The New Conservative Flagship

ANNUAL REPORT

2020A About American Compass Table of Contents Our Mission To restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity: 1 Founder’s Letter 4

REORIENTING POLITICAL FOCUS from growth for its own sake to widely shared economic development that sustains vital social institutions.

SETTING A COURSE for a country in which families can achieve self- sufficiency, contribute productively to their communities, and prepare the next 2 Year in Review 10 generation for the same. Conservative Flagship 12 HELPING POLICYMAKERS NAVIGATE the limitations that markets and government each face in promoting the general welfare and the nation’s security. Changing the Debate 14 Our Activities Creating Community 16 AFFILIATION. Providing opportunities for people who share its mission to The Commons 18 build relationships, collaborate, and communicate their views to the broader political community. Our Growing Influence 20 DELIBERATION. Supporting research and discussion that advances understanding of economic and social conditions and tradeoffs through study of history, analysis of data, elaboration of theory, and development of policy 3 Our Work 21 proposals.

ENGAGEMENT. Initiating and facilitating public debate to challenge existing Rebooting the American System 22 orthodoxy, confront the best arguments of its defenders, and force scrutiny of unexamined assumptions and unconsidered consequences. Coin-Flip Capitalism 26 Our Principles Moving the Chains 30 AMERICAN COMPASS strives to embody the principles and practices of a healthy democratic polity, combining intellectual combat with personal civility. Corporate Actual Responsibility 34

We welcome converts to our vision and value disagreement amongst A Seat at the Table 38 our members. Party Foul 42 We work toward a version of American politics that remains inevitably partisan and contentious but operates from a common commitment to reinforcing the foundations of a healthy society.

AmericanAmerican Compass Compass is 2020a 501(c)(3) Annual nonprofit Report organization. B 1 OUR FIRST YEAR

American Compass announces Our summer collection on Corporate Actual Responsibility its formation and publishes an features a multipart debate between University of Notre initial statement of principles, In anticipation of our launch, the Dame professor Patrick Deneen and former fast-food CEO “The Return of Conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page Andy Puzder, a live event with Senator Josh Hawley, and an Economics,” in National Review. produces a two-minute attack ad open letter to the Business Roundtable cosigned by the left- against us, and Senator Pat Toomey July– leaning American Economic Liberties Project and the right- delivers a speech at the Heritage Aug. leaning American Principles Project. Foundation warning of the threat we pose to the right-of-center’s status quo. We start a national conversation about a conservative Feb. future for America’s labor movement, beginning with a We launch formally with our statement signed by prominent conservatives such as March Rebooting the American System Senator Marco Rubio, former Attorney General Jeff collection, featuring forewords Sessions, author J. D. Vance, and AEI’s Yuval Levin. from Senators Marco Rubio and Sept. A Seat at the Table, our wide-ranging exploration of “American Compass Tom Cotton. The launch receives the history and future of organized labor, generates is an organization widespread praise from policymakers extensive coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street doing unparalleled May and commentators, including Journal, Fox News, USA Today, New York Magazine, and work in shaking comparison to Martin Luther nailing Public Discourse, among many others. up the policy 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg’s church. We also release our Coin-Flip conversation in Capitalism project, drawing attention Washington, D.C. from , the Bloomberg Wall Street In the lead-up to the 2020 election, our Party Foul No other upstart Journal, and Newsweek. collection allows longtime political analysts Ruy organization— Oct. Teixeira and Henry Olsen to scrutinize the ways their own sides of the political divide fail American in such a short Our first policy symposium, the voters. The collection also features a discussion period of time, Moving the Chains collection on with authors J. D. Vance and Chris Arnade on the with limited staff, reshoring supply chains, receives American Compass podcast and an op-ed by and in the middle substantial interest on Capitol Hill, Oren Cass in the Financial Times. of a pandemic, no within the administration, and in the less—has been able media. The Washington Post highlights June it in its feature on Republicans to so dramatically “starting to call for more government challenge orthodox involvement in the economy … to help American Compass membership passes 70 members power structures in the United States compete against” across a wide variety of industries, all committed to advancing our shared mission. The closely contested recent memory.” China, and Harvard Business School professor Willy Shih builds on his presidential election highlights the emergence of a multiethnic, working-class coalition and drives a SAAGAR ENJETI contribution to it in testimony before Nov. the House Budget Committee. surge of interest in our work, which makes prominent THE HILL’S RISING, WITH appearances before and after the election in the KRYSTAL & SAAGAR New York Times, The New Yorker, USA Today, the Financial Times, CNN, and Yahoo News, and reaches hundreds of thousands of people on social media.

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 2 3 AMERICAN COMPASS extreme, Friedrich Hayek lauded the “self-regulating forces of the market,” which he promised would “somehow bring about the required adjustments to new conditions, although no one can foretell how they Founder’s Letter will do this.” The joke about the economist who will not bend down to pocket a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk because, if there were such a bill, someone would already have grabbed it, is gentle in its mocking This year marked the centennial of W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming” but quite serious in its indictment. and the line “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” I am no poetry buff. There are probably only two or three poems, all by Robert In fact, there is no magic, only people. Bills do fall to the sidewalk, where Frost, from which I could recite a single stanza. But that snippet they lie until someone does the bending and pocketing. New ideas do from Yeats pops frequently into my mind because it describes so not burst forth from the ether; someone must think them, act on them, well the most interesting developments in our world. Things—all and persuade others of their value. The process of institutional reform things—do eventually fall apart. Conditions change; knowledge is painstakingly slow and complex, demanding both the assent and expands; behaviors, beliefs, and relationships evolve; and a effort of countless individuals, each with his own interests and priori- center squarely established at one moment in time cannot ties. All the while, inertia pushes the other way, with adherence to the hold in another. The trajectories of individual lives, large status quo almost always the most appealing choice. A body at rest institutions, and entire nations and civilizations are defined by will stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force. what follows. The timeless principles and creative energies of conservatism are vital America’s center is not holding. The issue is not any particular election to America’s prospects for adaptation and renewal, but the nation’s result, or the happenstance of a global pandemic, but the expira- conservative institutions have thus far proved incapable of rising to that tion of the neoliberal political consensus and policy agenda that has challenge. Instead, they seem beholden to ideas generated in a previous characterized recent decades, with its globalization, deregulation, era of renewal, which have since hardened into a market fundamentalism and financialization of the economy; atomization of the society; and ill-suited to the problems of today. This is a recipe for failure—for things reliance on redistribution to those left behind. The challenge manifests falling apart irreparably. in symptoms ranging from the concentration of wealth in fewer hands and of growth in narrow geographies, rising “deaths of despair” and A body at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force. political dysfunction, declines in family and community well-being, and American Compass aims to provide that force. a stalling out of the investment and innovation that generate productiv- ity growth and rising wages. All have contributed to what the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt has termed “Our Miserable * * * 21st Century.” We should be encouraged by the emergence of similar trends, challeng- For Yeats, what follows is “mere anarchy … loosed upon the world.” We es, and rethinking across many Western democracies. America has not can do better. The ability to avoid that fate is among the great virtues made some catastrophic, irreversible blunder. American conservatives of our capitalist economy and republican system of government. The are not uniquely obtuse. Rather, we have entered a period of transi- leaders of our institutions, by design, have incentives to detect and tion, where once-useful policies and coalitions have become ineffec- respond to change, and those institutions have the capacity to adapt. tive and new ones must supplant them, as has happened before and We ensure that prospective competitors can enter our markets, our will happen again. I see three major causes in this instance: civil society, and our politics, so that entrenched incumbents face constant pressure—and when some do snap rather than bend, replace- 1. A Changing World. Few observations are more trite than “the ments stand ready to fill the void. world changes.” Yet analysts cling to outdated economic claims with dogmatic tenacity, as if each insight represents an eternal and univer- In the popular imagination, this process happens automatically, as if by sal truth. Perhaps this is because economists, playacting at “science,” magic. Adam Smith’s unfortunate metaphor of an “invisible hand” leads pretend that their models offer just that. Those models rely on countless many to anthropomorphize markets and firms, which “discover” and unstated assumptions about the world as it happens to be, and they “allocate” and “adjust” of their own accord. Taking this myth to its cease working when it becomes something else. Hayek famously

