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Pillar

Business & Economics

The fifth pillar, business and economics, is built upon concern for the common good and the ways in which the economic order contributes to—or detracts from—human flourishing. Public Discourse examines the ways in which the market is shaped by—and gives shape to—our understanding of the human person, the role of the family, the rule of law, and education and culture.

Farmers’ Protests: Solidarity, Romanticism, and Populism

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Economic Freedom and Economic Opportunity: R. R. Reno Discovers Economic Growth, Blames Capitalism

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Leaders should get the facts straight before they start theorizing.

Resisting the Fortress of Solitude: What’s Wrong with First Things’ Anxious Anti-Capitalism

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Young people today, especially the ones who are serious about religion and look to the editors of First Things for guidance, must resist the allure of an intellectual Fortress of Solitude where they can sit and feel superior to everyone. Griping about the state of society is a waste of time. Part two of two.

Notes from Reality About Economic Regulation: What’s Wrong with First Things’ Anxious Anti-Capitalism

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R.R. Reno’s manifesto on capitalism—in which he concludes, among other things, that expanding economic freedom leads to transgenderism—is based on empirically false claims. Part one of a two-part series.

Michael Novak: A Model for Social Scientists

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The “real human person” was the persistent subject of Michael Novak’s life’s work. Novak wanted real, gritty, ordinary persons, in ordinary life, and he wanted a political and economic order for those real, gritty, ordinary persons.

Capitalism, Conservatives, and the Intellectuals: A Reply to Matthew McManus

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Not only are there many forms of capitalism, but intellectuals exert great influence in determining what type of economy we embrace—for better and for worse.

Social Transformation and the Market Economy: A Reply to Samuel Gregg

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Capitalism in practice is crony capitalism. Profit-minded firms use every trick they can, including pushing for government intervention and protection, to pursue their self interest. Capitalism and liberal institutions are tremendously powerful social forces that operate both with and through the individuals who engage in economic and political activity. One of their primary features is the continuous revolution in values.

First Things and the Market Economy: A Response to R. R. Reno

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More than ever, religiously informed conservatives should underscore the importance of market economies for ordered liberty.

The Consuming Self

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Americans increasingly identify with our consumption. When combined with political tribalism, the result is the increasing refusal to do business with members of other political or cultural groups. In the end, an identity based on consumption will only consume itself.

The American Medical Association vs. Human Nature

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The AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics is a cautionary tale of what happens when medical ethics are grounded in social policy and personal intuitions rather than timeless, universal, and immutable moral truths.

Does the Right Have a Future? Assessing the Conservative-Libertarian Debate

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Nathan Schlueter and Nikolai Wenzel’s book-length conservative-libertarian debate is a helpful tool for understanding an important conversation and provides the basis for a robust defense of liberty in the public sphere.

Do Involved Parents Subvert the American Dream?

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The happiest, freest, and most prosperous future available to Americans might not be the most egalitarian.

Capitalism and the Quest for Community

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Defenders of capitalism need a more humane anthropology, sensitive to man’s social and communal nature, lest they forget to ask the crucial question of what economics is for.

Fountainheads of Fusionism

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The relationship between Edmund Burke and Adam Smith underscores a fundamental connection between virtue and liberty.

Bellevue: The Best and the Worst of America

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Bellevue reflects the worst and the best not just of its disadvantaged patients, its physicians, and its students, but of the American democratic project.

Natural Law, Social Justice, and the Crisis of Liberty in the West

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A reflection on our nature as “dependent, rational animals.”

Protectionism and a Universal Basic Income Won’t Solve Our Economic Problems

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For both economic and spiritual reasons, a basic income guarantee isn’t the solution to widespread unemployment due to new technology.

Good Money

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Lasting reform of our monetary systems require serious rethinking of the state’s role vis-à-vis money.

Legal Fictions Matter: A Reply to S. Adam Seagrave

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Capitalism enables equalities of participation that would not otherwise be possible, even as it facilitates inequalities of wealth.

The Counterfeit Money of Our Casino Economy

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There will always be economic inequalities and problems in our country and in the world. In a real economy with real money, though, at least these would be closer to real inequalities and real problems.

Shedding Light on Progressivism’s Dark Side

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A new book details the progressive movement’s reliance on eugenics and race science as well as its effort to exclude the disabled, blacks, immigrants, the poor, and women from full participation in American society.

Toward an Urban Conservativism: Learning the Right Lessons from 2016

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Facing an increasingly divided nation, the conservative movement must offer policies addressing the reality of life in urban centers.

Banking on the Margins or the Core of Human Flourishing?

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Samuel Gregg’s new book makes it clear that the fundamental purpose of finance, as of all civic practices and institutions, is the good of human beings.

Markets, Catholicism, and Libertarianism

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Supporting markets as the economic arrangements most likely to help promote human flourishing doesn’t necessarily mean you accept libertarian philosophical premises.

Adam Smith, Economic Nationalism, and the Case for Free Trade

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As economic nationalism enjoys a resurgence across the developed world, Adam Smith reminds us of how much we stand to lose—and not just economically.

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