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Although neoliberal globalists are often said to be opposed to industrial policy and strategic trade, that is not necessarily true.  Neoliberals of the kind who have dominated U.S. policy under the two Bushes, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are not orthodox anti-government libertarians.  They support a particular kind of industrial policy, whose emblem is not the American eagle but the Japanese goose.

I want to offer an addendum to Aaron Sibarium’s recent post “Three Theses About Cuties.” The idea of “sexual liberalism”—that a market-like logic has come to govern sex—is vastly underexplored in conservative circles. It would be valuable to view the concept in light of the insight that the logic governing markets has undergone major changes over the last several generations, as today’s “economic nationalists” are well aware.

Earlier this month my husband David and I wrote about Alex, a worker at an Ohio-based unionized factory, and the way the union saved his job after conflict with a supervisor.

In the unlikely event Trump ekes out a victory in November, it will be because the electoral college let him win without the popular vote, and the democratic imprimatur it Read more…

Donald Trump’s presence in 2016 was heralded as a fundamental shock to the system, as a new way for the Republican Party, as a final nail in the coffin of zombie Reagan-era public policy pushed by the billionaire and think tank class in Washington. 

In a recent post, Chris Arnade compared the American education system to strip mining, an analogy that Patrick Deneen uses in his book Why Liberalism Failed. A similar analogy comes Read more…

Campaign books are not written for the ages. But they can be telltales. A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good is a good example. It indicates a shift away from freedom as the leading motif on the American right and toward solidarity.

It’s an approach that echoes themes of the recent American Compass statement: a well-functioning system of organized labor should both “render[] much bureaucratic oversight superfluous” and reinforce the benefits of tight labor markets “through economic agency and self-reliance, rather than retreat to dependence on redistribution.”

Now that the Supreme Court is in the news, with President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it is worth reflecting on what kind of constitutional system is best for a national industrial strategy of the kind favored by a growing number of Americans on the left, right and center, in the aftermath of the catastrophic failure of a half century of neoliberal deregulation and globalization.

During his growing up years, Mark, an underemployed contract laborer in his 30s, often heard his mother describe their town as “the devil’s thumbprint.” The name alluded to both its literal location in a valley and its social stigma as the watering hole of riffraff. “You gotta go up the hill and get out,” Mark said of the place and his aspirations.

I never thought I would find myself in wholehearted agreement with Paul Krugman.

The Republican Study Committee’s American Worker Task Force has just released a new report, “Reclaiming the American Dream: Proposals to Empower the Workers of Today and Tomorrow”.  As such it Read more…

American Compass’s Wells King connects dysfunctional labor laws, declining union-participation, and partisan interests to the rise of economic inequality.

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg less than 50 days before the 2020 election has dramatically increased the stakes of the election, and is exactly the type of September surprise that could scramble Americans’ voting patterns this late in the game. 

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg’s death roiled an already unsettled the political scene. A pitched battle is underway over who will succeed her and when. David French urges Republicans to stand Read more…

American workers are the backbone of this country. In the wake of the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to remove barriers burdening the American worker. On Capitol Hill, the Republican Study Committee’s American Worker Task Force has proposed bold new solutions that would empower our nation’s workers to face today’s challenges as well as tomorrow’s.

The New Right, in contradistinction to the liberalized Hayekian governing mentality that American Compass’s Oren Cass has called “Let the Market Rip,” is unafraid to wield the levers of political power in the service of good political order.

A social capital approach to school reform focused on developing habits of mind and habits of association in young people is a basis for conservatives to lead on K-12 reform. It also offers conservatives a way to create new political coalitions with diverse advocates who believe expanding opportunity for young people includes developing their social capital.

Cardus’s Brian Dijkema advocates for a new conservative home for organized labor in this adaptation from American Compass’s “A Seat at the Table” series.