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 4 5 chose to claim, as his example of “the self-regulating forces of the issues determined undeserving of concern do not receive attention at market,” that the “necessary balance … between exports and imports, the first sign of trouble; they remain ignored until they no longer can be. or the like, will be brought about without deliberate control.” So much This was evident, for instance, as risk built in the deregulated financial for that. system leading up to the 2008 meltdown.

I have been accused, in highlighting the failure of standard economic Thus, no set of policy priorities represents the final word. Any will experi- Founder’s Letter Founder’s texts to address the dynamics of today’s global economy, of “playing ence diminishing returns that eventually turn negative and continue to the China card.” But China’s rise is not some clever debater’s tactic. It is worsen until the case for changing direction becomes undeniable. This is the most consequential geopolitical and economic development of the no argument against public policy—initial implementation can be quite past forty years. Economic models and policy recommendations are of positive, and iterative reforms can deliver real progress over time. But little use if they cannot envision or account for a near-peer economy even the best thinking contains within it the seeds of its own undoing, of 1.4 billion people dominated by the state-controlled enterprises of a with inevitable excesses driving a necessary cycle of failure and reform. communist, authoritarian regime. The West, now almost a century into a postwar period filled with Another such change is the unmooring of ownership and management extraordinary achievements, can double down on the solutions from the communities in which firms operate. InThe Theory of Moral of forty or sixty years ago only so many times before going bust. Sentiments, Smith emphasized that the centrality of social constraint and Defusing the hypernationalist tensions of the earliest 20th century expectation to man’s incentives and decisions—his “desire of being what was wise; proceeding to eviscerate solidarity within the nation-state ought to be approved of; or of being what he himself approves of in other is not. Requiring pollution controls and considering the environmen- men”—was “necessary in order to render him anxious to be really fit” tal impacts of new projects was wise; tightening the ratchet until for society. But what work do such constraints do if a firm’s owner is a industrial investments face prohibitive risk and cost is not. Expanding set of institutional investors, or a consortium of private-equity funds on the pipeline of talented students attending college was wise; convert- another continent deploying capital held in trust by some government ing high schools into college-prep academies is not. for workers’ pensions? In his seminal case for the now-prevalent doctrine of shareholder primacy, Milton Friedman replaced Smith’s 3. An Imperfect Rulebook. One reason that our economic system can nuanced view with an unsupported assumption that the “desires [of offer the promise of adaptation rather than sclerosis is the flexibility owners] generally will be to make as much money as possible.” If the it affords participants. An analogy to sports is instructive. The goal of character and constraints of capital ownership change, we should not a professional sports league is to entertain paying customers, but the be surprised that outcomes do, too. league does not accomplish this by directing how each player moves about the field to create maximum drama. Instead, it establishes The list goes on. Changes in cultural norms and expectations—the “what rules and trusts that players competing under those rules will yield ought to be approved of,” in Smith’s formulation—should implicate the an entertaining product. That their actions are not predictable is need to rethink economic assumptions. Instead, conservatives use fundamental. Likewise, the rules that we establish for our economic “that’s a cultural problem” as an excuse to do nothing. Growth, invest- actors are designed to facilitate competition that will redound to ment, and what passes for innovation have concentrated in a technol- the benefit of all. And because those actors are free agents within ogy sector that defaults toward natural monopoly. Trillion-dollar tax the system of rules, rather than performers following a script, they cuts seem not to spur capital spending, and trillion-dollar deficits seem have both incentives and capacity to respond creatively to changing not to raise interest rates. Conservative principles can guide solutions conditions. in the face of these shifts; playbooks published in the 1980s cannot. But no framework of rules is perfect. Each one, designed on the basis 2. A Swinging Pendulum. In technocratic fantasies, careful regulators of prior experience, accounts for players’ recent tendencies and so fine-tune their policies, asymptotically approaching the ideal formula for anticipates fairly well how they will respond at first. A consequence delivering the best outcomes. In practice, politicians and their advisors land of their freedom, though, is that they will evolve their own strategies on ideas that seem to work and then push them ever further until proven in ways that the rulemakers could not have anticipated—especially wrong. A reduction in too-high marginal tax rates rarely sates the appetite for as the world changes around them. Over time, as players specialize, tax cuts. Few go partway on liberalizing the cross-border flows of goods, optimize their abilities, and employ sophisticated tools of analysis and people, and capital and conclude that the time has come to stop. Likewise, execution to identify and exploit ever more obscure opportunities for

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 6 7 efficiency, their most successful strategies will tend to diverge from those that produce desirable results for the nation.

One such effect is our economy’s financialization, which has directed an increasing share of talent, investment, and profits toward firms that excel in speculative transactions rather than productive contributions. Founder’s Letter Founder’s Another is the labor market’s trend toward fissured workplaces and independent contractors, with firms maximizing their flexibility and profit margins by minimizing their attachments and obligations to workers. “The rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society,” observed Smith in The Wealth of Nations. “On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.”

As with the world’s change and the pendulum’s swing, the rulebook’s imperfection and thus the emergence of undesirable strategies is inevitable and certainly no reason not to organize the game in the first place. Policymakers must understand that rules are necessary, learn from observation, and embrace the process of revision. A fundamentalist confidence that some ideal set of rules exists, that it has already been found, or that fewer rules is always better has left conservatives incapable of correcting course.

