Acemoglu’s working-class liberalism explains why mature democracies are losing legitimacy. Pakistan presents a harder problem: constitutional democracy, organised labour and local self-government were never allowed to create the social compact.
An illuminating essay by Shahid Sattar and Nadeem Ul Haque, "Elites, Tech, and Populism: The Implosion of Modern Liberalism", does what a worthwhile article should do: it opens a larger debate. Drawing on Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu’s new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, the authors argue that liberal democracy undermined itself by abandoning the economic and political foundations that once secured popular support.
The diagnosis travels only part of the way to Pakistan. Liberal democracy is imploding in some Western countries after ceasing to deliver shared prosperity. Pakistan’s problem is historically different. Constitutional democracy was repeatedly prevented from acquiring supremacy over concentrated power. Pakistan cannot restore a liberal order it never possessed; it must first construct one.
Acemoglu begins with the post-war democratic bargain. Industrial expansion created millions of reasonably paid jobs. Trade unions possessed bargaining power. Productivity gains were shared through wages, public education, healthcare, housing and social security. Citizens defended democratic institutions because those institutions appeared to defend them.
Automation, deindustrialisation, globalisation and financialisation eventually weakened this arrangement. Capital became more mobile, labour less organised and technology more capable of replacing routine work. A college-educated professional class gained influence while becoming socially detached from workers.
Progressive politics increasingly addressed culture and identity while economic insecurity deepened. Populists occupied the resulting space, identifying genuine grievances but directing them against manufactured enemies rather than concentrated economic power. This sequence cannot simply be transplanted to Pakistan.
Pakistan never experienced an extended period in which industrialisation, organised labour, universal public services and accountable government produced a durable democratic compact. It moved from colonial administration to a security-dominated state, interrupted constitutional rule, concentrated landownership, patronage capitalism and weak industrialisation.
Labour never obtained the collective power that underpinned twentieth-century social democracy. Pakistan’s crisis is not the destruction of a completed democratic bargain. The bargain was never allowed to emerge. The use of "elite" also needs greater precision. Acemoglu principally examines the post-industrial, college-educated elite of Western societies. Pakistan’s ruling configuration includes the security establishment, senior bureaucracy, landed and tribal power, dynastic political families, protected businesses, real-estate interests and externally supported technocratic networks.
These groups do not exercise equal influence. One institution has historically possessed disproportionate power over elections, government formation, national security and the permissible boundaries of political debate. Treating all these interests as a single elite obscures the hierarchy within elite capture. It also converts the "state" into an abstract culprit.
The state does not independently distribute land, guarantee returns or suppress participation. Identifiable institutions and organised interests make those decisions. The V-Dem Democracy Report 2026 places Pakistan among the world’s autocracies. Freedom House describes a multiparty system operating under enormous military influence over elections, government formation and policy. Pakistan is not merely a defective liberal democracy suffering economic dissatisfaction; it is a hybrid order in which elected authority remains structurally subordinate.
The debate also conflates political liberalism, constitutional democracy, neoliberal economics and progressive cultural politics. These are distinct. Pakistan has experienced privatisation without competitive markets, deregulation without equality before law, elections without civilian supremacy and welfare rhetoric without universal public services. Market-oriented policies can coexist comfortably with political authoritarianism, just as populist economic language can accompany coercive government.
Acemoglu’s criticism of identity politics requires similar modification. In Pakistan, Baloch, Pashtun, Sindhi, religious-minority, linguistic and gender claims frequently concern resources, physical security, representation and constitutional equality. They are not simply cultural distractions invented by educated progressives. Class and identity cannot be separated when a worker's economic condition is shaped by region, gender, language and access to state power.
Devolution is the strongest Pakistani implication of Acemoglu’s emphasis on community self-government, but local elections alone are insufficient. Without protected rights, fiscal equalisation, transparent procurement and independent audit, localism can reproduce feudal, sectarian or commercial domination at a smaller scale.
Article 140A of the Constitution must be enforced together with Provincial Finance Commissions, predictable transfers, municipal revenue powers and public access to budgets and contracts. Citizens should be able to shape schools, water, transport and policing without surrendering the fundamental rights that no local majority may lawfully remove.
Political parties cannot credibly serve this settlement while remaining hereditary electoral vehicles. Transparent financing, genuine internal elections and representation for workers, women, professionals and small entrepreneurs are essential. Otherwise demands for participation will continue to be channelled through leader worship, patronage or street mobilisation rather than durable institutions.
There is another difficulty in importing "working-class liberalism". Acemoglu defines the working class broadly as people dependent principally upon labour rather than inherited wealth or returns on capital. Almost the entire Pakistani population would qualify. The category becomes morally attractive but politically vague.
The Labour Force Survey 2024-25 shows that only 43.5 percent of employed persons are employees; 36.1 percent are own-account workers and 19.1 percent unpaid family helpers. This dispersed majority lacks organisations through which it can bargain. A Pakistani version must explain who will organise it: unions, cooperatives, municipalities, professional associations or democratised political parties.
Technology presents a related challenge. Pakistan is labour-abundant, but it is also chronically unproductive. Automation that removes dangerous work, improves quality, reduces energy use or enhances competitiveness cannot be opposed merely because it saves labour.
Acemoglu does not advocate freezing technology; his concern is automation without new human tasks. Pakistan needs worker-complementing technology that enables teachers, nurses, technicians, farmers and small businesses to perform more sophisticated work. Public procurement, research support, affordable credit and vocational education can influence that direction.
The digital threat is wider than corporate algorithms. State surveillance, censorship, internet shutdowns, organised propaganda and selective enforcement can damage democracy more directly than social-media recommendations. Technology policy must constrain public coercive power as well as private platforms. It must also protect privacy, competition and open access to information.
The economic prescription in the original essay—exports, competitive industry, modern agriculture, skills, entrepreneurship and affordable energy is desirable but incomplete. Every Pakistani policy document promises these objectives.
The real test is distributional: which protections will end, whose guaranteed returns will be renegotiated, which tax concessions will be withdrawn, and whether recipients of industrial support will accept measurable obligations concerning investment, employment, wages, productivity and value addition.
The official Tax Expenditure Statement records federal concessions of Rs. 2.353 trillion for FY2025. Fiscal operations for 2025-26 show markup payments equal to 5.5 percent of GDP while development expenditure and net lending amounted to only 2.6 percent. These figures reveal a state that services accumulated claims before building human capability.
A credible democratic compact requires five enforceable changes. Civilian constitutional supremacy and fundamental rights must become non-negotiable. Article 140A must be implemented through regular local elections, Provincial Finance Commissions, municipal taxation and transparent local budgets.
Every tax expenditure, subsidy, land allocation and guaranteed return should be disclosed beneficiary-wise. Industrial support must be temporary, transparent and conditional upon performance. Universal education, healthcare, social insurance and freedom of association must be treated as productive infrastructure rather than charity.
Western liberalism is endangered because it ceased to disperse economic power. Pakistan is endangered because it never dispersed coercive, political or economic power. Jobs, exports and technology matter, but none can substitute for transforming subjects, clients and beneficiaries into equal citizens. Liberal democracy here did not implode. It was prevented from taking root.