The newest issue of National Affairs, edited by my Ethics and Public Policy Center colleague Yuval Levin, is now online. It includes a batch of fascinating essays by NRO’s Jim Manzi, as well as James Q. Wilson, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Lawrence Mead, Nicole Gelinas, Charles Blahous, Bradley A. Smith, Diana Schaub, and Robert Stein. The topics include the role our social institutions play in free markets and the failure of government to prudently regulate them (which gave rise to the financial collapse in 2008); education and welfare; taxes and the family; Social Security and baseball; the myth of campaign-finance reform; and the dangers of scientific determinism when it comes to our criminal-justice system. The last essay in the magazine belongs to Eric Cohen, who writes a splendid piece on the realistic view of politics and of the human condition that informed Irving Kristol’s writings over the decades.
This age, like every age, is in need of intellectually rich and empirically grounded arguments, presented in a calm, reasonable way. National Affairs is a remarkable magazine that both looks to the philosophical foundations of our public life and that proposes concrete remedies to the challenges that confront us. But see for yourself.