Think Tanks
Here's a look at documents from think tanks
Featured Stories
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to New York Post: Race Bait - To Skirt the Law, Colleges Incentivize Applicants to Write 'Identity Essays'
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute posted the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to the New York Post:
* * *
Race Bait: To Skirt the Law, Colleges Incentivize Applicants to Write 'Identity Essays'
By Wai Wah Chin
Attention high-school seniors: Deadlines are coming up! Polish your dream-college applications, hit send, and hope the admissions game isn't rigged with "race proxies"!
To stay ahead of the curve, consider including your "subjective social status" -- what's good enough for the governor of California should be good enough for admissions officers.
Education
... Show Full Article
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute posted the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to the New York Post:
* * *
Race Bait: To Skirt the Law, Colleges Incentivize Applicants to Write 'Identity Essays'
By Wai Wah Chin
Attention high-school seniors: Deadlines are coming up! Polish your dream-college applications, hit send, and hope the admissions game isn't rigged with "race proxies"!
To stay ahead of the curve, consider including your "subjective social status" -- what's good enough for the governor of California should be good enough for admissions officers.
Educationgatekeepers are always hunting for fresh metrics to cherry-pick students, especially after the Supreme Court's 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling banned racial preferences in college admissions.
Some elite schools produced expected racial shifts post-SFFA, others amazingly kept racial proportions similar to pre-SFFA. Was this by feigning compliance using stealthier "socioeconomic status" preferences?
"Socioeconomic" is deceptive. It sneaks in the term "economic" to win over generous Americans who support helping those with genuine financial need.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post (https://nypost.com/2025/12/22/opinion/race-bait-to-skirt-the-law-colleges-incentivize-applicants-to-write-identity-essays)
* * *
Wai Wah Chin is the founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York.
* * *
Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/race-bait-to-skirt-the-law-colleges-incentivize-applicants-to-write-identity-essays
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Bloomberg Opinion: Economy Needs a Little Bit of Unfairness
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to Bloomberg Opinion:
* * *
The Economy Needs a Little Bit of Unfairness
By Allison Schrager
There are a lot of reasons, some deserved and some not, for Americans' distrust of their institutions. Lately I have been thinking about one of the more counterintuitive ones: Our schools, governments and even employers are trying too hard to make things fair.
In so doing, they are not only setting themselves up for failure -- and eventually mistrust -- but they are also misunderstanding the
... Show Full Article
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to Bloomberg Opinion:
* * *
The Economy Needs a Little Bit of Unfairness
By Allison Schrager
There are a lot of reasons, some deserved and some not, for Americans' distrust of their institutions. Lately I have been thinking about one of the more counterintuitive ones: Our schools, governments and even employers are trying too hard to make things fair.
In so doing, they are not only setting themselves up for failure -- and eventually mistrust -- but they are also misunderstanding thegalvanizing role that unfairness plays in a competitive economy.
Unfairness can be tempered, but it can never be eliminated. The decision of how much unfairness to tolerate is one for society as a whole to make, and we expect our institutions to enforce it. I fear that, in the last decade or so, those institutions went too far in enforcing fairness, without full buy-in from the public and at the expense of other values.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-12-22/us-economy-a-little-bit-of-unfairness-is-healthy?srnd=undefined)
* * *
Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
* * *
Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/the-economy-needs-a-little-bit-of-unfairness
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary to China Brief: New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, in its China Brief:
* * *
New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization
By Arran Hope
Executive Summary:
* "New quality combat forces," which refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities, are increasingly important to Chinese military modernization, according to authoritative policy documents and commentaries in Party media.
* The concept is important to the Party's attempts to design a national system that fuses economic progress and military strength
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, in its China Brief:
* * *
New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization
By Arran Hope
Executive Summary:
* "New quality combat forces," which refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities, are increasingly important to Chinese military modernization, according to authoritative policy documents and commentaries in Party media.
* The concept is important to the Party's attempts to design a national system that fuses economic progress and military strengthinto an overarching "national strategic system and capabilities."
* Technological progress is undermined by ongoing issues within the People's Liberation Army, such as corruption, political unreliability, and governance issues.
