In tandem from 4000BC Sumeria onward? — Vera Mont

An eminently liberal idea: that capitalism is as old as civilization itself :lol:

No, it wasn't disrespect — Vera Mont

Yeah, it really now seems that it was.

I apologize. If it seems that way, my feeble attempt to present a bigger context was inadequate.

:cool: Crossed wires or something

Very probably. It's a vast, vague, fraught subject.
I wasn't trying to say anything more than this observation:
In the historical sense, both profit-commerce and liberal ideas have been around since the dawn of civilization, so it's hardly surprising that both accompanied the British (French, Spanish and Portuguese) colonists to the Americas. By the the time Rousseau was expounding on the rights of man, colonialism, white supremacy and the privilege of the owner class was deeply embedded in western culture. (not so much in Native cultures - but they were not 'civilized') Liberal ideals were expressed but not enshrined in the constitution: they crept in, one by one, as amendments - against stiff opposition. The rift between conservative and liberal factions was inescapable from the first European ship landing.

Modern social justice liberalism, and perhaps Nussbaum and Rawls, might represent a late twentieth century patch-up job prompted by the realization that capitalism, the supposed vehicle of liberty, doesn't actually deliver it (as if nobody had pointed this out before). — Jamal

Tim's piece doesn't much differentiate liberalism from capitalism. Outside the USA socialist policy has a greater standing and liberalism can be considered a counterpoint to capitalism, a way of constraining capitalist excess. Rawls, Nussbaum, Sen and so on can be read as offering a corrective to a particular fusion of liberalism and capitalism, dominant especially in the postwar United States. That fusion took liberty to mean market freedom and little else.

Tim does not make this differentiation, blurring liberalism and capitalism into one. The result is that all critiques—of consumerism, of commodified sex, of self-alienation—get pinned on liberalism alone. That’s too easy.

Outside the USA liberalism has serves against capitalism, curbing its excesses, defend individual dignity, and secure public goods. Nussbaum’s capabilities theory, for instance, expands on this tradition. So does Rawls, who insists on distributive justice as a precondition of liberty. These are not afterthoughts. They are integral to their conception of the liberal project.

In that way the OP is somewhat parochial.

There's an excellent account of liberalism to be found in the work of the Professor of Politics and Philosophy at The University of Sydney, Alexander Lefebvre. Lefebvre shows how liberal ideas developed as a way of coordinating individual needs and wants, and how much of the general ethic underpinning our interpersonal relations is implicitly liberal. Liberalism is a practical ethic for life among equals. It's embedded in how we relate; in respect, consent, reciprocity. We live in liberal ways, often without noticing. Liberalism isn’t just a political system or economic ideology. It’s also a moral culture—something ordinary, even beautiful, in how we deal with one another. Tim’s piece doesn’t engage with this at all. His liberalism is faceless: pure abstraction, detached from lived experience.

@Jamal, the principles of this very forum are liberal.

There’s something quietly aristocratic in Tim’s writing. The lofty tone and heavy references are aimed at readers already in agreement. Event the chosen nom de plume... It gives the impression that liberalism is too ordinary, too flat, too widely shared to be worth much. But that’s not a criticism of its failures, so much as of its popularity. Tim seems to want a world reserved for the few who can feel deeply and read Badiou. That’s not a real alternative to liberalism. It’s a retreat.



Some of Alexander Lefebvre's ideas:

Are we all liberals at heart? (podcast)

Sure, many critiques see liberalism as spiritually thin. But Tim doesn’t respond so much as revel in that thinness. In contrast, we have the example of Nussbaum, who gives liberalism depth without slipping into authoritarianism. Her capabilities approach is rich in human flourishing—liberal, but not empty.

Tim wants more than pluralism. He wants a public affirmation of the good. But the presumption here is that we agree as to what is good. liberalism resists that—not because it’s relativist, but because it rejects coercion. That refusal isn’t decadence. It’s a defense of freedom.

The charge that liberalism is ideology masquerading as neutrality misunderstands liberalism at its best. Rawls, Nussbaum, and others are aware of its historical and moral commitments. That’s why they build in checks—public reason, overlapping consensus, plural foundations. Of course liberalism is an ideology - sing it from the battlements rather than pretend to neutrality.

Finally, and again, Tim conflates liberalism with capitalism. But that’s a local confusion. Elsewhere—think Lefebvre—liberalism restrains the market rather than sanctifying it. If Tim wants a richer alternative, he has to name it. Gestures to Augustine and Han don’t yet make a politics.