* * *

American Compass’s mission is to restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity. That traditional consensus, derived from conservative principles and adopted by the Founding generation, shaped the “American System” that helped to transform the United States from a conflict-ridden colonial backwater into a Yeats concluded his stanza with, “The best lack all conviction, while continent-spanning industrial colossus and to create the world’s the worst / Are full of passionate intensity,” which, for our purposes, largest and most prosperous middle class. is perhaps a bit overdramatic but does capture a dynamic familiar in our politics—one that, left unchecked, will only worsen. The antidote But as John Burtka, president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, is robust debate between good people with firm convictions. We will observed recently, many conservatives have mistaken policies for do our best to ensure that this occurs, and we are grateful for your principles. The principles that guided Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, support in the endeavor. and Abraham Lincoln in their development of the American System, as well as the ones that guided the Reagan Revolution, are just as Sincerely, vital today. But they must be applied anew, not lost in the din of tired clichés and outdated proposals recycled from some bygone world. It is not conservative to propose a capital-gains tax cut in the face of a pandemic, deregulation of financial markets run amok, or “free trade” with a country whose stated policy is to distort markets in pursuit of Oren Cass industrial dominance. It is merely foolish. Executive Director

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 8 9 YEARYEAR ININ REVIEWREVIEW “[G]roups like American One year ago, on December 19, 2019, American Compass In the Washington Post, Henry Olsen Compass can equip us incorporated. Two months later, we publicly announced our wrote: “Martin Luther started the formation and published an initial statement of principles in Protestant Reformation by reportedly with the policy to win National Review, titled “The Return of Conservative Economics.” nailing 95 theological theses to the door our independence in a That same week, we received feature coverage everywhere of Wittenberg’s church. The website of dangerous world, a task from the Washington Post to the Daily Caller to the Claremont Oren Cass’s new think tank, American that cannot be outsourced Institute’s American Mind podcast. Oren Cass appeared on Compass, could be the start of a similar, to anyone else. We must Tucker Carlson Tonight, presented to Harvey Mansfield’s seminar long-overdue Conservative Reforma- at Harvard, and discussed the future of conservatism on the tion.” And at National Review, Yuval do it for ourselves.” Realignment podcast. Levin said of our inaugural collection: Senator Tom Cotton “I am optimistic that the By the end of March, the Wall Street Journal I find these pieces very valuable winds are changing, with editorial page had produced a video attacking not because I agree with them—I certainly agree with some organizations like American us, and Senator Pat Toomey had delivered a of what they say, but also disagree with quite a bit. I think speech at the Heritage Foundation warning they’re useful because they elevate the substance and the Compass already proving that we were “a dagger thrust into the heart form of the right’s internal arguments and make it easier to essential in the process of of the traditional center-right consensus.” understand what we are disagreeing about. They can’t be charting the right course.” Rep. Dan Crenshaw hosted Oren on his answered with snide ad hominem dismissals, and so they podcast and agreed that “adherence to stand a chance of inviting responses that further refine and Senator Marco Rubio dogmatic market-decision-only policy ... elevate our thinking about the future. may not be pushing our country in the direction that we need to be pushed in.” The Ronald Reagan Institute The six months since have been a “American Compass aspires hosted Oren on the Reaganism podcast, during which the host noted: whirlwind and quickly established to be the tool with which “You are, no doubt, making an impact, having influence and, in some American Compass as among the most respects, driving people crazy.” innovative and influential institutions future conservative on the policy scene. leaders can guide the Our formal launch came on May 4, when we released our first American ship of state. collection, Rebooting the American System: The Comprehensive, The closely contested presidential election Those men and women Conservative Case for Robust National Economic Policy, featuring and emergence of a multiracial, working- ignore it at their peril.” forewords from Senators Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Senator class base of support within the Republican Josh Hawley welcomed our “bold, Party drove even more interest in our work, Henry Olsen and much needed, new venture,” and with more than 200,000 people reading a Washington Post Senator Mitt Romney expressed summary of our recent work on social media. how glad he was to have us “helping conservatives rethink how we apply our principles to the problems of today.” The Economist called us “an impressive organisation of [a] dissident faction” and noted that “politics does seem to be moving towards the dissidents.” In a long, deeply reported essay in The New Yorker on the Conservative Flagship post-Trump future of the Republican Party, Nicholas Lemann We launched American Compass for a explored three paths that the right could pursue and described American Compass as the leader in formulating policies that simple reason: to fill a critical void. will appeal to a realigned conservative base.

Despite the many serious challenges America faces, the Vox cofounder Ezra Klein, who hosted a wide variety of dramatic transformations its economy has undergone, and high-profile guests on his weekly podcast, invited Oren the once-in-a-generation political realignment under way, this summer to discuss what a post-Trump GOP might look the right-of-center’s mainstream institutions were uniformly like, highlighting the ways in which conservatives need to committed to outdated ideas that long ago ossified into challenge free-market economic orthodoxy. market-fundamentalist dogma. The attitude toward President Trump was “this too shall pass,” and the political aspiration was Increasingly, media outlets, to return everything to how it was before. With the future of political offices, and think post-Trump conservatism at stake, we needed an institution to tanks are collaborating closely step forward with new ideas and foster debates that entrenched with us. Both CNN and the groups were more comfortable avoiding. Financial Times have invited Oren to be a regular contribu- Still in its first year, American Compass is already recognized tor. Senators Rubio, Hawley, as the flagship for a healthier and more responsive post-Trump and Cotton have collaborated conservative movement, underscoring not only the void’s size with us through many channels, and importance but our effectiveness in filling it. including our inaugural collection, an open letter, When David Brooks wrote his and a live event. When the August cover story for the Republican Study Committee, New York Times Sunday Review the largest caucus of conserva- asking the question, “Where do tives in the House of Represen- 600+ Republicans go from here?” the first tatives, released its American views place he turned to in describing “a Worker Task Force report, it led new Working-Class Republicanism” with introductory commentary on our blog, The Commons. was American Compass. Leaders from the American Principles Project, the American Likewise, when the Wall Street Economic Liberties Project, the American Enterprise Institute, Journal’s executive Washington editor, the Institute for Family Studies, and the R Street Institute have Gerald Seib, wrote a feature Saturday cosigned our statements, and scholars from some of those essay on “how Trump has changed institutions, as well as the Hudson Institute, the Ethics and Public the Republicans,” he described our Policy Center, the Niskanen Center, Cardus, the Walton Family project as “new-wave conservatism,” Foundation, and the Center for American Progress have published aimed at moving beyond the right’s with us. Some individuals at these organizations have sought us “tendency to fall back on the view that out unprompted, seeing us market forces and a light government as the ideal platform for hand automatically offer the best their heterodox views. This DONALD TRUMP answers.” On the heels of the Journal growing reach positions The Fight on the Right retweets Oren Cass’s quote essay, NPR invited Seib and Cass to us well to shape the public Will conservatives learn the lessons of Trumpism in Wall Street Journal feature or retreat to the past? further expand on the topic during an debate in the months and in-depth, hour-long discussion. years to come. by OREN CASS

