Liberalism, a signature initiative of the West, is in crisis right now. The challenge comes from within Western society. Academic discourse on the subject, like its divisive politics, is being debated in stark terms: liberalism has failed, declares Deneen, rather gleefully; liberalism can and will reform, and regenerate itself, as it has done before, claims Wooldridge. Both, however, agree that liberalism is in crisis because of its own excesses, and an ideological reset is necessary to restore citizens’ confidence in electoral politics, governance, and economics.
According to Deneen, liberalism failed because it succeeded. It did not fall short of its ideals; it unfolded in its true colours and has outlived its relevance. Liberalism is a political philosophy woven around a peculiar interpretation of human nature and society. It views the individual as an autonomous unit with inherent rights (with little emphasis on duties). The autonomous individual has inalienable rights against the institutions—family, state, etc.—but the institutions cannot assert ‘inalienable rights’ against the individual. Community and family are secondary; the individual is primary. The individual is to be studied independently of the actual social context within which human beings find meaning. The obvious dual praxis between society and individual is ignored, exalting the individual and dissolving the family and the community. As the community weakened, the state expanded to perform the functions of family, neighbourhood, and religious institutions, with one difference: the state is impersonal and amorphous, while the community was personal.
Liberalism was premised upon a limited government, freedom of choice, and the liberation of the individual from arbitrary control. Deneen examines Why Liberalism Failed against the evolution of government, economics, education, science, and technology, and shows how “the vehicles of our liberation have become iron cages of our captivity.” The relentless expansion of government under the ascending liberal ethos has created “a kind of aristocracy” even “more pernicious” than the one it promised to replace. There is “nearly complete dissociation of the governing class from a citizenry” that has no meaningful citizenship. There are “progressive liberals” who want active state intervention and control over social and economic affairs to ensure “public welfare”; and there are “conservative liberals” who want less government, a market-driven economy, and family values. Despite apparent mutually opposite positions, the two end up reinforcing each other: the conservatives are globalists, creating economic inequality, and the progressives promote statism while preaching individualism.
According to Deneen, liberalism failed because it succeeded – it did not fall short of its ideals; but unfolded in its true colours and has outlived its relevance
Progressives and conservatives alike advanced liberalism, and both “undermined the realization of its stated commitments.” Liberalism has a faulty notion of anthropological individualism, which sees the individual without the familial and social context wherein the individual lives his life and derives meaning. This dichotomy makes liberalism anticultural, as organic social relations of family, neighbourhood, church, and school are replaced by “the cold, bureaucratic, and mechanized world” where social norms and customs are hollowed out in favour of legal codes. Liberalism's cardinal sin is “its incapacity to foster self-governance”, where “voluntary self-restraint is almost unheard of”.
The free-market economy has turned citizens into “consumers”, creating economic anxiety and widening inequality in wealth distribution. The education system is “indoctrinated to embrace” a politico-economic system that the students “neither believe in nor trust”. Education aims at creating “employable” individuals “concerned exclusively with money making and a life of work”. Science and technology were supposed to conquer nature and use its secrets to serve humanity in the advancement of civilisational goals. Instead, science and technology have transformed human beings and their social relationships, making us into “separate, autonomous, nonrelational selves replete with rights and defined by our liberty, but insecure, powerless, afraid and alone.”
Reading Deneen sometimes feels as if we are hearing echoes of Allama Iqbal’s critique of Western civilisation, or even Syed Maududi’s condemnation of alienation and hedonism in these societies. “The end of liberalism is in sight” and is likely to degenerate either into an “administrative state run by a small minority who increasingly disdain democracy" or turn into a “form of populist nationalist authoritarian” state.
In the concluding chapter, Deneen is kind enough to say “the achievements of liberalism must be acknowledged” and no effort be made to “return to a pre-liberal age”. He wants “to foster new forms of culture, household economics, and polis life”. He sees the roots of “liberty, equality, dignity, justice, constitutionalism” in “classical and Christian traditions.” Liberalism’s “break with the past was founded on a false anthropology” which rejected the Christian understanding of human beings as fundamentally relational creatures, making human beings into contractual, social, political animals. This “false anthropology” is to be rejected, including “women’s liberation”, which “effectively puts women and men alike into a far more encompassing bondage”.
It is hard to dispute that modern liberal society is what T S Eliot called “The Waste Land”, where alienation, inequality, and statism are rife. What is equally difficult to appreciate is that liberalism alone cannot be held responsible for all the socio-political ills. The whole gamut of Western civilisation cannot be wrapped around the idea of liberalism. There are complex historical, economic, cultural, religious, technological, and even geo-political forces at play. The Renaissance, Reformation, capitalist mode of production, colonialism, industrialisation, nationalism, tech advancements, etc., were not caused by liberalism. This ideology mostly evolved only as a response to various situations that emerged over centuries. His denunciation of globalisation, multiculturalism, secularism, and yearning for the revival of Christian values is anachronistic.
