The Editors
Articles by The Editors
Family Warfare
GREETINGS FROM THE PROGRESSIVE POLICY WORLD It’s an honor and pleasure to be in dialogue with members of the Front Porch Republic. I heard about you from Patrick Deneen, who…
The Economics of Distributism III: Equity and Equilibrium
What Does an Economy Do? If what we said in the last installment is correct, then the first task of any humane science is to determine what its purpose is.…
Commencement Address
Take heart though, for most of your triumphs, large and small, lie in front of you as well. Which is just to say that you stand at a grand beginning,…
Meritocracy, Urban Design, and Culture: Observations from a Friend
PHOENIX, ARIZONA. (Note: this post has two pages, thanks to webmaster Lundy's new-and-improved FPR technology.) I am gratified by the many responses, here and elsewhere in the sphere, that were…
What Is to be Done?
On Amtrak Regional Train 130 Daniel Larison has written a number of related postings here (and here) and elsewhere that have insistently raised and sought to answer the question: what…
Summertime Blues
Wichita, KS. I'm more than capable of putting on my localist and communitarian hat(s) during the fall, winter, and spring: I defend the public schools, speak out in favor of…
The Economics of Distributism II: Political Economy as a Science
Science, Normative and Positive Some wag somewhere has remarked that economists suffer from “physics envy.” One could certainly make that charge against W. S. Jevons (1835-1882), one of the founders…
Science and the Spirit in an Age of Hostile Presumption
Washington, CT. Winter was a hard-nosed professional this season just past. It sunk its icy teeth in long and hard and mocked us with a one day January thaw that…
Blog Flu
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS.* Recently on this virtual stoop, questions have arisen about the "tone" of discussion generally, and particularly in the comment section (I refuse the neologism "combox" as an ugly stain…
This is My Son
Devon, PA. This is my son. As you see him here, he has been alive for just about one-hundred-forty days and has, this and other ultrasound images suggest, my nose…
The Immoral Life of Children
A few weeks ago a friend's ten-year-old daughter came home from school, turned to her mother with a frown, and speaking low, so as to stay out of earshot of…
Good Job, Bruce!
A retirement dinner party for an Ivy League professor follows certain conventions. It begins with the cocktail hour where guests renew old and make new acquaintances while sipping wine and nibbling appetizers.…
Localism And Cosmopolites
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Remarking on Jeremy Beer's article on meritocracy, Patrick Deneen concludes with this grim, but correct, observation: This, in a microcosm, is a central paradox of our political system:…
James Kalb for Mayor
Devon, PA. When given the opportunity, I have made no secret of my great admiration for James Kalb's The Tyranny of Liberalism. Readers of FPR may, from time to time,…
Go Home, Young Person
Jeremy Beer has masterfully articulated the ideology of meritocracy and the destruction it wreaks upon the small towns and non-major cities of the nation. Still, a number of sympathetic readers…
The Sacrament of Death
James has penned an eloquent essay on his son this morning. I am moved again to remind us all of a central truth. And that truth is that abortion remains…
The Economics of Distributism Part 1: Does Capitalism Work?
Property in the hands of labor is freedom. Labor in the hands of property is slavery. --Dmitri Kleiner From the earliest days of Distributism, distributists have exhibited a certain disinterest…
An Unholy Alliance
At "Minding the Campus," there's an essay by ME that touches on the implicit similarities between our technocratic administrative class and our post-modern radical professoriate. For all their differences they…
The Great Recession and the Rebirth of Community
An article in last week's Washington Post explores the revival of communities as a response to the economic crisis. According to the article, As the neighbors got out of their…
Practicing the Discipline of Place
My "Place" (Photo by AMS) JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. If you think I'm reprinting yet another old essay because I'm too lazy or beset to keep up with my bettors on…
The Speech of Work and the Work of Speech
Devon, PA. Outside of certain, very particular, Christian circles, one seldom hears much about man's fallen nature anymore; and yet, as G.K. Chesterton once observed, original sin may be the…
Act Like a Man, and We’ll Arrest You
Interesting article in the Philadelphia Inquirer today about a blind man from Brussels who, not bein' from around these parts, didn't realize that American freedom meant the Freedom Not to…
Mortgaged Myth and the Monuments of a Depauperate Republic
Washington, CT. In August of 1311, the Doge of Venice.... as big shots are wont to do.... decreed that a monument to the government would henceforth be constructed and its…
Larison on Decentralism
A thoughtful examination of the future of conservative decentralism from Dan Larison (and his commentors) which relates pretty closely to several of the discussion threads from today and deserves some response from…