:100: :up:

There's an excellent account of liberalism to be found in the work of the Professor of Politics and Philosophy at The University of Sydney, Alexander Lefebvre. Lefebvre shows how liberal ideas developed as a way of coordinating individual needs and wants, and how much of the general ethic underpinning our interpersonal relations is implicitly liberal. Liberalism is a practical ethic for life among equals. It's embedded in how we relate; in respect, consent, reciprocity. We live in liberal ways, often without noticing. Liberalism isn’t just a political system or economic ideology. It’s also a moral culture—something ordinary, even beautiful, in how we deal with one another. — Banno

Isn't there a tension between liberalism and classical philosophy, in that classical philosophy is concerned with the pursuit and cultivation of wisdom—something that not everyone will possess, or even understand? (Isn’t that why Karl Popper denounced Plato as an enemy of the Open Society?) And isn’t that also why many defenders of classical wisdom traditions today tend to be politically conservative—sometimes even reactionary?

David Loy, whom I quoted earlier, speaks of the "identity crisis" left in the wake of modernity’s disenchantment. In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre diagnosed something similar when he argued that we have inherited fragments of moral language—like “rights,” “duty,” and “freedom”—but have lost the coherent framework that once underwrote them. In both cases, the issue isn’t just psychological, but cultural: we’ve lost the shared vision of what it means to live well. But that's also an inevitable consequence of individualism, as in that framework, the individual conscience becomes the sole arbiter of value (something which itself was originally derived from Christian principles).

So - moral questions become matters of individual conscience, and the only shared basis for truth tends to be scientific analysis. Values tend to be internalised or subjectivized. But science, while enormously effective at explaining and predicting phenomena, cannot itself provide a normative framework. It tells us what is - at least in the sense validated by empirical observation - but not what ought to be (as David Hume so astutely observed.)

Secularism, as a political arrangement, is well-suited for managing pluralism and addressing practical concerns. But the deeper values implicit in liberalism—respect, consent, reciprocity—were originally grounded in religious and philosophical traditions, specifically Christian in nature. With the decline of those traditions, the ultimate grounding for those values is no longer widely accepted. As a result, secularism is often mistaken for a complete worldview, rather than what it truly is: a framework.

That’s not to dismiss the achievements of liberal modernity. But it does raise the question: what moral or metaphysical commitments must underlie a free and humane society, if it is to remain coherent and whole?

See also Does Reason Know what it is Missing?, a brief discussion of Habermas' late-life reconsideration of the role of religion in public life.

It is ironic that the very totalitarianism liberalism is accused of would seem to be the reality of any state system that would seek to externally enforce the virtue of its citizenry in a nonliberal society.

Is liberalism perfect, perhaps not, but as Vera Mont pointed out, any lack in a liberal society is a consequence of the vices of its citizenry, not a systemic failure of the liberal nature of that society.

As Banno said, what ought the alternative to liberalism be? Does a pluralistic society have an alternative available?

I think the objections that have been forwarded may be leveled against the culture or economic system, not liberalism. After all, cannnot the objections against industrialization or against the discontent toward capitalism, or against technocracy also remain prevalent in a nonliberal or facist regime?

What a great discussion. I think I said that about the last one too. While reading it I said to myself "So this is what philosophy is supposed to be like." I can't begin to give the kind of in-depth treatment the other participants have, but I do have some thoughts, many or all of which have been commented on by others here.

As I see it, the minimum requirements of a just society, especially one in a world as crowded and bounded as ours is today, include the following - a decent, secure life with adequate housing, nutrition, education, medical care, and opportunities for self-expression. A safe place for our children. You've added to that, if I may over-simplify, an obligation to provide a place for the sacred, virtue, and meaning. I don't disagree with that at all. I feel it myself. My thoughts...

Here's a quote from C.S. Lewis I like.

To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit. — C.S. Lewis

It's a cliche I guess, but the pre-modern, pre-liberal world was a place of widespread war, empire-building, slavery, genocide, mass-murder of non-combatants, oppression, subjugation... Was there any colonialism worse than the Mongol invasion of western Asia and Europe. Of course there have been many modern examples of the same kinds of things. There was never a golden age of the sacred and traditional.

I'll start with this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... — US Declaration of Independence

Am I right in assuming this is an expression of liberal values? Yes, I recognize its hypocrisy. Although it may seem like it, it is not a call for free expression "founded on the principle of self-interest, which is posited as most basic." Instead, it is a statement of obligation to treat all people equally. Here, equality doesn't mean everyone is treated the same. It means everyone is endowed with the same rights.