The last few months of 2025 have seen a proliferation of authoritative policy documents and commentaries discussing "new quality combat forces", a term that refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities. These include the Central Committee's "Recommendations" for the 15th Five-Year Plan, a commentary on the plan by Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice-Chair Zhang Youxia, and other articles in authoritative media penned by military theorists and scholars. These pronouncements provide more detailed insight into what the term means, how it relates to other concepts such as "advanced combat forces", and its increasing importance to the Party's notion of systems confrontation./[1] They also warn against over-indexing on technological development as a marker of military modernization, warning that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) still must improve in a number of other areas, such as cultivating personnel who are both technically competent and politically reliable.
New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Push for Intelligentized Warfare
The PLA has been discussing "new quality combat forces" for decades (FMSO Foreign Perspectives Brief, December 2024). But the concept has become much more prominent in PLA discourse following Party assessments that new and emerging technologies are beginning to significantly impact the nature of warfare. General Secretary Xi Jinping first used the phrase in January 2019 at the CMC's military work conference, where he called for "increasing the proportion of new-type combat capabilities" (People's Daily, November 17). It received wider attention after the Two Sessions meetings in 2024, when Xi used it in conjunction with an analogue phrase for the economic sphere, "new quality productive forces" .
PLA scholars and theorists have varying definitions for "new quality combat forces." A 2015 People's Daily article, for instance, defines the term succinctly as a "system combat capability based on information systems" (People's Daily, November 29, 2015). A more recent definition, in a PLA Daily article from June 2024, adds a little more nuance, defining the term as a "novel form of combat capability developed through emerging technological means and operational concepts" (MND, June 27, 2024). A discussion of the topic from December describes it as a "key force for winning on the future battlefield" (PLA Daily, December 4).
The December 4 article, coauthored by scholars at the Academy of Military Science and the Nanjing Political Academy, is one of the more detailed discussions of "new quality combat forces" to date. It frames ongoing developments in military technology in grandiose theoretical terms as the "acceleration of decision-making from 'carbon-based' to 'silicon-based'", and "from 'cell bodies' to 'intelligent entities'". It also argues that decision-making is "even evolving toward a 'human-out-of-the-loop' model". This evolution is based on the direction of travel "toward intelligent, unmanned, and cross-domain operations" and "toward long-range precision, intelligence, stealth, and unmanned operations in weaponry and equipment". This echoes a PLA Daily article from May 2024, which defined the "quality" in "new quality combat forces" as referring to informatized, intelligent, and precision combat capabilities (PLA Daily, May 2, 2024). The reference to a "human-out-of-the-loop" model is also echoed in other writing on "new quality combat forces," such as a November article arguing that AI-powered autonomous weapon systems are evolving "from 'execution tools' to 'intelligent nodes'" (People's Daily, November 17).
Among the technologies that PLA is prioritizing, according to military scholars, are drones, including unmanned systems of all kinds, that are "transitioning from a supporting role on past battlefields to a primary combat role". Also in development are technologies that intersect with biology, such as brain science and human-machine interfaces, as well as bionic robots, and smart ammunition. And intelligent algorithms are viewed as central for decision-making, to be integrated into command chains at "every stage of the kill chain", "enabling victory before the battle begins". These novel technologies are enabling the expansion of the battlespace into the emerging frontiers of the deep sea, outer space, cyberspace, and the cognitive domain, and are leading to the development of new tactics and phenomena such as "deepfakes and information silos" (PLA Daily, December 4).
New Quality Combat Forces Key to the National Strategic System and Capabilities
A November article situates "new quality combat forces" in the context of "advanced combat forces." The exact relationship between the two is unclear: other articles state that they essentially refer to the same thing, or that the former is representative of the latter (Party Building Research, 2024; PLA Daily, December 4). The November article instead describes new quality combat forces as "leading and supporting" advanced combat forces, and as the foundations upon which an "advanced combat capability paradigm" is being built. In this sense, advanced combat forces refer to a broader set of capabilities that "emphasize the leading position of new quality combat forces but also prioritize the 'excellence' of their effective application". This view is most evident in Zhang Youxia's commentary, which calls for "accelerating the construction of advanced combat forces", including by "achieving substantive breakthroughs in new quality combat forces" (People's Daily, November 12).
