by Regular readers know (recall) that I believe the second wave of liberalism+ has ended and that it may not survive the present darkness. (In brief: first long wave: 1776-1914; second wave: 1945-2009. Some readers will say, good riddance, and to you I say, I hope you do better.) The present crisis is much visible in our daily politics (and headlines), shifting public norms, and the rising confidence of regimes and thinkers who, again, openly espouse hierarchical, ethnic, zero-sum, eugenic, and violent solutions to present conflicts.* While there is much urgent, practical work to be done to salvage institutions that may be at the core of a renewal, some reflection away from daily politics is also required. This also requires attention not just because we need polities that make minimal
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Regular readers know (recall) that I believe the second wave of liberalism+ has ended and that it may not survive the present darkness. (In brief: first long wave: 1776-1914; second wave: 1945-2009. Some readers will say, good riddance, and to you I say, I hope you do better.) The present crisis is much visible in our daily politics (and headlines), shifting public norms, and the rising confidence of regimes and thinkers who, again, openly espouse hierarchical, ethnic, zero-sum, eugenic, and violent solutions to present conflicts.* While there is much urgent, practical work to be done to salvage institutions that may be at the core of a renewal, some reflection away from daily politics is also required. This also requires attention not just because we need polities that make minimal decency possible,** but also because we need (or so I assume today) properly functioning liberal institutions to meet humanity's great challenges -- environmental disaster, genetic engineering, ethnic conflict, -- ahead. To reflect one our shortcomings is a means of being liberal as well as a path toward its possible renewal. This is the second post (recall) in an open-ended series (see also here, here, and here).
What follows, then is the start of an attempt to display the existential challenges to liberalism that arise from within. I do not offer solutions to these challenges and so invite readers to chime in....My thoughts: Modern liberalism is the result of the 18th century Enlightenment attempt to forge a new world order after the breakdown of the interregnum during which feudal Christendom had dominate the West since the fall of the Roman Empire and the remnants of eastern empire had gone its own way. The aim was to provide a naturalistic basis for the world order that had been organized around the great chain of being.
This gave rise to two challenges. The first was the presented by the issues around formulating a new order based on the rise of science and the antagonism between science and religion. The second challenge was presented by the dominant mode of production, industrial capital, that was replacing the dominance of agriculture under feudalism.
The result was bourgeois liberalism disguised in the garb of "democracy," even though bourgeois liberalism was largely a resurrection of the Roman republic that was dominated by the patricians as the ownership class. The feudal lords were replaced by industrial capitalists.
Political economy was organized around the idea that capital formation leads to growth and a rising tide lifts all boats ("trickle down"). Thus, the program of political economy was based on favoring capital over land (the environment) and labor (workers, who comprised the majority of the population).
This resulted in numerous paradoxes of liberalism as "internal contradictions"in the bourgeois liberal order when a rising tide didn't lift all boats and many people left left out. In addition, environmental degradation greatly increased with increased population coupled with economic growth.
The consequence is the present crisis of liberalism.
Digressions&Impressions
On the Crisis of Liberalism (I)
On the Crisis of Liberalism (II)
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
See also
On The Mont Pelerin Society at 70; or the Transmission of the Ideals Political Freedom