This takes us to Adrian Wooldridge’s The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism. Liberalism started from without as a challenge to the status quo and progressed as a revolution. As it succeeded, liberalism became the new establishment, run by a privileged high-brow minority, who championed the cause of the disadvantaged but became gradually dissociated from the masses, with a kind of patronising attitude. Deneen argues in terms of philosophy and civilisation and questions its legitimacy. To him, liberalism is inherently flawed and its denouement inevitable. Wooldridge takes a historical approach and sees liberalism in crisis because it lost its original revolutionary spirit when it effectively challenged arbitrary state power, a coercive religious establishment, and landed aristocracy that inherited wealth without working for it.
“Liberalism is a set of solutions to ever changing problems. It is dynamic rather than dogmatic”. Wooldridge takes a broad historical perspective to demonstrate “the eternal values” of liberalism, and how it adapted itself to changing circumstances. Liberalism is “an argument not a catechism”; it’s a methodology, not a dogma. Liberalism stands for individual freedom, tolerance, difference of opinion, and division of power. Liberalism changed and adapted to the emergent circumstances without ever ceasing to be liberal. To begin with, liberalism challenged the arbitrary power of the state and religious coercion. Next, it tackled the socio-economic fallout of industrialisation. Reformist liberals questioned the concentration of wealth and private power through monopolies. The welfare state is also credited to the efforts of the liberals. This historical perspective demonstrates the adaptability and self-correction of liberalism.
The recent liberal era is, however, “an era of triumphalism and overreach”. The liberals cheered the deregulation of the financial system and globalisation, but failed to see how it would lead to unemployment, lower wages, and create resentment and distrust among the public. Triumphant liberals became the new establishment. Higher education, business and media corporations, well-funded think tanks, high-profile government positions as policymakers or advisors, even as social media influencers—the erstwhile revolutionary liberals turned into the new elite; the defenders and beneficiaries of the status quo.
The rise of populist regimes from the US to Europe, to India, with overt authoritarianism is a vote of no confidence in the liberal ethos. Deneen sees this popular discontent as the “denouement” of liberalism, and Wooldridge, relying on historical analysis, sees it as a new challenge to reform and reinvigorate liberalism. “Globalization and its Discontents” must be addressed seriously and not dismissed derisively. Liberals failed themselves here. When Trump campaigned against globalisation and voiced the discontent of its affectees, Hillary Clinton derisively called his supporters “the basket of deplorables”. She paid dearly for this misstep at the hustings. COVID and its aftermath helped erode trust in the institutions and expert opinion even further. Globalisation and COVID jolted American society, making it easy for populist forces to surge. The resultant socio-economic insecurity, unchecked immigration, rising prices, widening income inequality, declining or stagnant wages, and cultural dislocation created a groundswell, of which the liberal elite remained oblivious.
The books present two opposite perspectives on contemporary intellectual discourse in Western societies, yet surprisingly, there are many points of agreement between them. They agree on widening economic inequality, concentration of power, lack of public trust in state institutions, narrowing focus in higher education, lack of focus on public good and liberal arts in education, technological disruption, excessive individualism, identity politics, and divisive politics with no middle point of agreement.
They disagree on what caused this crisis; for Deneen it is liberalism itself, for Wooldridge it happened because the liberals lost their traditional ability of adaptability and reform under changing circumstances. Liberty, the basic tenet of liberalism: Deneen places less emphasis on the individual and more on the community of which the individual is a part, liberty also means self-governance and self-control. Wooldridge is critical of “excessive individualism” leading to identity politics, yet the individual remains central to him. One question that escapes them is where to strike a balance between the individual and the community. There is no clear, satisfactory answer to that question.
Modern political thought and practice are defined by liberal ethos. Liberalism is not a monolithic political theory, as Deneen treats it. Liberal thinkers disagree on so many points, and liberal philosophy has adapted itself to changed circumstances all along. Deneen foresees “a viable postliberal political theory” based on “different anthropological assumptions”. He celebrates human “ability to imagine and build liberty after liberalism”. There is no clear answer to what those “different anthropological assumptions” would be and how to achieve his version of “liberty after liberalism.”
The final question is what is the alternative to liberalism? Populist authoritarianism under strongmen? Anti-liberals don’t want this, nor do they offer any workable solution to the issue. “The only way forward is to fix liberalism”. As a first step, liberalism must get rid of its “extremism” as preached by the neoliberals, liberal internationalists, and progressive liberals. Liberalism must return to its original ideal of restraining power, meritocracy, toleration of diverse opinions, pluralism, individualism, and privacy. “Liberalism is more than freedom of speech or formal division of power. It is about freedom of debate.”
It is safe to say that liberalism, despite its current afflictions, is not dying. Whatever comes next, it’ll be built on the liberal foundations with a structure modified according to the new requirements.