elites

February 27, 2020|Daniel Markovits, Education, elites, Equality, Meritocracy

Overcoming the Evils of Meritocracy

Iron gate on the campus of Harvard University (Marcio Jose Bastos Silva/shutterstock.com)

Markovits alternates between acknowledging the opportunity for advancement for all and claiming that the system enables only “the rich” to win.

February 21, 2020|Charmides, elites, institutions, moderation, Plato, Yuval Levin

Failures in Moderation

by Titus Techera|

From left, Democratic presidential candidates businessman Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., stand on stage, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, before a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Who will mind the public business? Our elites will. After all, busybodying is their job and their job is all they ever do.

October 4, 2019|elites, Eyes Wide Shut, fidelity, Jeffrey Epstein, Stanley Kubrick

Eyes Wide Shut and the Moral Bankruptcy of the American Elite

by Titus Techera|

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise in still from Eyes Wide Shut. Image: Warner Brothers.

If we wish to understand what's happening to some of our elites, we had better turn instead to more durable sources of wisdom—poetry and film, above all.

July 18, 2019|Democracy, elites, Federal Reserve, Supreme Court

The Parallel Democratic Dilemmas of the Court and the Fed

by John O. McGinnis|

Aerial view of Washington, DC (Joseph Sohm/Shutterstock.com).

In our era of elite polarization, these institutions may themselves become the very sources of the instability that they seek to temper.

July 11, 2019|elites, Federal Reserve, Independence, Supreme Court

The “Independence” of the Court and the Fed

by John O. McGinnis|

U.S. Supreme Court (Gary Blakeley/Shutterstock.com).

Ordinary politics is unlikely to dramatically change the behavior of the Supreme Court or the Federal Reserve from year to year.

July 3, 2019|Aristocracy, elites, Federal Reserve, Supreme Court

The Court and the Fed: Our Own Aristocratic Element

by John O. McGinnis|

Federal Reserve building, Washington DC (Orhan Cam/Shutterstock.com)

Most modern capitalist societies have both independent central banks and independent constitutional courts—and have them for similar reasons.

February 15, 2019|Aristocracy, Bill Murray, corruption, Donald Trump, Egalitarianism, elites, Harold Ramis, Rodney Dangerfield

Harold Ramis, Unlikely Prophet of Trump

by Titus Techera|

Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, and Rodney Dangerfield in still from Caddyshack (1980). (Image: Orion Pictures/ PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo).

Nobody stopped to think these films were not just comedy, but also stories about a coming class conflict in America.

February 7, 2019|elites, Populism, Tucker Carlson

Escaping Our Ship of Fools

by Mark Pulliam|

Tucker Carlson with James Carville at the fourth annual Politicon in Los Angeles, California on October 21, 2018 (Image: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News).

Carlson has a serious point: How should the nation’s various maladies be addressed by our political system?

January 30, 2019|Conservatism, economic transitions, elites, Markets

Is There a Viable Conservative Alternative to Markets?

by James R. Rogers|

Image: Nagel Photography / Shutterstock.com

When conservatives blame markets for illnesses generic to all modern economies, they misdiagnose the cause and therefore prescribe faulty remedies.

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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