In other words, the concept of advanced combat capabilities embeds "new quality combat forces" in an overarching national system. As the November article writes, the concept "shifts the focus of combat effectiveness from weaponry competition to systems confrontation" . For the PRC, the notion that future conflict will be one between national systems entails enhancing synergies between the economic and military sphere. Xi articulated this most clearly in his address to the Two Sessions in 2024, where he called for "promoting the efficient integration and mutual reinforcement of new quality productive forces and new quality combat forces" (Party Members' Net, March 7, 2024)./[2]
This utterance has been repeated frequently in the 20 months since, and especially in the weeks surrounding the 20th Central Committee's fourth plenary session in October. It appeared in identical fashion in the Central Committee's Recommendations, in Zhang Youxia's commentary, and in commentaries by PLA scholars in Guangming Daily--a newspaper run by the Central Committee--and in PLA Daily (Guangming Daily, September 4; People's Daily, November 12, November 17). This level of recitation indicates the importance the Party leadership attaches to the integration of economic and military strength.
Advancing this integration is central to what the Party refers to as the "national strategic system and capabilities" (NSCC). The NSSC, according to analysts Liza Tobin, Addis Goldman, and Katherina Kurata, refers to "the intensification of CCP efforts to integrate all available state resources to pursue national goals and increase China's comprehensive national power." They also note that, in recent years, calls to "build an integrated NSSC" have largely superseded policy discourse on the planning, and implementation of military-civil fusion (MCF) (Frohman and Rausch eds., 2025)./[3] References to "MCF" did not appear in the 14th Five-Year Plan, and do not appear in the Recommendations for the 15th either, but references to the NSSC do. In the latest document, Recommendation number 55 starts by declaring the need to "consolidate and enhance the integrated national strategic system and capabilities" . This phrase also appears in Zhang Youxia's commentary. NSCC requirements in the Recommendations also include ensuring that civilian and military standards are harmonized, that "major infrastructure fully incorporates national defense requirements", and that unity between the military and government, as well as between the military and the people, is consolidated.
The clearest articulation of current PLA thinking on the NSSC comes in the November article in the People's Daily. It states that "the interconnection, mutual influence, and mutual support among national strategic competitiveness, social productivity, and military combat effectiveness are becoming increasingly tight". As such, "new quality productive forces" are "the driving force and support for the upgrading and modernization of new quality combat forces" and a "key variable in reshaping warfare, reconstructing operational systems, and reorganizing command elements" (People's Daily, November 17).
The PLA is clear that emerging technologies are crucial to military modernization, and to building a mutually reinforcing economic and military industrial system. But it is also clear that such technologies on their own are not sufficient for achieving a world-class military. Recent technological progress in the PRC has been impressive, but it is not a panacea. And some warn that overreliance on certain technologies could lead to path dependency that will be difficult to break free from (PLA Daily, December 4).
The PLA Daily has lamented long-standing "technical gaps and capability weaknesses", as well as structural challenges and systemic obstacles (PLA Daily, March 22, 2024, June 27, 2024). Zhang Youxia spent a significant portion of his commentary warning about "harmful influences and entrenched evils", as well as "two-faced individuals". Beyond personnel issues, he also complained about "detachment from actual combat, redundant and fragmented efforts, and inefficient practices".
Conclusion
A tension has emerged in recent years between the PLA's steady progress in developing novel technologies with military applications and an apparent regress in the quality of military personnel required to use them. Even at the top of the military system, 2025 has seen considerable tumult as ongoing corruption investigations have reduced the CMC to its smallest size in decades and left key positions in the Eastern Theater Command and elsewhere vacant (China Brief, October 17, November 14, November 25).
PLA scholars argue that the concept of advanced combat capabilities "transcends the logical limitations of Western combat capability generation theories" (People's Daily, November 17). In 2026 and beyond, how the PLA resolves this tension will be a key indicator of whether implementing its military systems design concepts will result in superior outcomes.