It seems to me that, short of nuclear war, we are stuck with the modern or post-modern world we have now or whatever comes next. How can we bring more of a sense of the sacred into this world as it is?

No, for most of us, kindness - what we are calling altruism here - is not self-centered. It is an expression of compassion, empathy, and fellow-feeling. It comes from our hearts.

No, a focus on personal morality is not something modern. This is from Chuang Tzu, written about 2,300 years ago.

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more. — Chuang Tzu - Ziporyn translation

There's certainly more to say, but that's enough.

But the deeper values implicit in liberalism—respect, consent, reciprocity—were originally grounded in religious and philosophical traditions, specifically Christian in nature. — Wayfarer

Where?
Anyway, Christianity is a latecomer in civilization. Very little in it is original. Previous organized religions were based on hierarchy and obedience. So was Christianity, once the pesky Radical had been killed and mythologized and the hierarchy of priests and kings (by divine right) organized it.

That’s not to dismiss the achievements of liberal modernity. But it does raise the question: what moral or metaphysical commitments must underlie a free and humane society, if it is to remain coherent and whole? — Wayfarer

Nothing metaphysical is required. What do social animals need? How can a society of animals get the maximum portion of what they need with a minimum of suffering? The moral commitment is the same as in Christianity: Do onto others as you would have them do onto you, and communism: To each according to need from each according to ability. Neither can be achieved, or even approached, in the overpopulated, god-ridden, money-driven, propagandized societies of today. All liberals can do is attempt to mitigate the worst outcomes. In some countries they do fairly well; in others, they fail, get knocked on their keesters, get up and try again. And again, and again....

What do social animals need? How can a society of animals get the maximum portion of what they need with a minimum of suffering? — Vera Mont

A poignant illustration of the way in which popular Darwinism has given us something to live down to.

A poignant illustration of the way in which popular Darwinism has given us something to live down to. — Wayfarer

From where? Have all of Jesus' sheep been adequately fed? Are they all safe and warm? Once that's done, you can live up to the next thing.

The idea inherent in all idealistic metaphysics–that the world is in some sense a product of the mind–is thus turned into its opposite: the mind is a product of the world, of the processes of nature. Hence, according to popular Darwinism, nature does not need philosophy to speak for her: nature, a powerful and venerable deity, is ruler rather than ruled. Darwinism ultimately comes to the aid of rebellious nature in undermining any doctrine, theological or philosophical, that regards nature itself as expressing a truth that reason must try to recognize. The equating of reason with nature, by which reason is debased and raw nature exalted, is a typical fallacy of the era of rationalization. Instrumentalized subjective reason either eulogizes nature as pure vitality or disparages it as brute force, instead of treating it as a text to be interpreted by philosophy that, if rightly read, will unfold a tale of infinite suffering. Without committing the fallacy of equating nature and reason, mankind must try to reconcile the two.

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity.

The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason, Pp 10-11

Do onto others as you would have them do onto you, and communism: To each according to need from each according to ability. Neither can be achieved, or even approached, in the overpopulated, god-ridden, money-driven, propagandized societies of today. All liberals can do is attempt to mitigate the worst outcomes. In some countries they do fairly well; in others, they fail, get knocked on their keesters, get up and try again. And again, and again.... — Vera Mont

:fire: :up:

That sort of disambiguation is helpful, given how nebulous the term "liberalism" can be. Some people associate everything they love with liberalism, and others associate everything they hate with liberalism. The first group argues for liberalism by arguing for something they love; the second group argues against liberalism by arguing against something they hate; and no one seems to be talking about the same thing.

Not a word about colonialism or slavery, class hierarchy or capital, unlewss all enterprise is capitalistic. — Vera Mont

It doesn't say "enterprise," it says "free enterprise" (i.e. a form or aspect of capitalism). Your own definition disagrees with you, and you fudged it by omitting the word "free."

Free Enterprise -

an economic system in which private businesses compete with each other to sell goods and services in order to make a profit, and in which government control is limited to protecting the public and running the economy — Cambridge Dictionary

Yes, I've noticed, but isn't it just that in North America liberalism commonly, in popular discourse, refers to social/social justice liberalism, described in the "New Liberalism" section of the SEP article?

