• About
  • Contact
  • Staff

Law & Liberty

A Project of Liberty Fund

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Liberty Law Forum
  • Podcasts
  • Book Reviews

Samuel Gregg Subscribe

Samuel Gregg is research director at the Acton Institute.

April 23, 2018|Alexander Hamilton on Finance Credit and Debt, David J. Cowen, Louisiana Purchase, Richard Sylla, Thomas Jefferson

Founding Financial Father

by Samuel Gregg|2 Comments

These are the Hamilton texts to read to master the foundations of America’s economic success story.

February 8, 2018|Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, communism, Vatican

Unreality and Incoherence Reign at the Vatican

by Samuel Gregg|33 Comments

St. Peter's Square, Vatican City. (Ultramansk/Shutterstock.com)
A disconnectedness from reality seems to have become the norm in parts of the Holy See—or at least a tendency to view the world through a leftist lens.

January 25, 2018|Charles de Gaulle, Free Markets, Jacques Rueff, John Maynard Keynes, monetary policy

Jacques Rueff: Statesman of Finance and “l’anti-Keynes”

by Samuel Gregg|4 Comments

French economist and adviser to the French Government Jacques Rueff at his home in Berville, 1965. (Photo by Henri Bureau/ Getty Images)
Rueff considered Keynes’s ideas to be counterproductive because they gave governments excuses to avoid responsibility

September 6, 2017|Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, Ludwig Erhard, National Socialism, Otto von Bismarck, Wilhelm Ropke

Dear Anti-Market Conservatives: Meet Wilhelm Röpke

by Samuel Gregg|26 Comments

Though conservatives are often portrayed as strong supporters of the free market, not all of them are. Now and in the past, many individuals have happily embraced the conservative label while expressing strong reservations about, if not outright rejection of, market economies.

Even so I’ve noticed, as someone who identifies very much as a conservative, that skepticism of markets among conservatives has swelled in recent years. The financial crisis of late 2007 to 2009 and the subsequent recession have hardened an attitude—including among conservatives—that free markets are essentially unfair, facilitate unhealthy cultural trends, and leave many people on life’s economic margins.

Read More

June 13, 2017|Alexis de Tocqueville, Charles de Gaulle, European Commission, European Union, laicite, Nation-State, Pierre Manent

Walking in the Shadow of Globalism

by Samuel Gregg|1 Comment

Palais Bourbon (seat of the National Assembly) in Paris at dusk.

In the wake of the rubble and death left strewn across Europe from the Atlantic to the Volga after two brutal wars in the space of 30 years, it was understandable that many Europeans wanted to severely tame the nation-state in 1945. What a stark domestication could portend, though, was hardly thought about. That supranational governmental organizations could ever threaten liberty, or become distinctly hostile toward national forms of political community per se, would have struck many people as far-fetched in the late 1940s. Political leaders at that time spoke in terms of a community of nations—not an international community. Today,…

Read More

In response to: Pierre Manent’s Defense of the Nation-State

More Responses

Within the Triangle of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

by Aurelian Craiutu

One could hardly agree more with Paul Seaton when he writes, in the June Liberty Forum essay, that the elegant voice of Pierre Manent is one that we should listen to carefully these days, as our liberal democracies are on the defensive on both sides of the Atlantic, threatened by the rise of populism and…

Read More

Manent, Vox Clamantis in Deserto

by Guillaume de Thieulloy

It has been a great pleasure for me to read Paul Seaton’s stimulating Liberty Forum essay dedicated to the political thought of Pierre Manent. With chagrin, I can report to Law and Liberty’s readers that Manent is better known and more read by American scholars than by French ones. Let this response to Seaton be an…

Read More

Pierre Manent: Lux Gallica ex Tenebris

by Paul Seaton

Perhaps the nascent Manent fan club can meet in Paris at the Café de Flore later this summer? There we could raise un verre or two to Manent, expound on our views, and hash out whatever differences we might have. Who knows, perhaps the man himself could join us? Pending that reunion, a brief response…

Read More

On the “Religion of Humanity”

by Aurelian Craiutu

In my response to Paul Seaton’s Liberty Forum essay, I mentioned once the phrase “religion of humanity” that can be found in Manent’s works. As Professor Seaton points out, this is an important concept that the French philosopher uses to explain the current trend toward homogeneity in the world. Seaton claims that the term was…

Read More

June 5, 2017|Alexis de Tocqueville, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848 and Its Aftermath

Tocqueville Unplugged

by Samuel Gregg|1 Comment

Though intellectuals write endlessly about politics, relatively few enter the fray directly. One exception to this rule was the author of Democracy in America (1835, 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). These texts effectively serve as bookends to Alexis de Tocqueville’s active, albeit unsuccessful, career during the turbulent years of France’s July monarchy, the short-lived Second Republic, and finally the Second Empire established by that most enigmatic of political adventurers, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. Tocqueville served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies for much of King Louis-Philippe’s 18-year reign, a member of the Constituent Assembly charged with drafting…

Read More

June 1, 2017|European Union, free trade, Global Supply Chain, Globalization, Immigration

Is Globalization in Retreat? A Conversation with Samuel Gregg

by Samuel Gregg|1 Comment

World leaders, influential executives, bankers and policy makers attend the 47th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Samuel Gregg, Director of Research at the Acton Institute, returns to Liberty Law Talk to discuss the prospects for globalization in the wake of populist uprisings in many western democracies.

