Julius Krein Left Wall Street to Build a Journal for America’s Next Ideology

Every three months, the magazine arrives in the mailboxes of a relative handful of America’s economic and intellectual elite—a self-selected circle of people who enjoy curling up with a 250-page journal whose cover is adorned with the names of its contributors in black type.

Its anodyne title is American Affairs, and its origins are on the political right. But inside, you might read Slavoj Žižek, the radical Marxist thinker and cultural critic, exploring censorship and the “Me Too” movement through the comedic works of the classic Hollywood filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch. Or a business consultant and a money manager calling for an end to the “hoarding economy,” in which the wealthy accumulate riches and power at the expense of the middle class. On the journal’s website, left-leaning antitrust activist Matt Stoller explores how corporate monopolies bully and humiliate ordinary Americans, with everything from long customer-service wait times to employee non-compete clauses.