[1] The phrase has no settled translation in English. Some, mirroring the common translation of as "new (quality) productive forces" opt for "new (quality) combat forces." Others prefer "new quality combat capabilities," which is closer to the PRC government's preferred translation, "new combat capabilities." This article uses "new quality combat forces," as this aligns most closely to the original Chinese.
[2] Liza Tobin and coauthors note that translating as "new forces of production" better captures the Marxist origin of the term than Beijing's official English translation, "new quality productive forces." Liza Tobin, Addis Goldman, and Katherine Kurata. "System by Design: The Evolution of China's Military-Civil Fusion Strategy." in Benjamin Frohman and Jeremy Rausch eds., The PLA's Long March toward a World-Class Military: Progress, Obstacles, and Ambitions. The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2025.
[3]Liza Tobin, Addis Goldman, and Katherine Kurata. "System by Design: The Evolution of China's Military-Civil Fusion Strategy." in Benjamin Frohman and Jeremy Rausch eds., The PLA's Long March toward a World-Class Military: Progress, Obstacles, and Ambitions. The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2025.
* * *
Arran Hope is the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation, where he also has responsibility for additional China-related publications and programming.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/new-quality-combat-forces-underpin-military-modernization/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: One in Four Companies in Germany Expect Business to Deteriorate in 2026
MUNICH, Germany, Dec. 23 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
* * *
One in Four Companies in Germany Expect Business to Deteriorate in 2026
Around 26 percent of German companies expect their business to deteriorate in 2026, according to a recent ifo Institute Survey. 59 percent of the companies surveyed do not expect their economic situation to change in the coming year. Only 14.9 percent hope to see an improvement. "Companies remain very cautious - there is no spirit of optimism to be seen anywhere," says Klaus Wohlrabe, Head of Surveys at ifo. "Hardly any sector is really optimistic
... Show Full Article
MUNICH, Germany, Dec. 23 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
* * *
One in Four Companies in Germany Expect Business to Deteriorate in 2026
Around 26 percent of German companies expect their business to deteriorate in 2026, according to a recent ifo Institute Survey. 59 percent of the companies surveyed do not expect their economic situation to change in the coming year. Only 14.9 percent hope to see an improvement. "Companies remain very cautious - there is no spirit of optimism to be seen anywhere," says Klaus Wohlrabe, Head of Surveys at ifo. "Hardly any sector is really optimisticabout 2026."
The skepticism is spread across all sectors of the economy. In 2026, 55.3 percent of manufacturing companies expect the situation to remain unchanged, 26.5 percent expect business to deteriorate, and 18.2 percent expect it to improve. The electrical equipment sector stands out as positive, with the share of optimistic companies (27.1 percent) exceeding that of pessimistic companies (12.7 percent).
The picture is similar among service providers, with 62.8 percent expecting the situation to remain stable, 23.2 percent expecting an unfavorable development, and 14 percent hoping for an improvement. A particularly large number of pessimistic assessments come from the trade sector, with 32.5 percent expecting a deterioration.
The outlook in the construction industry is also subdued. 33.2 percent of companies expect a less favorable situation, 56.5 percent expect no change in 2026 and only 10.3 percent are hoping for better business. "The figures are surprising given that the sector could actually hope for the announced infrastructure package. It doesn't yet seem to be causing any euphoria," says Wohlrabe.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2025-12-22/one-four-companies-germany-expect-business-deteriorate-2026
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: Globalization Helps Women in the Economy
MUNICH, Germany, Dec. 23 (TNSxrep) -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
* * *
Globalization Helps Women in the Economy
Globalization promotes legal gender equality worldwide, especially in developing countries, according to a recent study by the ifo Institute. "We can show that globalization improves the legal equality of women and men. The more cross-border trade and cooperation there actually is, the less women are subject to legal discrimination," says ifo researcher Ramona Schmid.
The study data shows that an increase in the country globalization index by a third (which would
... Show Full Article
MUNICH, Germany, Dec. 23 (TNSxrep) -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
* * *
Globalization Helps Women in the Economy
Globalization promotes legal gender equality worldwide, especially in developing countries, according to a recent study by the ifo Institute. "We can show that globalization improves the legal equality of women and men. The more cross-border trade and cooperation there actually is, the less women are subject to legal discrimination," says ifo researcher Ramona Schmid.
