In 2012, I visited Hong Kong and Macau. Among the many examples of industrial might, such as shipyards and grandiose buildings like the Hong Kong airport, two of the things that impressed me the most were a real estate complex in Macau and the bridge, then under construction, between Macau and Hong Kong. I remember wondering how it was possible...

　　The First Amendment is 45 words long, and for most of American history nobody was entirely sure what they meant. The Supreme Court did not squarely apply the Free Speech Clause against the states until 1925. The modern architecture of American speech protection—the doctrines governing incitement, defamation, prior restraint, public forums—was substantially built between 1964 and 1974. Measured against the...

　　For more than fifty years, Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. has challenged progressive orthodoxy within and outside of the academy. A political theorist of the first rank, he is also a seasoned practitioner of traditional political science. The latter is an approach inspired by Aristotle’s Politics that takes its bearings from the perspective of citizens and statesmen, and never simply leaves...

　　It feels strange to write publicly in defense of not being public. I’m convinced that life’s most important activities almost always take place in spheres that are more or less private, where cameras are absent and nobody is reporting. Until quite recently, churches, classrooms, and family homes were just such sanctuaries from the world. We didn’t worry about image or...

　　There is a new Reagan movie out in theaters. This is very unexpected news, partly because we dont get many historical movies, especially not movies aimed at adults, and, above all, not movies about figures liberals hate. Liberals hated Reagan. More than they hated Bush or Trump? Hard to say. But one consequence was that the once upon a time...

　　In contemporary political economy, it is sometimes helpful to draw a distinction between a Proper State and an Improper State. The distinction tracks the relationship of the state’s public sector apparatuses to the productivity and fiscal consent of its citizenry. When a state is properly accountable to its citizens, it uses taxpayer revenue to support functions that the people broadly...

　　This the third and final essay in a symposium on the common good. You can read the first essay by John G. Grove here and the second essay by Rachel Lus essay here. 　　It is curious how “the common good,” when it bubbles into public discourse, always seems to be at the center of bitter controversy. One would expect that...

　　This is the second essay in a symposium on the common good. You can read the first essay by John Grove here. The final essay by Michael Pakaluk will be published tomorrow. 　　Alasdair MacIntyre was a political animal, or so one naturally assumes. He was at any rate an Aristotelian, and since Aristotle declared man to be the zoon politikon...

　　In an article in the Daily Telegraph, the chancellor of Cambridge University, Chris Smith (how members of the elite de nos jours love to disguise their elite status from the revolutionary, or at any rate deeply disgruntled, masses by employing the diminutives of their own names, just as if they were only the barfly next door!) started his reflections on...

　　This is the first essay in a symposium on the common good. Essays by Rachel Lu and Michael Pakaluk will be published this week on Wednesday and Thursday. 　　Another round of “common good” discourse has swept across the conservative landscape. When this phrase first started to become the center of attention in conservative circles several years ago, the conversation was...

　　A common narrative posits that the conservative movements marriage of traditionalists and libertarians was a tactical maneuver in the face of big government at home and communism abroad. In her new book, Fusionism, Stephanie Slade argues that this alliance narrative misses the mark; fusionism is a coherent philosophy that understands that liberty and virtue are mutually reliant goods. She joins...

　　In the last thirty years or so, the United States has seen persistent shortages of housing, waste disposal facilities, electricity generation, and oil refineries. More recently, we have begun to see the difficulties in building data centers, portending new shortages. This is confusing in a wealthy nation. A “shortage” occurs when there is too little of a good or service...