Toward a Free and Virtuous Society: The Cost of Cronyism: Economic, Legal, and Moral Implications

Anne Rathbone Bradley, Ph.D. is the Vice President of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, where she develops and commissions research toward a systematic biblical theology of economic freedom. She is a professor of economics at The Institute for World Politics and Grove City College. She is a visiting professor at Georgetown University and George Mason University and has taught at Charles University, Prague. She is currently an Acton Affiliate scholar and a visiting scholar at the Bernard Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy. She is a lecturer for the Institute for Humane Studies and the Foundation for Economic Education.

 

Samuel Gregg, D.Phil. is the Research Director at the Acton Institute and a Fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He has a Doctor of Philosophy degree in moral philosophy and political economy from the University of Oxford and has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, economic history, and natural law theory. He is the author of several books, including Morality, Law, and Public Policy (2000), Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (2001), On Ordered Liberty (2003), his prize-winning The Commercial Society (2007), Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy (2010),  Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future (2013), and For God and Profit: How Finance and Banking Can Serve the Common Good (2016).

Hunter Baker, J.D., Ph.D. is the dean of arts and sciences at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He is the author of The End of Secularism, Political Thought: A Student’s Guide, and The System Has a Soul. He has also written widely for a variety of outlets which include Touchstone, Christianity Today, Modern Age, Public Discourse, the Journal of Law and Religion, Perspectives in Politics, and many others. Baker won the Acton Institute’s Michael Novak Award in 2011 and now serves as an affiliate scholar for Acton and as an associate editor of the Journal of Markets and Morality. He is also a research fellow for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and a contributing editor for Touchstone.

J. Daryl Charles, Ph.D. is the Acton Institute Affiliated Scholar in Theology & Ethics. He also is a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy and the journal Touchstone and is an affiliated scholar of the John Jay Institute. Charles is author, co-author, or editor of eighteen books, including Natural Law and Religious Freedom (Routledge, 2018), (with David D. Corey) The Just War Tradition: An Introduction (ISI Books, 2012), (with David B. Capes) Thriving in Babylon (Pickwick, 2011), Retrieving the Natural Law: A Return to Moral First Things (Eerdmans, 2008), and most recently, (with Mark David Hall) America’s Wars and the Just War Tradition: A History of U.S. Conflicts (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019) and Wisdom’s Work: Essays on Ethics, Vocation, and Cultural Engagement (Acton Institute Press, 2019). Charles has taught at Taylor University and Union University, served as director of the Bryan Institute for Critical Thought & Practice, was a 2013/14 visiting professor in the honors program at Berry College, and served as a 2007/8 William B. Simon visiting fellow in religion and public life at the James Madison Program, Princeton University, as well as the 2003/4 visiting fellow of the Institute for Faith and Learning, Baylor University. 

Stephen Barrows, Ph.D. is the Managing Director of Programs at the Acton Institute. Prior to his role at the Acton Institute, Barrows served as the Provost and Dean of Faculty of Aquinas College where he was also a tenured associate professor of economics. While at Aquinas, he taught undergraduate and graduate economics courses, launched several new academic majors, and established an engineering partnership with Western Michigan University. Barrows also served 21 years in the Air Force as an acquisition officer, an economics professor at the United States Air Force Academy and a faculty mentor at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan. He retired from the Air Force in 2013, holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He has a bachelor's degree in economics from the Air Force Academy, a master's degree in economics from Pennsylvania State University, and a doctorate in economics from Auburn University.