The study data shows that an increase in the country globalization index by a third (which wouldmake Indonesia, for example, as internationally integrated as the US) would improve the legal equality of women and men by around 12 percent. This equality effect is strongest in poorer countries. The study also shows effects at an individual level. "People in more globalized countries more frequently hold views that support equality for women in areas such as the labor market, politics, and education," says Schmid.
The KOF Globalization Index is the basis for the degree of globalization. The degree of globalization is measured not only by institutional ties (e.g., international trade agreements), but also by the actual cross-border exchange of goods, capital, and services, for example. The basis for legal equality is the World Bank's Women, Business and Law (WBL) Index. Using data from the World Value Survey on over 300,000 people from around 100 countries, the study also shows how globalization affects personal attitudes.
* * *
More Information
2025 Article in Journal
Mehr Globalisierung, mehr Geschlechtergerechtigkeit?
Klaus Grundler, Niklas Potrafke, Ramona Schmid, Jan-Egbert Sturm
ifo Schnelldienst, 2025, 78, Nr. 12 46-50
Learn more (https://www.ifo.de/en/publications/2025/article-journal/mehr-globalisierung-mehr-geschlechtergerechtigkeit)
*
Podcast
ifo Podcast: Does Globalisation Make the World of Work Fairer for Women?
Globalisation is changing the world of work. But is it also making it fairer? Can women in particular hope for permanent employment, fairer pay and more opportunities for advancement? Or does global competition even mean that women have to work under even worse conditions? Is the pay gap between women and men narrowing or widening?
Learn more (https://www.ifo.de/en/ifo-podcast-globalisation-and-gender-equality)
* * *
Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2025-12-23/globalization-helps-women-economy
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to RealClearWorld: Financial Foundations Cannot Support Peace in Ukraine
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to RealClearWorld:
* * *
Financial Foundations Cannot Support Peace in Ukraine
By Daniel Kochis
The White House has made renewing trade ties between the United States and Russia a centerpiece of its latest Russia-Ukraine ceasefire proposal. But without robust security assurances for Ukraine, a peace deal that relies primarily on economic concessions to deter further Russian aggression will fail.
The proposal
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to RealClearWorld:
* * *
Financial Foundations Cannot Support Peace in Ukraine
By Daniel Kochis
The White House has made renewing trade ties between the United States and Russia a centerpiece of its latest Russia-Ukraine ceasefire proposal. But without robust security assurances for Ukraine, a peace deal that relies primarily on economic concessions to deter further Russian aggression will fail.
The proposalfor a trade restart involves a surge of U.S. capital and expertise to Russia (with a particular emphasis on rare earth and hydrocarbon extraction) and increased flows of Russian energy into Europe. Ukraine, for its part, would cede its crucial fortress belt in Donbas. And American firms would be allowed to utilize $200 billion in frozen Russian assets to stand up infrastructure projects in Ukraine, including data centers that would be powered by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
The business-forward theory currently animating this offer, wherein economic ties among Russia, Ukraine, and the West would undergird peace and bring the Kremlin back in line with international norms, recalls the Clinton administration's mistaken belief that trade with China would liberalize Beijing's regime and diminish the security concerns it posed.
Any agreement that brings Russia's economy in from the cold without requisite guarantees for Ukraine's future security therefore rests on a foundation of sand, undermining U.S. long term interests and leaves Ukraine in a gray zone wherein it is not actively fighting but always faces the threat of resumed hostilities.
As I wrote in August, improving trade ties with Russia is a U.S. concession, not a Russian one. Russia's sputtering, kleptocratic economy has little to offer America. But Moscow needs American finance and Western technology to revive its industry and unlock the value of its natural resources. Russia's diminished ability to export hydrocarbons, the result of sanctions and Ukrainian strikes targeting refineries, is one of the West's key levers against the Kremlin. Allowing Russia to rebuild its capacity to wage energy warfare against the U.S. and its allies in exchange for a fragile commitment to peace would be strategic malpractice. Therefore, the administration should approach any deal which rehabilitates Russia's energy exports with caution.