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 12 13 In September, we sparked a national conversation about the future of organized labor—and why conservatives can, and should, lead the American labor movement back from obscurity. Our statement on a conservative future for labor earned signatures from a broad group of prominent conservatives, including Senator Marco Rubio, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, author J. D. Vance, and the American Enterprise Institute’s Yuval Levin. Outlets across the political spectrum—including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, USA Today, National Review, New York Magazine, and Public Discourse— featured the project, noting that some of the most promising movement on labor is coming from the right-of-center. Offices in both the House and Senate have expressed interest in advancing Uber CEO retweets our Corporate legislation. Actual Responsibility work Our projects on Coin-Flip Capitalism and Corporate Actual Responsibility, meanwhile, have initiated long-overdue scrutiny from the right-of-center about how well our Changing the Debate market economy channels profit-seeking toward We use our platform to publish collections of productive ends. Feature coverage of our work research and commentary that prompt debates at Bloomberg and responses in both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and force rethinking of stale orthodoxies. led to further debates on The Commons and at Newsweek. Oren was also invited Each collection brings together leading experts and original to contribute commentary to the special research in a variety of formats to focus on a particular issue. New York Times Magazine feature on the Without fail, the result has been to bring into the spotlight 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s questions that were once taboo or else relegated to the fringes famous “shareholder primacy” essay of conservative discussions. and to appear alongside the Business Roundtable’s executive vice president Moving the Chains, our symposium on reshoring supply chains, for policy at the Institute of Interna- received widespread attention on Capitol Hill and within tional Finance’s annual meeting. He has the Trump administration, as well as feature coverage in the also participated in debates hosted by Washington Post. Subsequent work at American Compass was the Intercollegiate Studies Institute featured by Senator Tom Cotton in his push to advance the on free trade and with Duke University’s American Foundries Act, which was ultimately added to the Michael Munger on industrial policy. National Defense Authorization Act on a 96–4 vote in the Senate. In the House, Harvard Business School professor Willy Shih’s For the first time in decades, American contribution to the symposium led to his testimony before the conservatives are paying attention to House Budget Committee. questions like these.

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 14 15 “As a founding member of American Events Compass, I now know what it feels like to Creating Community have bought Apple stock in 1999 (minus While launching amid a pandemic presented DISCU R S the complicity in Chinese forced labor).” S O I some obstacles to in-person gatherings, F O

P N SAMUEL HAMMOND

our efforts to build a community of like-minded U NISKANEN CENTER young professionals have been a great success.

Although most members are based in Washington, D.C., our • American Compass • Coin-Flip Capitalism “American Compass is immensely helpful network is quickly expanding outside the Beltway into cities such • Race, Protests, and the Right as a professional network and ideas as Boston, Denver, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and • The Conservative Legal Movement factory for the right.” St. Louis. Members come from a wide variety of backgrounds • The Politics of Tech and work at more than 20 different publications and Hill offices, • Realignment Foreign Policy • How Do We Keep Our Republic? SENATE SPEECHWRITER in the White House and various government agencies, and at most of the leading conservative think tanks. Y HO P U “American Compass has introduced me P R Thus far, we’ve hosted virtual events on topics ranging from A S to the most thoughtful people I have H foreign policy to big tech, convened small social gatherings met in DC. ... If American Compass says in Washington, and launched a book club. Members have also something, people should listen.” contributed to The Commons and the American Compass podcast, sought job applicants and pursued job opportunities, and • Art Laffers + Hill Staffers DANIELLE WEINRICH BARON PUBLIC AFFAIRS made new friends. • Compass Cocktails • Debate Watch, Minus the Debate • Compass Cocktails II “American Compass provides an N DIN indispensable forum for debate and O N L E R discussion about how conservatives A S S can encourage broad-based economic prosperity through policies that promote strong families, resilient faith communities and a thriving middle class.” • Social Issues, Realigned • Conservative Economics & Coronavirus Relief JOHN A. BURTKA IV, INTERCOLLEGIATE STUDIES INSTITUTE Membership Industries CAPITOL HILL LEGAL MEDIA/PUBLICATION PRIVATE SECTOR

Our membership group now boasts 19 8 20 5

Member Current NONPROFIT ACADEMIA EXECUTIVE BRANCH 73 members Residence and we continue growing each month Member Home State

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 16 11 171 9 CHRIS ARNADE The Commons is quickly becoming JOSH HAMMER Author, Dignity: a forum that established writers Opinion editor, Seeking Respect in and scholars seek out as a home for Newsweek Back Row America their work. Members of Congress, too, have begun publishing with us, In the spirit of the open debate including Senator Marco Rubio and MARSHALL we hope to foster, our blog, Rep. Ted Budd of the Republican SAMUEL AUERBACK The Commons, is home to a wide Study Committee, the largest HAMMOND Researcher, Bard variety of perspectives from an caucus of conservatives in the Director of Poverty College’s Levy extraordinary group of thinkers House of Representatives. and Welfare Policy, Economics Institute who span the political spectrum. Niskanen Center As its name suggests, The Commons is something of a town square: ROB ATKINSON we welcome civil disagreements and JULIUS KREIN President, Information have been delighted to publish several Editor, Technology and pieces critical of our own work. Our American Affairs Innovation Foundation contributing writers debate among themselves, and sometimes these debates escape our walls. Most recently, Conservative Partner- DAVID AZERRAD AMBER LAPP Assistant professor, ship Institute’s Rachel Bovard and Research fellow, Hillsdale College’s Van our research director, Wells King, Institute for Andel Graduate School published an exchange on suburban Family Studies of Government zoning that was taken up by The American Conservative. On trade policy, Oren used The Commons to respond to a column by Tufts RACHEL BOVARD Washington Post MICHAEL LIND Senior director of University professor Daniel Drezner, Professor, University of policy, Conservative which began a back-and-forth between Texas at Austin; Author, Partnership Institute the two over the question of how the The New Class War U.S. should approach its global trading partners. Meanwhile, the Niskanen Center’s Ed Dolan and Samuel PATRICK DENEEN Professor, University Hammond engaged in an exchange with MICAH of Notre Dame; Oren about how the right-of- MEADOWCROFT Author, Why center should approach welfare policy, Essayist and critic Liberalism Failed redistribution, and “social insurance.”

MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY MICHAEL Senior writer, National NEEDHAM Review; Visiting fellow, Senior congressional American Enterprise staffer Institute

SAAGAR ENJETI Cohost, Rising on JAMES POULOS AARON SIBARIUM MATT STOLLER J. D. VANCE R. R. RENO Hill TV and the Executive editor, Editor, Research director, Visiting fellow, American Editor, Realignment podcast The American Mind Washington Free Beacon American Economic Enterprise Institute; First Things Liberties Project Author, Hillbilly Elegy American Compass 2020 Annual Report 18 19 Our Growing Influence

Speaking 23 Engagements (HIGHLIGHTS) OUR WORK Yale Law School Harvard University Niskanen Center Intercollegiate Studies Institute Brookings Institution Bipartisan Policy Center In its collections, American Affairs 10K Boston Review Social Media The American Conservative American Compass DemocracyXchange Followers International Institute of Finance Notre Dame Business School Acton Institute tackles a wide variety of pressing issues, bringing fresh thinking 35 28 200+ and a truly conservative Broadcast OP-EDS Media perspective to everything Appearances Mentions

(HIGHLIGHTS) from financial capitalism

Claremont Review of Books Bloomberg CNN New York Magazine to industrial policy to Financial Times Public Discourse First Things The Hill Newsweek Washington Post National Review Los Angeles Times organized labor. The American Conservative NPR New York Times Vox Wall Street Journal Fox News USA Today The New Republic

