On Wednesday, July 6, AEI and the Foundation for Constitutional Government hosted a conference on the work of Harvey Mansfield, who turned 90 this past March. Over his 60-year tenure at Harvard University, Mansfield has profoundly influenced the study of political philosophy in America. Three panels of eminent scholars, including some of Mansfield’s former students, discussed his work’s major themes, ranging from Machiavelli’s political thought to the virtues of masculinity. Mansfield concluded the day by sharing his insights into conservatism.

Lawmakers know that Social Security’s combined trust funds will be insolvent by 2035, so why haven’t they done anything? Sita Nataraj Slavov considers this question in her review of Fixing Social Security: The Politics of Reform in a Polarized Age by R. Douglas Arnold (Princeton University Press, 2022).

Paul H. Kupiec warns that executive orders and proposed progressive legislation could heap “new highly politicized” mandates on the Federal Reserve System, which is already “failing at its primary duty” to control inflation.

According to Mackenzie Eaglen, US defense planners are wasting a vital strategic resource: time. While “the Pentagon and Congress have for three decades delayed modernization,” she writes, “our adversaries have capitalized on the time America has under-exploited.”

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the US Supreme Court invoked the major questions doctrine to limit the power of federal regulators. Daniel Lyons explains the decision’s doctrine and its implications for regulating Big Tech.