Further, Moscow knows that any deal it reaches with the White House would not be codified as a treaty and would therefore be subject to change based on political shifts in Washington. For businesses, the economic environment is equally uncertain. While a reopening of Russia's economy may tempt some Western firms and investors to seek to cash in on a risky market, these gains would likely prove ephemeral. And for the majority of Westerners, the specter of state appropriation, Moscow's chronic corruption, and the risk of reputational damage would be sufficient to deter investment in Russia.
Uncertainty would also significantly hamper Ukraine's reconstruction efforts. Western investors would be wary of becoming too entangled in a Ukrainian rump state that lacks the ability to defend itself from its aggressive neighbor and remains subject to Russian corruption, hybrid warfare, and influence operations. In such circumstances, young Ukrainians might decide to forgo starting families and businesses or opt to emigrate in pursuit of stability, depriving Ukraine of the people it needs most to successfully rebuild.
Finally, if the White House were to reverse its economic stance toward Russia, it would risk further exacerbating transatlantic relations. In no small part due to U.S. pressure, European nations have taken great pains to cut their reliance on Russian energy. Seeing Washington happily champion the spigot of Russian resources would no doubt rub many leaders on the continent the wrong way.
Meanwhile fresh inflows to the Kremlin's coffers would allow for its continued rearming and military recruitment. Putin will not allow its 1.5 million men under arms and heavily militarized economy to remain idle for long. Any Ukrainian reconstruction--like a significant concentration of data centers in Zaporizhzhia--might further incentivize a return to war--this time from inside Ukraine's best defensive lines.
The US and its allies would then have to face the stark reality of a stronger Russia, a weakened Ukraine, and growing divisions over whether to continue investing in defense.
Restoring business ties with Russia is fraught with peril and not a solid basis for agreement. The only realistic foundation for an agreement is to make renewed war unpalpable for the Kremlin. This means Ukraine needs to keep its best defensive lines in Donbas, and Western allies, with U.S. support, should continue to equip Kyiv's forces with the arms and intelligence that make Ukraine a hard target.
Economic incentives, contingent on Moscow's adherence to other terms, could be one part of a peace deal. But the U.S. cannot afford to learn the hard way once again that revanchist, ideological authoritarians like Vladimir Putin cannot be bought off with business alone.
Read in RealClearWorld (https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2025/12/22/financial_foundations_cannot_support_peace_in_ukraine_1154768.html).
* * *
Daniel Kochis is a senior fellow in the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/economics/financial-foundations-cannot-support-peace-ukraine-daniel-kochis
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center: Big Labor's 'Conservative Heart' Isn't Beating
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025:
* * *
Big Labor's "conservative heart" isn't beating
Some on the right gullibly believe Big Labor should be an ally in the battle against wokeism.
By Michael Watson
The nominal conservatives at American Compass have argued that Big Labor has a "conservative heart," and that strengthening unions would allow social policy to pursue the "common good," in the manner proposed by Pope Leo XIII more than a century ago. Noting the power of woke activists in the business world, some conservatives have
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025:
* * *
Big Labor's "conservative heart" isn't beating
Some on the right gullibly believe Big Labor should be an ally in the battle against wokeism.
By Michael Watson
The nominal conservatives at American Compass have argued that Big Labor has a "conservative heart," and that strengthening unions would allow social policy to pursue the "common good," in the manner proposed by Pope Leo XIII more than a century ago. Noting the power of woke activists in the business world, some conservatives havesimilarly speculated that perhaps labor unions could provide a counter-balance to what then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) called "management's latest 'woke' human resources fad."
But while it's tempting to buy what American Compass is selling, it's more compelling to suspect that they are just doing the bidding of their principal leftist funder, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Big Labor has already showed what its view of the "common good" is, and it looks not conservative at all.
Bargaining for the Common Good
As an example, there is "Bargaining for the Common Good," a project of the left-wing-to-radical-left Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE).
ACRE campaigns on left-wing economic policies such as "rent cancellation," student debt forgiveness, and banning mergers. It also has campaigned for social-media censorship to control allegedly racist content. The Bargaining for the Common Good website adds two more allied groups, both labor centers within major universities.