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 20 21 MAY 2020 Foreword: On Resilience Rebooting the American System SENATOR MARCO RUBIO America’s ability to meet the challenges For nearly two centuries, the United States pursued a robust of tomorrow rests on our conviction to national economic agenda that supported the nation’s turn a new economic page today. extraordinary progress, prosperity, and security. It built canals and railroads and highways. It fostered industries that would make revolvers, airplanes, and semiconductors. It buttressed the Foreword: On Security American Dream. The agenda went by many names, but one of its earliest champions and one of America’s greatest statesmen SENATOR TOM COTTON called it, simply, the American System. The American system of innovation, combining strategic investment and This essay series explores the American System through the private enterprise, made our nation’s lenses of tradition, theory, and practice—how the United industry the envy of the world. It States once pursued its economic policy, why fundamentalist can pave the way for widespread free-market logic fails as a guide, and where policymakers might prosperity and security again today. act to shape the nation’s economy once more. Senators Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton situate these ideas in our present context: a once-in-a-century pandemic and a generation-defining contest Rediscovering a Genuine with China. American System WELLS KING From the Founding to the Cold War, America’s leading statesmen and political economists understood the importance of a robust national economic policy.

Planning for When the Market Cannot JULIUS KREIN The “knowledge problem” is real, but a more practical approach is needed for navigating the challenges of government planning.

Removing the Blinders from Economic Policy OREN CASS If we want the market to serve the needs of the American people, we must remove the blinders of market reductivism and recover the tools of economic policy. American Compass 2020 Annual Report 22 23 Rebooting the American System

In a story about how National Affairs editor the COVID-19 crisis is Yuval Levin wrote in forcing some Republicans National Review that these to rethink their party’s essays clarify the issues embrace of free-market that our nation faces “I find these pieces very valuable “Senators Tom Cotton of fundamentalism, the and treat them with the not because I agree with them— gravity they deserve. Arkansas and Marco Rubio New York Times highlighted I certainly agree with some of the forewords by Senators of Florida ... argue in essays what they say, but also disagree Cotton and Rubio as with quite a bit. I think they’re in a new online journal that examples of fresh thinking the coronavirus has exposed among the GOP coalition. useful because they elevate the the nation’s need to be more substance and the form of the aggressive and innovative right’s internal arguments and with its laws so it can better make it easier to understand what protect itself from adversarial we are disagreeing about. They powers like China.” can’t be answered with snide ad hominem dismissals, and so they stand a chance of inviting responses that further refine and elevate our thinking about the future.”

In National Review, The Daily Caller published Wells King, Julius Krein, an adaptation of Wells and Oren Cass explored King’s introductory the American tradition “Conservatives must remove “Economic stability, national essay, highlighting how of economic policy, how conservatives can go and why we lost sight the blinders that prevent their security, widely shared back to their roots of the role of strategic attention from wandering prosperity, strong families, a and embrace a robust planning, and how we can beyond tax cuts. The future pluralistic society—in short, national economic policy. “remove the blinders” from of American economic policy the American way of life—are economic policy. lies in the creation of a modern achievements plainly worth American System, establishing conserving. So is the only the market conditions for an approach to economic policy economy that supports our that has ever proved capable shared national goals.” of producing them.”

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 24 25 “[M]ost fund managers are generating the results that one might expect from an elaborate game of chance— placing bets in the market with odds similar to a coin flip. With enough people playing, some will always find themselves on winning streaks and claim the Midas touch, at least until the coin’s next flip. Except under these rules of ‘heads I win, tails you lose,’ they collect their fees regardless.”

MAY 2020 The worlds of hedge funds and private equity are notoriously opaque. The Returns Counter aims to shed light on the Coin-Flip Capitalism overall performance in these industries as a starting point for understanding their claims of economic value. The Counter High-flying financial firms aggregates returns data from multiple sources to create a attract a disproportion- Coin-Flip Capitalism: simple metric—a “Returns Counter Average” that can be ate share of the nation’s A Primer directly compared against public market benchmarks. business talent, fund lavish WELLS KING compensation through fees charged to public An overview of the hedge fund, pension funds and nonprofit private equity, and venture capital endowments, and shape the industries and the implications of their recent performance. behavior of companies in the real economy. Yet their status as a political football prevents examination of what they really accomplish—one side happily vilifies them simply because Q3 Q4 they represent capital, while the other grants them praise on the presumption that profitable market activity is inherently valuable. 2020 Update 2020 Update Since the release of Coin-Flip Markets have mostly Coin-Flip Capitalism aims to help policymakers and the public better Capitalism in May, the public returned to pre-COVID understand how the hedge fund, private equity, and venture capital debate over the value of highs, but the fallout from industries function, what social and economic value they create or private equity and other sky-high volatility in the first destroy, and how policy should respond. A Primer introduces the so-called alternative assets half of 2020 continues, and relevant topics and explains why they are subjects of public concern. has intensified, while the funds are under renewed The Returns Counter aggregates financial returns data into a struggle of private funds to scrutiny for their lack of comprehensive set of quarterly performance benchmarks for each beat the market during a transparency. industry. Future installments will delve further into the issues that historic downturn has only these data raise and the potential for market-strengthening reforms. reinforced concern about their long-term viability.

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 26 27 Coin-Flip Capitalism

Coin-Flip Capitalism University of was featured in Chicago professors “While American Compass just Bloomberg, which “The news isn’t rosy for everyone. … M. Todd Henderson highlighted American and Steven N. Kaplan opened its doors this month, its Compass’s role as the employment growth in companies took to the pages of existence and policy objectives vanguard of conservative backed by private equity is 1% to the Wall Street Journal could herald something Wall economic thought, 4% lower than in other firms in the to critique Coin-Flip Street has long feared: a common questioning the long- same industry. Compensation is Capitalism. time orthodoxy of both ground between anti-finance political parties. about 1.7% lower.” Democrats and Republicans willing to challenge the party’s established economic views.”

The Wall Street Journal excerpted Henderson and George Mason University professor Kaplan’s op-ed Donald Boudreaux’s “Another “I know, I know: I’m just one prompted further Open Letter to Oren Cass” in its HENDERSON of those neo-liberal market discussion, including Notable & Quotable section. This is “Bad companies in America get fundamentalists addicted a response from just one of many open letters that Oren Cass on The eaten, and every other company Professor Boudreaux has written to to simplistic absolutisms.” Commons and then sprints faster, knowing the us since our launch. a debate between savannah is ripe with predators. Henderson and Cass Private equity is the great at Newsweek. discipline of American capitalism.” Oren Cass was invited to “Most of what we call ‘investment’ today participate in a CASS is the acquisition of an asset. When a panel discussion “Economic growth and private equity firm buys a company, it on reforming dynamism have slowed, capitalism during productivity growth has come has not invested. It has traded a pile of the Institute of money for a pile of equity, and when it International nearly to a halt and wages turns around five years later and sells that Finance’s annual have stagnated. Bizarrely, with pile of equity to another private equity meeting, where so much ‘investment’ going he described the on, actual investment has firm, that is not an ‘investment’ either. difference between ‘Investment’ is when companies actually real investment plummeted. Assets get shuffled spend money on equipment, on research and private equity and reshuffled, profits get made, and development, on training, on things firms merely but relatively little flows toward that actually improve and increase the moving assets actual productive uses.” around. productive capacity of our economy.”