(Those who associate social liberalism with the political Left might see these usages as completely divergent, but I think there's continuity enough that continuing to group them under the liberal banner makes sense)

the principles of this very forum are liberal — Banno

Yes, I'm not anti-liberal simpliciter. I'm an immanent liberal-sceptic.

- Yeah, I think that sums it up in a nutshell. :up:

I'm an immanent liberal-sceptic. — Jamal

:wink:

As should we all be.

But babes and bathwater. Liberalism is in the end a solution to the problem of how we get on without hitting each other. And again, what alternative is on offer?

Isn't there a tension between liberalism and classical philosophy, in that classical philosophy is concerned with the pursuit and cultivation of wisdom—something that not everyone will possess, or even understand? — Wayfarer

Sure, you can buy into the elitism if you like. But let’s be honest—who exactly counts as “the wise”? I was at a VAD (Voluntary Assisted Dying) forum today where a prominent academic summed up the anti-VAD stance as: “I wouldn’t do it, so you can’t either.” Are they the wise? Is that wisdom? Are you comfortable having "the wise" tell you what you can and can't do? With them enforcing their view through state-sanctioned violence? If classical philosophy leads us there, maybe we should be wary of where it's pointing.

But I do not think that is where "classical philosophy" does point - as if "classical philosophy" were monolithic. There’s more in the tradition than just Plato and his philosopher-kings. There are also the the Epicureans, the Stoics, the sceptics. Classical thought doesn’t settle the question—it opens it.

Are you comfortable having "the wise" tell you what you can and can't do? With them enforcing their view through state-sanctioned violence? — Banno

I agree that liberalism is preferable to collectivism or theocratic culture where values are imposed. But at the same time, there is a kind of hollowness at the core of the secular culture with which liberalism is entwined. — Wayfarer

Classical thought doesn’t settle the question—it opens it. — Banno

Agree. But it also emphatically does not proclaim that every philosophical opinion is of equal worth, on the basis that somebody thinks so.

Where this is pointing, for me, is that secular culture does indeed provide an optimal framework for today's culture. As Lefevbre says, and I enjoyed that lecture. But it is only a framework, and many of its assumed values - many of which most of us take for granted - need to be questioned.

Incidentally - just what is the etymology of 'aristos'?

Just listened to the rest of that lecture. I liked his style and his 17 points - the last of which is 'redemption'! I still think it harks back to its Christian roots. As the early Church used to say of Plato and Socrates, they were 'Christians before Christ.' I definitely don't agree with the American conservative criticisms of liberalism. They tend towards fascism as is amply illustrated by their current politics (current NY Times headline is 'U.S. to Freeze $2.2 Billion for Harvard After It Defies Trump'. The lecture mentions John Rawls. He'd be turning in his grave.)

// He mentions Pierre Hadot (not by name, but that's who he means)! He's won me over. //

That sort of disambiguation is helpful, given how nebulous the term "liberalism" can be. Some people associate everything they love with liberalism, and others associate everything they hate with liberalism. — Leontiskos

That's for sure.

Outside the USA socialist policy has a greater standing and liberalism can be considered a counterpoint to capitalism, a way of constraining capitalist excess. — Banno

Outside the USA liberalism has serves against capitalism, curbing its excesses, defend individual dignity, and secure public goods. — Banno

I think you have it exactly backwards here. In Europe liberalism is more about less government intervention, more market freedom, less welfare state etc etc... a bit like the libertarians in the US but less extreme. Typically they find themselves in opposition to and to the right of Christian- and Social-democrats who do favour a larger role for the state.

US 'liberals' on the other hand are typically the party that favours more government intervention, as opposed to the Republicans and Libertarians. They have more in common with Social-democrats in Europe, but less social or less to the left.

Historically liberalism was the ideology of the capitalists class, of the bourgeoisie who wanted to take power from the aristocracy and the clergy... and it seems they have largely succeeded as the aristocracy and the clergy have very little power left in the West.

Liberalism has been mainly about "freedom from", whereas a more sensible way to look at freedom is as "freedom to" as Timothy Snyder argues is his book 'On freedom'.

A pessimistic view is that capitalists need freedom to operate, so they champion liberalism because it diminishes religious and governmental interference. — frank

Liberalism does not just entail economic freedom but also personal freedom. If the capitalist champions freedom from religion and government for the purpose of making money but is then on the side of religion when comes to gay marriage, then they aren't really liberals, are they?

Democrats and Republicans hold both liberal and authoritarian views depending on the issue. The Libertarian is the only one that holds liberal positions on most, if not all, issues. That's the difference.