The "advisory committee" of activists affiliated with Bargaining for the Common Good is representative of Big Labor as it is, not as one presumes American Compass (if not its Hewlett funders) wish it would be. Sitting on the committee are representatives of the AFL-CIO labor federation and the Communications Workers of America; local union officials from the SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, and NEA; and activists with various labor-union-related advocacy groups.
Two members of the advisory committee are the leaders of America's two worst teachers' unions: Cecily Myart-Cruz of United Teachers Los Angeles (infamous for telling a journalist, on the record: "It's OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival.") and Stacy Davis Gates of the Chicago Teachers Union (which has been the subject of not just one but two InfluenceWatch Podcasts for its terribleness).
Bargaining for the Common Good's "Concrete Examples of Bargaining for the Common Good" contains dozens of examples of ridiculous union demands for non-economic leftist dreck. Defunding or refusing to cooperate with the police is repeatedly demanded. Unions demand diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings and mandatory diversity training. Resistance to immigration enforcement is also demanded.
But all that is pretty much par for the course with contemporary Big Labor. Other demands are even more outlandish, and show just how Everything Leftist the Big Labor vision of "common good" is.
The group helpfully lays out model negotiating demands that various unions have made. They are--no prizes for guessing--totally aligned with Everything Leftism on issue areas including race, education, immigration, housing, "climate justice," finance, "public services," and privatization.
Other Big Labor demands
Bargaining for the Common Good's agenda isn't theoretical. It is put into practice by government worker unions.
In Maryland, the Prince George's County Education Association (PGCEA) demanded that the Washington, D.C. suburb "endorse and encourage teachers and students to participate in the Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools." It affirmed, "The thirteen guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement highlighted during this week are a means of challenging the insidious legacy of institutionalized racism and oppression that has plagued the United States since its founding." The "thirteen guiding principles" are firmly leftist, and direct "fostering a queer-affirming network," "embracing and making space for trans siblings," and "disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure," among other acts.
SEIU Florida Public Services Union (Local 8) is active in numerous Florida localities. Despite the relative hostility of its state to leftism and government worker unionism, Local 8 demands the socialist workers' paradise. It has demanded "that the city and state stop providing subsidies to companies that rely on fossil fuels as a core component of their business model," which is just the classic watermelon-environmentalism that most American unions endorse.
More ironic is this Local 8 demand: "We demand that the municipality creates its own micro-currency, which can only be spent at local businesses. This currency would comprise a small portion of every public employee's paycheck." Yes, you read that right: Big Labor here endorses payment in scrip, though it stops just shy of endorsing the "company store."
SEIU Local 26 in Minnesota demanded that US Bank "restart remittances to Somalia," which is ironic given recent revelations of massive frauds against the Minnesota government by members of the state's large Somali diaspora.
Health Professionals and Allied Employees, a health-care-sector union in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, demanded that its hospital employer "not sell any of its patients' medical debt to third-party debt-collection agencies."
American Federation of Teachers Local 59 in Minneapolis demanded its district employer "no longer purchase products made by companies owned by Koch Industries," an act of naked partisan discrimination by a municipality.
This list is not exhaustive.
Lessons
The repeated lesson of these examinations of unions' behavior is clear: Big Labor does not want to be a (small-c) conservative countervailing force against the wild social whims of the professional managerial class in business and government. Instead, as Biden administration Acting Labor Secretary and now-Century Foundation scholar Julie Su wrote long before becoming a de facto labor union organizer inside the federal government, "We build critical coalitions not only because of the enhanced potential for favorable outcomes, but also because the process of coalition-building itself sometimes changes each of us."
The critical race theory, the radical environmentalism, the Marxist socialism: That is the point of labor organizing "for the common good." Conservatives should recognize that (as they once did), because Big Labor's supposedly "conservative heart" isn't beating.
* * *
Michael Watson
Michael is Research Director for Capital Research Center and serves as the managing editor for InfluenceWatch.
* * *
Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/big-labors-conservative-heart-isnt-beating/
[Category: ThinkTank]