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 28 29 Research & Development Pre-competitive research consortia are vital to sparking innovation. WILLY SHIH, Harvard University

Tax Incentives A tax credit for domestic investment is the best way to reduce production costs. ROB ATKINSON, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Domestic Sourcing Local content requirements offer a simple intervention with benefits that its prohibitionist detractors ignore. MICHAEL LIND, University of Texas

Workforce Investment Reshoring strategies can only go so far without investment in America’s skilled workforce. SAMUEL HAMMOND, Niskanen Center

JUNE 2020 Regulatory Reform Outdated environmental regulation poses an irrational barrier to reshoring efforts. Moving the Chains OREN CASS, American Compass

After decades of looking away as America’s supply chains migrated overseas, policymakers are finally facing the reality Agency Structure that dependence on foreign producers has weakened the nation’s A new task for government demands a new structure for its agencies. resilience, its security, and its economy. When factories leave, not GANESH SITARAMAN, Vanderbilt University only the jobs but also the suppliers, the customers, the expertise, and the innovation go, too. When a crisis strikes, vital supplies are unavailable. When productivity growth and innovation are Terms of Trade needed, they are nowhere to be found. The international trading system must recover the core principles of reciprocity, security, and democracy. The Moving the Chains symposium gathers experts in many fields; THOMAS DUESTERBERG, Hudson Institute working in think tanks, universities, and industry—starting from points across the political spectrum; to delineate and describe Infrastructure Financing the levers available to policymakers in pursuit of reshoring supply A national development bank could attract the private capital chains and to offer concrete policy proposals for using each that America’s infrastructure needs. lever. Some proposals emphasize investments that the United States can make to improve its competitiveness—in people, in TERRENCE KEELEY, BlackRock infrastructure, and in research. Others consider how better laws could attract or even force firms toward domestic production. Antitrust Enforcement Still others advocate reform for institutions themselves, from the The American medical industry offers a case study of how market federal government to the WTO. concentration undermines economic resilience. MATT STOLLER, American Economic Liberties Project

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 30 31 Moving the Chains

Noah Smith, a The Washington Bloomberg Opinion Post highlighted columnist, featured our work on “The U.S. economic strategy of the symposium as industrial policy “Cass and other conservatives say leaving industrial policy to the an example of policy and reshoring as there is strong precedent for industrial whims of the market has hit the wonks taking seriously a key influence on policy in the United States. Alexander point of severely diminishing the idea that bringing policymakers who Hamilton, the country’s first treasury manufacturing back to returns, so it’s time to brainstorm are beginning to secretary, encouraged the United States our shores will “take a question the free- new approaches.” lot more than tariffs and market orthodoxy. to use import tariffs and ‘bounties,’ bellicose rhetoric.” or subsidies, to foster a strong manufacturing sector, which he saw as crucial to maintaining independence.”

Building on his Senator Tom contribution to our Cotton’s American symposium, Harvard’s Foundries Act was Willy Shih was invited passed on a 96–4 to testify before vote in the Senate the House Budget “…to award grants to States for the as part of the Committee during a National Defense hearing on the federal construction of microelectronics Authorization Act. role in research and manufacturing and advanced research development. and development facilities … to fund the construction of microelectronics manufacturing facilities for national security needs, and to authorize additional amounts for microelectronics In the Daily research and development…” Caller, Wells King made the “When factories leave our shores, not case for thinking only the jobs but also the suppliers, the seriously about customers, the expertise, and the innovation reshoring critical In the Asia Times, David go with them. When productivity growth supply chains, P. Goldman adapted his especially in light foreword to the symposium and innovation are needed, they are of the COVID-19 for an Asian audience, nowhere to be found. When we lose ground pandemic. highlighting the importance of “A bipartisan consensus is to rival nations, we lack the capacities getting the details of reshoring emerging around the need to required to regain the lead.” right to protect American domestic industry. restore America’s technological edge and industrial base.”

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 32 33 AUGUST 2020

In recent years, the business community has sought to rebrand itself as “socially responsible,” but in practice this has largely amounted to glossy marketing campaigns and nominal charitable contributions. What if corporate executives were instead held responsible for actually considering the interests of their workers, families, communities, and nation?

In August 2019, the Business Roundtable released a letter committing to “stakeholder capitalism,” promising to balance the needs of all stakeholders in their decisions—not just the shareholders. But in the year since, nothing changed. It was yet another example of corporations claiming to prioritize their workers and communities but doing little to follow through.

On the one-year anniversary of the Roundtable’s letter, we released an open letter in response, highlighting its lack of follow-through and calling on these CEOs to take real action to prioritize their workers, communities, and nation.

Beyond the letter, this initiative is aimed at studying the obliga- tions that corporations have, the policies that will help ensure that these obligations are met, and the measures that they should adopt themselves.

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 34 35 Corporate Actual Responsibility

Oren Cass joined In the New York Times, Krystal Ball and Saagar Reason managing Enjeti on The Hill editor Stephanie TV’s Rising to discuss Slade highlighted our open letter to the “Many leaders of the Republican Party our Corporate Actual Business Roundtable, Responsibility project urging it to take real have coalesced around a desire to as the quintessential action on its pledge purge libertarians … from their midst. illustration of the to promote corporate If Mr. Reagan’s agenda was a three- right-of-center responsibility and legged stool of religious traditionalism, turning its back on protect workers. a strong national defense and free- libertarians. market economics, they hope the latter leg can be reduced to sawdust and On the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s landmark essay “The Social scattered to the winds. The Republican Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Party seems to become more Its Profits,” theNew York Times Magazine comfortable with top-down economic revisited its influence, with input from interventionism by the day. Rising stars a wide variety of experts, including top CEOs, Nobel laureates, and Oren Cass. denounce the global market integration that has defined the postwar era.”

“Frankly, we shouldn’t In an editorial calling for “gig economy” companies hold our breath. Instead, like Uber and Lyft to treat we should use it to their workers as employees, advocate for the public the Financial Times took the policy changes needed position that these businesses to channel the pursuit have obligations to their “[T]he gig economy has workers—the animating idea of profit toward the behind our push for corporate long existed in a legal purported goals the actual responsibility. grey area, allowing Business Roundtable businesses to avoid their On the one-year anniversary of the Business Roundtable’s letter professes: prosperity obligations to workers.” ostensibly embracing “shareholder for workers, families, capitalism,” we released an open communities, and the letter calling for substantive nation. This, in the steps toward corporate actual responsibility, which Oren end, is the purpose of Notre Dame assigned portions of highlighted in an op-ed for the our economy and its our Corporate Actual Responsibility Washington Examiner. competitive free market.” collection for the final session of its course “Corporate Governance and Catholic Social Teaching.”

