Commerce, Business, Work

This week’s New Yorker carried an article by Andrew Marantz whose main thrust was that Facebook is not doing a good job of moderating its content. The result is that all sorts of people and groups that, in the view of many experts the reporter interviewed, should not be... Read more

In this “Age of Discouragement” (to coin a phrase) the study of economics can be depressing. It’s commonly called “The dismal science.” As the old joke has it, “Economists have predicted ten of the last five recessions.” Capitalists and communists fight each other. Some companies... Read more

Labor Day makes me mindful of our interconnectedness; we need one another in order to survive. Consider how we are each called to contribute as well as how we benefit from the labor of others: Even that simple can of corn you pull from the grocery store shelf has thousands of people... Read more

The 1920s are known as the “Roaring Twenties” because they were years of economic growth and rising prosperity. But while the U.S. was booming, other countries were grappling with stagnation and mass unemployment. The U.K. was emerging from a war in which it had lost 886,000 lives. After... Read more

AUTOMATION IS NOT A CAUSE FOR FEAR BUT AN OPPORTUNITY TO REDISCOVER WHY WE WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE. “I, FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR NEW COMPUTER OVERLORDS.” In 2011, millions watched as Ken Jennings scribbled this sentence on his answer screen, then looked up defeatedly into the luminous... Read more

At a time when labor unions are weak, Catholics still have a place in the labor movement, said a priest who emphasized the Church’s historic efforts to teach the rights of labor and train workers to organize. “On the local and state level, Catholics are a major part of the labor... Read more

Christian charity is more than simple philanthropy, Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Sunday. Speaking from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square Aug. 23, the pope said: “Christian charity is not simple philanthropy but, on the one hand, it is looking at others through the eyes... Read more

 Hong Kong police today arrested Catholic business tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying under the city’s new national security law — the first high-profile casualty of the controversial ruling that Beijing imposed in June. A leading pro-democracy activist and a strong critic of Beijing’s... Read more

Jim Stage could only watch through a phone app as surveillance cameras showed the looting and destruction of his St. Paul, Minnesota, pharmacy on May 28 during violent protests over the death of George Floyd. That night the building was burned to the ground, but, thankfully, there were no... Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic is catalyzing trends in the economy that have been incubating for some time. Three basic elements form the dynamics at the core of economic development in the twenty-first century: virtualization, automation, and incarnation. The first two of these have received the... Read more