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A Conservative Future for the American Labor Movement

As we celebrate Labor Day, reducing unemployment and getting the COVID-impacted economy back to some semblance of normality is clearly the top economic task. But when that is done the economy will still face a critical labor market problem: too many workers earning too little. A recent Brookings study found that 44 percent of American adults workers make very little, with median annual earnings of just $18,000.

In a recent Commons post, Wells King argues against the Trump administration’s recent gutting of the Obama-era rule U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, more widely known as AFFH. He characterizes the action of largely scrapping the rule, as opposed to merely revising it, as a case of the administration bowing to “upper class NIMBYism.” I respectfully disagree.

American Compass’s Oren Cass spotlights the ideological contest between libertarian Republicans and post-Trump conservatives for the future identity of the American political right.

In a previous post, I used the term “synthetic nationalism” to describe what is increasingly the default premise of many conservative nationalists—or, in their words, of many national conservatives.

U.S. antirust doctrine and practice has long failed to consider issues of industrial competitiveness.

Since at least the inauguration, a central question of this presidency has been whether Trump could cease campaigning and learn to govern.

This morning’s commentary from the Wall Street Journal editorial board is of great scientific import, a fragile creature crushed into a perfectly preserved fossil by the forces of reality. Future researchers tracing the evolution of the American right-of-center from market fundamentalism to a viable economic conservatism will regard it as a vital transitional form—like a fish with legs but no lungs: laughably incoherent, woefully unsuited to its environment, and yet also an unmistakable sign of progress and a harbinger of better things to come.

It is all going to get worse. No matter what happens in November, the weirdness and hysteria that have made 2020 feel so extremely like itself will only escalate into 2021

American Compass’s Oren Cass talks with the Times of London about the vein of pro-worker conservatism that is emerging out of Trumpism.

The tech industry buzzword “gig” has distracted society from important questions about the gig economy that are surprisingly traditional: whether a business has employees or contractors, and how it can avoid payroll taxes and legal liability. Countless Silicon Valley business models have been built under the guise of gigs.

Like the largest political group in America, the non-voter, I completely ignored this year’s Democratic convention. Like an overwhelming majority of Americans I didn’t watch any speeches, didn’t go online Read more…

In March, I could see that our social response to the coronavirus would be more consequential than the virus itself. Natural disasters can do great damage, but they do not usually change societies. By contrast, mass mobilizations for wars in the modern era have been deeply consequential.