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...

　　I am very grateful for three serious responses to my lead essay on David Hume, which sought to make the case for understanding Hume first and foremost as a philosophical and anatomical thinker rather than an ideological or even a practical one. I can understand, however, that all the respondents seem to agree that my interpretation of Hume tilts to...

　　The Godless Constitution and the Providential Nation by Steven D. Smith is timely reading for America’s 250th birthday, especially amid increasing debates over Christian Nationalism. 　　Even as American religious practice has declined over several decades, more religious voices are paradoxically clamoring to legally establish their preferred form of religion. Integralists want a Catholic confessional state. Some Calvinists who self-identify as...

　　The Polish Jew, writer, and artist Bruno Schulz wrote that the purpose of art is “to plumb the depths of what has no name.” That certainly describes the fiction of Franz Kafka, whom Schulz translated. Kafka attempted to fathom psychosocial forces that are visible only in their effects: agglomerations and collisions of charged human particles caught in their massive gravitational...

　　Dolly Parton died August 25, the most famous woman in country music and one of the few very famous artists left us. After about 60 years of marriage (her husband Carl Dean died last year) and as long a career, Dolly is mourned across the nation, across the generations, across most cultural divides, and even political ones. She was born...

　　This is the final essay in a symposium that reconsiders neglected conservative thinkers. The essays were originally presented at the 2026 meeting of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Click the links to read about Robert Nisbet, Wilhelm Roepke, and Frank Meyer. 　　Willmoore Kendall, the precocious “boy wonder” of rural Oklahoma, was the son of a blind Methodist minister, a...