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 36 37 Conservatives Should Ensure Workers Are People, Not Widgets Workers a Seat at the Table AMBER LAPP & DAVID LAPP Statement on a conservative future for the American labor movement Meet Alex and Lance, two blue-collar workers in southwestern Ohio. One had union representation as he sought a foothold in the labor market; the other Labor’s Conservative Heart did not. Their lives remind us that there is still power in a union. BRIAN DIJKEMA

The trade union is a quintessentially Tocquevillian institution and the one Would Sectoral Bargaining Provide that brought down Soviet communism. a Better Framework for American SEPTEMBER 2020 Conservatives must rescue the American labor Labor Law? movement from Big Labor’s partisanship and restore its community-building purpose. The American labor movement’s slow descent into Labor leader David Rolf and American Compass’s Oren Cass obsolescence has deprived American workers of a vital discuss the potential for sectoral institution. A well-functioning system of organized labor bargaining in America. affords solidarity, mutual aid, bargaining power, and workplace The Once and Future American Labor Law representation, all of which can benefit workers, their families and communities, and the nation—both economically and socially. MICHAEL LIND Workers of the World Especially for conservatives, who cherish the role of mediating American labor law has become worse than institutions, prefer private ordering to government dictates, and useless: a lower share of the private-sector WELLS KING believe that prosperity must be earned rather than redistributed, labor force is organized today than before reforming and reinvigorating the laws that govern organizing and the National Labor Relations Act was passed Few Americans realize how our collective bargaining should be an obvious priority. in 1935. The time has come for an system of organized labor is an outlier entirely new model. among Western nations. In some Unfortunately, today’s dysfunctional system, a relic of the Great European countries, unions attract a Depression, has become a polarizing partisan issue. National greater share of workers and maintain unions exert more influence through their lavish funding less adversarial relationships with Q&A with Freelancers Union business. A better understanding of these of the Democratic Party than through actual organization, Founder Sara Horowitz alternative models can guide American representation, or bargaining. One party thus focuses intently on policymakers as they address our getting more workers into those unions, while the other’s priority OREN CASS labor policy challenges. is to get them out. A different conversation is needed. Labor law has failed to evolve alongside a changing labor market. Some labor leaders In A Seat at the Table, American Compass hopes to help start that have been moving ahead anyway. conversation. We begin with a statement from a prominent group Labor Law Must Include All Workers of conservatives who possess a remarkable breadth and depth of SHARON BLOCK & expertise and share the conviction that labor is an issue ripe for BENJAMIN SACHS conservative reform. Essays from Brian Dijkema, Amber Lapp & Toward a More Cooperative Union David Lapp, and Michael Lind situate labor’s role in the American Inclusion is a necessary first step toward economy, in partisan ideological debates, and in the lives of actual ELI LEHRER fixing America’s broken labor law system. workers. A report from American Compass’s Wells King describes the many and varied forms that systems of organized labor Workers and employers should have the can take. And a range of experienced policy experts and labor freedom to collaborate and design new forms of worker organizations. organizers discuss with each other potential pathways for reform.

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 38 39 A Seat At The Table Also In...

National Review To launch our Labor Day Daily Caller statement, Oren Cass Bloomberg Law appeared on The Next National Post Revolution with Steve Hilton In Public The Browser on Fox News to discuss Discourse, Jacobin where the establishment Brad Littlejohn The Realignment right-of-center consensus “Ensuring that workers have and Oren Cass The Hill TV’s Rising has gone wrong and why power and can bargain on discussed conservatives should care equal footing should be a the case for a about organized labor. core principle for setting up a conservative well-functioning economy.” embrace of labor unions. New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz interviewed “We need workers to have more power. Oren about our vision Either we’re going to have to turn to the for a pro-worker In a feature weekend essay for conservatism and government to give them that, or we’re the Wall Street Journal, Oren “Among modern institutions, one the potential for it going to have to see a better balance in the explained how a reinvigorated to take root among private sector. And I think conservatives labor movement could serve stands out for the breadth of policymakers. will certainly prefer the latter.” traditional conservative goals conservative priorities it could of empowering individuals advance: generating widespread and preserving communities, prosperity, limiting government citing the support of Adam intervention, preserving families and Smith, John Stuart Mill, and David Leonhardt of the Robert Nisbet. ways of life, revitalizing communities New York Times featured and fostering solidarity. That A Seat at the Table in institution is the labor union.” his morning newsletter “[T]he most intriguing sign of a potential as a heartening sign union resurgence comes from the [right] that some in the GOP side of the political spectrum.” are willing to rethink their party’s traditional In an interview with perspective on labor. “We’ve really been missing a Hamilton Nolan of the genuinely conservative perspective left-leaning In These Times, Oren discussed that asks, ‘How do we ensure that discussed the current In USA Today, the market is one that is actually state of organized Wells King “Approaches that work in other countries labor in the U.S., how made the case delivering the outcomes that we cannot be imported wholesale to ours. a reinvigorated labor that organized want for healthy families, and But their examples should inspire us to movement might look, labor can help to communities, and the strength and and where the most hope reduce economic think more broadly about what we might solidarity of the nation?’” for a future shift lies. inequality by attempt, and to recognize a revitalized labor allowing workers movement as an opportunity that should to enjoy their excite both liberals and conservatives.” full share of the nation’s prosperity.

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 40 41 1 Identity Politics

2 Retro-Socialism The 5 3 Catastrophism Deadly Sins of 4 Growthphobia the Left Technopessimism By Ruy Teixeira 5 OCTOBER 2020 CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

The American left and right suffer from parallel but distinctive pathologies. Each has become preoccupied with the priorities and pet peeves of the influential elites in its coalition—the Academy on the left, Wall Street on the right—to the exclusion The 3 Deadly of the concerns that animate most voters. Iconic scenes—like a stage full of Republican candidates rejecting a budget deal that would cut ten dollars in spending for every dollar of tax Sins of the increases, or a stage full of Democrats raising their hands in favor of government-provided health insurance for illegal immigrants—seem to challenge the premise of democracy that Right political figures will vie for the public’s support and will embrace positions that would advance the public’s interests. By Henry Olsen Market ETHICS AND PUBLIC Fundamentalism POLICY CENTER What has each side gotten wrong? And how could it do better? 1 Veteran political analysts Ruy Teixeira and Henry Olsen turn their attention to the first question, each describing the “deadly sins” on his own side of the aisle. In a conversation about those Snobbery essays, authors J. D. Vance and Chris Arnade focus on the second 2 question, discussing the disconnect they see between the parties and the people and the opportunity that each side has to reform. Hubris 3

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 42 43 Party Foul

Rod Dreher highlighted excerpts from both essays in The American “What do you think? What do you Conservative, believe are some deadly sins of your On The Commons, several of our contributing writers prompting his readers responded to and expounded on the points made by own side? Or if not deadly sins, then at to consider how both Teixeira and Olsen in their essays. least things that make the party less political parties have successful or appealing than it really failed American voters. ought to be?” Elitism, Right and Wrong Seven Deadly Political Sins MICAH MEADOWCROFT R. R. RENO

Conservatism Must Be Tales of Bureaucratic Chastened by Humility Incompetence and the In the Financial Times, JOSH HAMMER Sins of the Left and Right Oren Cass discussed AMBER LAPP how both political Can the Left Overcome parties have become Its Technopessimism? so disconnected from everyday Americans, “Government will always be of and by the ROB ATKINSON and what they would influential, but its legitimacy depends be focusing on if upon it still being for the people.” workers’ interests were their primary concern.