So if you hold a liberal position on one issue but not others, please do not call yourself "liberal". You would be a Democrat or Republbican, not liberal.

Yes, but you can support liberal values and be opposed to murder. Liberalism isn't about letting people do whatever they want.

I didn't think to clarify "liberalism." Maybe because I was thinking more in terms of contemporary economics and political science instead of political philosophy. When Fukuyama says "modern liberal states," for instance, he means wealthy market economies with welfare states and representative government (i.e. all current developed states). When Deneen speaks of "liberalism" in his "Why Liberalism Failed?" he means all developed states and the globalized economy they oversee.

The terms are not synonymous, of course, because you can have various degrees of market liberalization without political liberalization, and because political philosophy has an older use for the term "liberalism," but they are also not wholly different things because they have merged into a single global force through globalization. The apologists for contemporary liberalism I had in mind (e.g. Friedman, Fukuyama) are generally champions of the status quo of globalization, generally only recommending tweaks in terms of regulation, distribution or consumption, etc. I don't think this makes them outliers though. Social Democratic parties, the far reaches of the still "mainstream" left and right, generally hold to the core convictions of modern liberalism, which includes a welfare state (of varying size of course), market economy, and a certain vision of education and freedom.

I would just point out that every modern liberal state also has a capitalist, market economy. This holds historically as well. Indeed, it's hard to imagine how system could be "liberal" without a market economy. For instance, no communist states politically liberalized without also switching to a market economy as part of the process, and this seems true for other types of authoritarianism too. Market economies do not imply political liberalization, but political liberalization seems to historically have always involved market liberalization, and market liberalization is wed to political liberalization because of the particular vision of freedom and human nature that undergirds liberalism.

So in response to: "that's not liberalism's problem, it's consumerism, capitalism, secularism, individualism, etc." I would reply, "give me one example where the two don't go together?"

Perhaps I have missed one, but if all people can point to is unimplemented theory then I would chalk such an objection into the same bucket as "real communism as never been tried." Maybe that's the objection? "Real liberalism has never been tried." But it certainly seems to have been tried, so if it always fails and degenerates into consumerism, isn't that open to critique?

Anyhow, I think it's sort of moot point because liberalism is now very much a global order due to globalization. A good critique of liberalism in its own terms is that it didn't so much improve things for the lower classes as cause countries to export their lower classes abroad. And can anyone name one liberal state that hasn't taken advantage of this "race to the bottom," where a great deal of goods aren't produced by people in the developing world under extremely poor standards?

As I wrote earlier, liberalism only looks so good under the rubric of Rawls' veil of ignorance because part of the calculus here is that the peasants laboring under the medieval nobility, or the tenant farmers who lived contemporaneously with Jane Austen's landed gentry are considered "part of that elite's society," whereas, through a sort of neat accounting trick, we have decided that the slaves mining metals for Westerner's phones, the child laborer who sewed their clothes in a sweltering Dhaka factory, or the migrant workers who picked their food out in the fields, are each not "part of the Westerner's society." Hence, we might think that are least some of the claims about "radical improvements for even the poorest" play too much off the accidents of national borders, and the way in which globalization has simply allowed modern liberal states to export most of its lower classes safely to the other side of national borders. Afterall, more people live as slaves today than in any prior epoch, and a great deal more in conditions that might be fairly deemed "wage slavery." Likewise, anyone who prioritizes animal well-being to any significant degree can hardly look at modern agriculture as much more than "hell on Earth."





That's fair, I didn't even write it as an OP, and I didn't really write it to make it clear that my interest was primarily not in "all critiques of liberalism," but rather the advocates of liberalism's general tendency to be blind to critiques that question whether or not liberalism's definition of freedom is adequate (as opposed to critiques that call into question whether or not liberalism delivers on freedom as liberalism itself defines freedom; the second sort of critique essentially accepts the premises of liberalism).

Many of the critiques of liberalism put forth by posters in this thread are of the latter sort. That doesn't mean they are not good critiques, just that they are not what I was thinking of.


So, I can make it more concrete.

Say we have a privileged, wealthy guy with a "good family" who cares for him. He has lots of opportunities. And he follows the middle to upper class dictum: "get good grades and wrack up accomplishments so you can go to a good college, and do the same there so you can get a good job, and then you can get a good job and do what you want."

