gap. Do women really earn only $0.83 for every $1.00 a men earn? Do the data represent a true “apples to apples” comparison? How much of the gender wage gap can be accounted for by discrimination? How do women participate in the labor market differently than men? What are promising new avenues of research that help economists understand the gender pay gap better?

Angela Dills | Western Carolina University

A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter | American Economic Review

How to Achieve Gender Equality in Pay | Milken Institute Review

Female Labor Force Intermittency and Current Earnings | SSRN

The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations | Journal of Economic Literature

Dame Stephanie Shirley: Why do ambitious women have flat heads? | YouTube

India: Maternity leave increase | CNBC

Enlightenment about the Enlightment(s) Sep 27, 2023

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In this episode, Dr. John Pinheiro speaks with Dr. Joseph Stuart about the complexity of the European Enlightenments: namely, the most common misconceptions and the mistake made by Christian and secular scholars alike who see in the Enlightenments only a simplistic conflict between faith and reason.

Professor Stuart argues that Christians interacted with the Enlightenments by using one of three strategies: conflict, engagement, or retreat. Along the way, Dr. Pinheiro and Dr. Stuart uncover interesting tales of a Catholic Enlightenment in Italy, consider the connection between an authentic human anthropology and genuine liberty, and draw lessons about the unintended consequences of integral Catholic states.

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