J. D. Vance and Chris Arnade joined Oren Cass on the American Compass podcast to discuss “I see the political camps being divided both essays, describe [in] how they treat poor people or the dynamics that how they treat the voters. Do they lead to a politics disconnected from treat them like children that have to the economic and be condescended to, who have no cultural mainstream, agency and are just victims of our elite and identify possible problems who need to be helped? Or glimmers of hope. are they people who are weak and need to just buck up and work harder?”

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 44 45 2020 Required Reading: A Seat at the Table A conservative future for the Foundations for American labor movement American Renewal September 2020 A long-standing intellectual tradition Collections offers not only a comprehensive Conservatives Should Ensure critique of market fundamentalism Workers a Seat at the Table and consumerism, but also a Statement constructive path forward Labor’s Conservative Heart July 2020 BRIAN DIJKEMA Workers Are People, Not Widgets AMBER LAPP & DAVID LAPP Corporate Actual Rebooting the Moving the Chains The Once and Future American System 9 strategies for retaking Responsibility American Labor Law The comprehensive, conservative global leadership in industry Holding corporations accountable MICHAEL LIND case for a return to robust national and innovation for their obligations to workers, economic policy June 2020 their families and communities, Would Sectoral Bargaining Provide a Better Framework May 2020 and the nation Foreword: The Reshoring Initiative August 2020 for American Labor Law? Foreword: On Resilience DAVID P. GOLDMAN DAVID ROLF & OREN CASS SENATOR MARCO RUBIO On Research & Development Corporate Actual Responsibility: Q&A with Freelancers Foreword: On Security WILLY SHIH A Conversation with Senator Union Founder Sara Horowitz Josh Hawley SENATOR TOM COTTON OREN CASS On Tax Incentives Interviewed by OREN CASS Rediscovering a Genuine ROB ATKINSON American System Open Letter to the Workers of the World WELLS KING On Domestic Sourcing Business Roundtable WELLS KING MICHAEL LIND Planning for When the American Compass, American Labor Law Must Include All Workers Market Cannot On Workforce Investment Economic Liberties Project, American Principles Project SHARON BLOCK & BENJAMIN SACHS JULIUS KREIN SAMUEL HAMMOND Corporate Obligations: A Debate Toward a More Cooperative Union Removing the Blinders from On Regulatory Reform PATRICK DENEEN & ANDY PUZDER ELI LEHRER Economic Policy OREN CASS OREN CASS Constraining the Corporation On Agency Structure OREN CASS GANESH SITARAMAN Party Foul How the left and right fail Coin-Flip Capitalism On Terms of Trade Q&A with MIT Professor and Good Do the hedge fund, private equity, American voters THOMAS DUESTERBERG Jobs Institute President Zeynep Ton and venture capital industries channel OREN CASS October 2020 investment efficiently and in ways On Infrastructure Financing TERRENCE KEELEY Case Studies in Corporate The Five Deadly Sins of the Left beneficial to the nation? Actual Responsibility On Antitrust Enforcement RUY TEIXEIRA May 2020 WELLS KING MATT STOLLER The Three Deadly Sins of the Right Coin-Flip Capitalism: A Primer HENRY OLSEN WELLS KING Government Of, By, and For the Elite The Returns Counter CHRIS ARNADE & J.D. VANCE UPDATED QUARTERLY Presidential Candidates Are Ignoring Ordinary Voters’ Needs OREN CASS

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 46 47 Meet the Team Oren Cass Wells King Oren Cass sets our strategic direction, manages its Research Director operations, and publishes his own work constantly, Wells King oversees our research projects and including as a contributing opinion writer for both the is the editor of our collections, alongside his own Financial Times and CNN. He is “one of the sharpest research and writing on a variety of issues. Prior to policy minds in this new vanguard” (Sam Tanenhaus, joining American Compass, he worked as a management Time). Oren’s 2018 book, The Once and Future Worker, consultant at McKinsey & Company and as a policy became an instant sensation in conservative circles advisor to Senator Mike Lee on the Joint Economic and has been central to emerging intra-conservative Committee. He graduated from Davidson College and debates. The book has been lauded across the political has been a Public Interest Fellow, a Claremont Institute spectrum and around the world: “among the most important I’ve ever read” Publius Fellow, and a Hertog Foundation Political (J. D. Vance), “absolutely brilliant” (David Brooks), “the essential policy book Studies Fellow. He lives in Washington, D.C. for our time” (Yuval Levin), “thoughtful, provocative, carefully argued” (Jason Furman), “a remarkable intellectual articulation” (Emmanuel Todd). Oren brings to American Compass the rare combination of not only policy Wesley Hodges expertise and intellectual achievement but also a track record of success in Coalition Director business, law, and politics. From 2005 to 2015, he worked as a management Wesley Hodges builds and nurtures our membership consultant in Bain & Company’s Boston and Delhi offices. During this group, hosts our events, and manages our relation- period, Cass also earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law ships with the rest of the world. He previously School, where he was elected vice president and treasurer of the Harvard served as associate director for the Federalist Law Review and oversaw the journal’s budget and operations. While still in Society’s Practice Groups, a network of more than law school, Oren also became Domestic Policy Director for Governor Mitt 400 experts in the legal field. He graduated from Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, editing and producing the campaign’s Baylor University and is a John Jay Fellow. He lives “jobs book” and developing its domestic policy strategy, proposals, and in Washington, D.C. research. He joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow in 2015 and became a prolific scholar, publishing more than 15 reports for MI and editing its popular “Issues 2016” and “Issues 2020” series, testifying before seven congressional committees and speaking on dozens of college Abigail Salvatore Communications Director campuses. He founded American Compass at the start of 2020. Abigail Salvatore develops and maintains our public Oren lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Kristine, and children, presence, the promotion of its work, and its media Eliza, Rosalie, and Andrew. relationships. Previously, she worked as the media relations director for the Manhattan Institute and communications director for the Empire Center for Public Policy. She graduated from the King’s College in New York City, where she studied politics, philosophy, Board of Directors and economics. She lives in Washington, D.C. Institutional affiliations provided for identification purposes only.

David Azerrad Julius Krein Michael Needham Professor, Editor, Chief of Staff, Hillsdale College American Affairs Senator Marco Rubio

American Compass 2020 Annual Report 48 49 Help us build a strong foundation. When we formed American Compass, we knew that the standard base of financial support for right-of-center organizations might not be available to us because of our willingness to question ideas that have long since become stale dogma. For this reason, an active part of our project is developing a network of people and institutions who are committed to a healthy conservatism and a strong nation. We hope you’ll join us in that cause.

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American Compass 2020 Annual Report 50 American Compass is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 51