Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom
by Philip Hamburger
Harvard University Press, 2021, 320 pp.

Philip Hamburger has made a revolutionary contribution to American constitutional law. He shows that what is often regarded as a narrow topic, “unconstitutional conditions,” of interest only to specialists, is in fact fundamental to understanding our contemporary system of government and moreover that its abuse poses grave dangers to liberty.

Order and chaos (complete disorder) have long bookended people’s view of their circumstances. For instance, I have read that order versus chaos was the primary division in ancient Egyptian religion, where order also meant justice and chaos meant injustice. Much more recently, Henry Adams wrote that “Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”

In this world, there exists a multitude of supranational organizations, agencies and committees which, may or may not, work in concert with each other for the purpose of central planning. Countless bureaucrat salaries are funded with the public’s money or debt, paid not to produce goods or services that have a market price; instead the goal is to rearrange society based on the notion that they possess a calculation method or some higher knowledge allowing them to know how society “should be.”

Across the political aisle pundits are suggesting industrial policy as a tool to contain the ascent of China. Commentators worry that failure to do so might result in China eclipsing America as the world’s economic superpower. Without doubt, the tantalizing arguments abetting industrial policy are gaining traction because defenders of markets have failed to make their case in a way the public can understand. 

Speech doesn’t become a “threat” just because a government official calls it that.

Over the course of this year, conservatives have expressed a number of grievances they have with the US military. Tucker Carlson delivered a monologue questioning Joe Biden’s emphasis on the issuance of flight suits designed for pregnant women.