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The Collapse of the Smithian Well-Ordered Society (And What to Do About It)

The great moral philosopher Adam Smith is often considered the founding father of the discipline of economics. Like many of today’s economists, his goals include both understanding how and why markets function as they do and making vivid the many potential advantages of markets over alternative ways of organizing economic life.

A Tale of Two Conservatisms

Being called a “socialist” by George Will in the Washington Post was already a professional highlight. So I was thrilled for the opportunity to talk with him about the future of conservatism. Clearly, we would have a lot to discuss.

Ambulance
The Pandemic Necessitates a New Approach to Health Care

The COVID-19 pandemic presents an existential conundrum to the structure and principle of employer-based health care and its various supporters and dependents. The loss of a job often cuts off access to health care, adding greater weight to the challenges of dealing with this public health crisis.

The Real Science Denialism

The American Revolution was in many ways inspired by the scientific one. But this says at least as much about science as it does about America—and as vaccine-related controversies renew calls to “listen to scientists,” it’s worth considering how the philosophy of science parallels the philosophy of the Founders, and what those parallels suggest about the nature of scientific authority.

“It’s My %$!#ing Money” and the Hollow Populism of Stimulus Checks

“Checks” risks becoming the rallying cry for a hollow form of populism, one that seeks to merely extract value for the masses rather than build something new and permanent.

Antitrust or Countervailing Power?

A strange development of recent years has been the revival on parts of the left and the right of the long-dormant ideology of antimonopolism, once associated with agrarian populists like William Jennings Bryan and progressives like Louis Brandeis.

Is There a Case for Principled Populism From the GOP?

“Populism” is a term that since the modern era has been generally trotted out to mean a political attitude that reflects widespread anger and resentment against powerful elites, while among stenographers for the power class, populism has been reflexively trotted out to warn against the passions and wants of the mob.

What Next: A Multi-Ethnic, Working-Class Conservatism

Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Anthony Gonzalez join American Compass executive director Oren Cass for a conversation about how to build a conservative agenda that appeals to a multi-ethnic, working-class base.

2020 Annual Report

In its first year, American Compass is already recognized as the flagship for a healthier and more responsive post-Trump conservative movement, underscoring not only the void’s size and importance but our effectiveness in filling it.

Founder’s Letter: Neoliberalism Falls Apart

In his 2020 Founder’s Letter, Oren Cass describes the timeless principles and creative energies of conservatism that are vital to America’s prospects for adaptation and renewal.

Postliberalism’s Pornography Problem

Postliberalism and pornography are independently controversial subjects—so perhaps I should have thought twice before conjoining them in a semi-snarky, slightly ambiguous tweet, which sparked a number of strong reactions:

Growth vs. Redistribution: The New Fault Line in U.S. Politics of Economic Policy

A few years ago, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF, the tech policy think tank I lead) surveyed several hundred DC policy folks to find out, among other things, what they thought ITIF’s political orientation was. About 40 percent said we were moderate, a third said we were conservative, and a quarter said we were liberal. Assuming the latter two groups weren’t clueless, it reinforced to me that on economic policy, the old conservative-liberal lines are anachronistic.

Why the Right’s Principled Populists Will Lose

In a feature on our What Happened: The Trump Presidency in Review collection, Eric Levitz notes that “American Compass represents the most intellectually honest tendency within the anti-Establishment right.”

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Pro-Union Conservatives Are Trying To Take Over the Republican Party. Oren Cass Is Leading the Way.

American Compass’s Oren Cass discusses his vision for a worker-centric conservatism, including a focus on unions and non-college pathways, in an interview with Batya Ungar-Sargon.

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The Divided Heart of the GOP

Nick Burns highlights American Compass’s Oren Cass as a “leading muse” of post-Trump conservatism.

Time to End the Race-to-the-Bottom on Unemployment Insurance

While the unemployment rate had fallen to 6.9 percent in October, the employment-population ratio was 3.7 percentage points lower than in February. 6.7 million workers were no longer looking for work and 3.6 million workers were unemployed for 27 weeks or more.

How Judy Shelton’s Call for a New Bretton Woods Duped Pro-Worker Conservatives

The 1990s called. They want Judy Shelton’s bankrupt ideology back.

A New Group Pushes the Post-Trump GOP to Reject Its ‘Lazy’ Devotion to Tax Cuts

Jon Ward brings American Compass’s Oren Cass on the podcast to discuss efforts to push the GOP in a truly conservative, post-Trump direction.

How Biden Could Steer a Divided Government

David Brooks discusses how Biden could successfully work with Republicans in Congress, highlighting the emerging issues that American Compass has focused on as potential opportunities for bipartisan effort.

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What Is the Future of the Conservative Movement After the 2020 Election?

Following the 2020, election, American Compass’s Oren Cass and AEI’s Matt Continetti discussed where the conservative movement goes next.

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