He does this. No extraordinary evil befalls him. He has no extraordinary vices. Maybe he drinks or smokes pot a bit too much, or plays too many video games, or has a porn habit, or cannot get a girlfriend, or cannot keep to just one. Maybe not. Nothing out of the ordinary.

And he's miserable. He's prime bait for radical ideologies of one sort of another precisely because he "did everything he was told," and is miserable. This isn't an uncommon phenomena. That's sort of the recruiting mantra of radicals on the right and left, although it certainly helps if people struggle in the labor market or are "overeducated." We could imagine this sort of thing playing out across many gradations. It can even happen to the ultra wealthy (perhaps particularly to the ultra wealthy).

Here is Han's point: in the autoexploitative context of modern liberalism, this man's unhappiness is a personal failure. The self is a project, and it's happiness is a goal that has to be achieved as an accomplishment.

And there are lots of men and women who have encountered this sort of "personal failure." Millions it would seem. So the question is, at what point do we stop thinking this is an aggregate of millions of personal, individual failures and begin to say it is a systematic, social failure?

I am not saying society has a responsibility to make each individual happy. I am saying though that the goal should be a common good, and the goal of education should probably be "to help people live happy, virtuous, flourishing lives." But I don't think that's the goal of education under liberalism. It is, in theory: "enabling people to do what they want." These aren't the same thing (and in practice, the goal is often more: "supplying the labor force with workers and providing daycare so that children can be raised by strangers for greater economies of scale so that we get economic growth).

Deneen's critique, which I agree with in part, is that self-government at the social level requires self-government at the individual level. Liberalism doesn't foster the latter. Indeed, it does the opposite because of the way it interacts with capitalism and consumerism. But Deneen's point is that this isn't a bug. This is liberalism molding man into the very anthropology that it assumes for man, the disconnected individual of liberalism's pre-historical fantasy of the "state of nature." And I think there is a lot of overlap between what he identifies and Han's "achievement society."



Outside the US all the same complaints exist. Indeed, the situation re housing and long term underemployment is often considerably worse. I don't think you can just chalk it up to "one side of partisan politics just needs to win more." If the "wrong side" keeps winning, that's also a failure. All that sort of narrative leads to is the sort of moralizing manichean narratives you can already find in this thread (e.g. "the problem is the forces of evil keep corrupting things.)

As I said in the thread on the NHS:

I'm a bit skeptical of narratives that try to pin all these problems on just the (mis)rule of leaders on one side of the political spectrum. The problems being discussed (difficulty getting good jobs, huge numbers of applicants for each job, over qualified workers, unaffordable housing, low quality services, welfare expenses becoming unaffordable, [and we might add extreme angst over migration] etc.) are endemic to the West. You see the same sorts of complaints re Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, the US, etc. Yet different sides of the political spectrum have had very varying degrees of long term control across these different states.

Nor is it clear that things are better anywhere else. Housing is increasingly unaffordable in the US, yet it is one of the most affordable rental and ownership markets in the world. It's "hell" in Canada and the UK, yet income to rental/mortgage rates are actually a good deal worse in most of the developing world.

The problems over migration are particularly a failure of liberalism anthropology in that the entire idea of "replacement migration" assumes a view of humanity as atomized plug and play consumers/laborers.

Good read, Tim.

I’m against the idea that liberalism is the problem because I do not believe liberalism has really taken off in the first place. I believe that when the proponents of an ideology completely violate the root word of that ideology, they are merely nominal liberals, or otherwise not liberal. So with that I get to side-step the common criticisms of liberalism. Rather, the problem of liberalism is that it is not liberal, and it never was. It is, and always has been, illiberal. We saw this most recently and clearly during the previous pandemic, how quickly a self-proclaimed free country can turn into a totalitarian hellscape. But we’ve seen it in times of war or other moments where its reign is threatened by disorder and conflict or even contrary opinion.

The life of every individual who occupies space in a self-proclaimed liberal country is highly regulated from birth until death, from cradle until grave. I would argue that liberalism’s discontents are unhappy with what the individual has become with his decreasing margin of existence.

iIlliberalism has always been the dominant ideology. Any rare inroad to freedom was the mere concession of a far mightier and dominant love of manorial order that has reigned since the time of Rome and beyond. Even the communist and fascist revolutionaries built republics, and on the ruins of what was there before. Mixed constitutions, the rule of positive law, federal judiciaries, taxation, the political oligarchy we like to call representative democracy, clamoring for state rights rather than natural ones—this is not the project of liberalism and never has been.