The real problem in the modern world is not that there are too many babies, but too few. In the end, both economics and environmentalism depend upon people. Money and the earth are made for man, and not man for money and the earth. The fashionable mindset among celebrities, royals, and too many ordinary [...]
I often cringe a bit when I hear people say, “Let the markets decide.” I’m all for letting the markets decide a lot of things, but with the proviso that in the market I’m a decider. So when companies use their power and their marketing to shut down voices of sanity and to promote [...]
The architects of the Great War set the world on the path to self-destruction. Although the worst has not taken place, the world still treads along the same perilous course. For human beings have yet to devise a sure way of imposing rational limits on irrational acts of violence. I. The Progressives could not [...]
Economics is one of the necessary tools that call forth the creativity and cooperation in us—aspects of our being made in the image of God. The science of the economic sphere is most interesting to the imaginative conservative when its methods and truths are applied not as ends in themselves, but as means toward [...]
The Enlightenment may well be the end of an old story rather than the beginning of a new one. The philosophy of insatiable appetites changed the Christian-Aristotelian moral order into the modern world, but now that the change is just about complete, what purpose does its catalyst serve? Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites [...]
Edmund Burke allowed his fear of the French Revolution to cloud his judgment of a fitting response to the needs of agricultural workers. He was blind to the dangers of monopoly and concentration of economic power, to the possible ways of intervening that conform to the character of a market economy. “The mistakes which [...]
G.K. Chesterton’s ideas concerning government intervention in the economy have led some to believe that he may have been a socialist. They argue that the political creed of distributism, which Chesterton advocated, would involve the coercive redistribution of wealth. But are these critics right in their characterization of Chesterton’s ideas? One of the weirdest [...]
John Randolph of Roanoke, one of the great exponents of the Southern political tradition, knew that what was proper to any state government was the preservation of the received order. The duty of the citizen of the commonwealth was to resist any legislative or constitutional changes to the received order, and to grant a [...]
The rise of a post-industrial, technologically advanced society affected social and economic structures worldwide. James Burnham and Daniel Bell foresaw how drastically society would change over the following decades, as well as the consequences of these tendencies toward globalism and liberalism. We like to say that every idea, every thought, every emotion—no matter how [...]
Could democratic government solve, or even effectively address, the problems of a modern society? For decades, this question vexed Progressive reformers as they navigated the transformation of the United States from a country of small farms and rural communities to a nation of factories, corporations, and cities. Before the Civil War, Americans never doubted [...]
Instead of considering contemporary political issues, or politicians, Roger Scruton attempts to rebuild conservatism by looking seriously at its past… Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition, by Roger Scruton (176 pages, All Points Books, 2018) In his Conservatism, An Introduction to the Great Tradition (2017), long-time Anglo-American conservative champion and author Sir Roger Scruton [...]
Speaking personally, I’d rather discuss many things during this joyful season of Advent than “capitalism.” And yet Matthew Summers’ recent essay “In Defense of Capitalism” for The Imaginative Conservative has prompted me to comment on the topic, albeit briefly. […]
Though a classic in its own right, and arguably the first book on conservatism in the modern world, Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France of 1790 is inconsistent as a coherent work. And, yet, even in its unevenness, it reveals an act of genius. Burke himself points out that the greatest and truest things in [...]
I found Matthew Summers’ critique of my essay “Capitalism and the Gospel of Love” illuminating in the sense that two serious thinkers can look at the same phenomenon from completely different viewpoints. He seeks to show that capitalism is the best economic system; given capitalism, I seek to understand how to live best; he focuses [...]