March 20, 2017|Josef Pieper, Leisure as the Basis of Culture, Paul Samuelson, Plato, Pope Benedict XVI, Tradition as Challenge

How Tradition Renews Civilization and Challenges Conservatives

by Samuel Gregg|2 Comments

In our post-Enlightenment world, the word “tradition” often carries negative connotations. When coupled with adjectives like “regressive” and portrayed as that which impedes whatever has acquired the label of progress, the idea of tradition conveys a sense of being antithetical to humans’ wellbeing. Hence we encounter phrases like, “She’s rigid and traditional.” A rather different and more creative understanding of tradition is found in the writings of the German philosopher Josef Pieper (1904-1997). Perhaps most famous for his book Leisure as the Basis of Culture (1948), Pieper spent his life engaged not only in lecturing at the University of Münster, but…

Read More

September 26, 2016|Ad Fontes, Carlos M.N. Eire, Henry VIII, Martin Luther, Reformations

Reform, Reformations, and the West

by Samuel Gregg|3 Comments

The year 1517 is considered one of those historical watersheds—like 1789, 1914, or 1968—at which Western societies took a radical turn away from hitherto prevailing political, economic, cultural, or religious settings. Such shifts, however, never come from nowhere. History’s time-bombs are invariably years in the making. The Reformation certainly didn’t simply spring from the mind of Martin Luther. But as a historical development, it has been the subject of polemics for 500 years: not just between Catholics and Protestants, but also, over the past century, between historians and sociologists with disparate views on how the modern world emerged. Any serious study…

Read More

May 31, 2016|Alexander Hamilton, Carson Holloway, Limited Government, Thomas Jefferson, Washington Administration

The Hamilton-Jefferson Clash: Stark but Intricate

by Samuel Gregg|2 Comments

One of the late Forrest McDonald’s many contributions to our understanding of the American Founding was that he illustrated, often humorously, the human side of some extraordinary men. Though often taking classic Roman republicans as role models, the Founders were, like the rest of us, given to occasional pettiness. They lost their tempers. They often resorted to underhanded methods to get their way. Nor were they above scheming against each other. Yet McDonald’s books also showed that the generation that fought for independence and then established the United States were also an unusually talented and well-educated group. Even when not…

Read More

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Book Reviews

The Ford Restoration

by Kirk Emmert

Occupying the White House in unfavorable circumstances can make a President fall back on his best friend: the U.S. Constitution.

Read More

John C. Calhoun, Madisonian Manqué

by Thomas W. Merrill

His institutional innovations were geared toward preserving slavery.

Read More

Podcasts

The Solid Ground of Mere Civility: A Conversation with Teresa Bejan

A discussion with Teresa M. Bejan

Teresa Bejan discusses with us how early modern debates over religious toleration are an example of how we can disagree well.

Read More

Leading a Worthy Life in a Scattered Time: A Conversation with Leon Kass

A discussion with Leon Kass

Leon Kass discusses Leading a Worthy Life.

Read More

Eric Voegelin Studies: A Conversation with Charles Embry

A discussion with Charles Embry

What did "Don't immanentize the eschaton!" really mean? An intro podcast on the formidable mind of Eric Voegelin.

Read More

Republican Virtue, Interrupted: A Conversation with Frank Buckley

A discussion with F.H. Buckley

The real conflict in our politics centers on reforming massive levels of public corruption.

Read More

Recent Posts

  • Academic Freedom Won’t Survive Carnival Act Universities

    Public institutions of supposedly liberal learning, which are increasingly alienating mainstream Americans, have no entitlement to public support.
    by Greg Weiner

  • Constitutional Amendment as a Path to Avoiding Robed Masters

    Tocqueville gives us good reasons to think that constitutional amendment is the best path to avoiding judicial supremacy.
    by James R. Rogers

  • Rethinking U.S. Nuclear Strategy

    Defending the entire free world requires a robust nuclear posture.
    by Matthew Kroenig

  • Pope Francis’s Mess

    Pope Francis has succeeded in making a mess for his Church.
    by Paul Seaton

  • Trump’s Travel Ban and the Constitution

    If the Supreme Court were to accept the plaintiffs' logic in Trump v. Hawaii, the judicial branch will gain new powers over defense policy.
    by Thomas Ascik

Blogroll

  • Acton PowerBlog
  • Cafe Hayek
  • Cato@Liberty
  • Claremont
  • Congress Shall Make No Law
  • EconLog
  • Fed Soc Blog
  • First Things
  • Hoover
  • ISI First Principles Journal
  • Legal Theory Blog
  • Marginal Revolution
  • Pacific Legal Liberty Blog
  • Point of Law
  • Power Line
  • Professor Bainbridge
  • Ricochet
  • Right Reason
  • Spengler
  • The American
  • The Beacon Blog
  • The Foundry
  • The Originalism Blog
  • The Public Discourse
  • University Bookman
  • Via Meadia
  • Volokh

Archives

  • All Posts & Publications
  • Book Reviews
  • Liberty Forum
  • Liberty Law Blog
  • Liberty Law Talk

About

Law and Liberty’s focus is on the content, status, and development of law in the context of republican and limited government and the ways that liberty and law and law and liberty mutually reinforce the other. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law and Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

  • Home
  • About
  • Staff
  • Contact
  • Archive

Apple App Store
Google Play Store

© 2018 Liberty Fund, Inc.

Subscribe
Get Law and Liberty's latest content delivered to you daily
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
No thanks