by In 1995, the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf argued that developed countries’ “overriding task” for the subsequent decade was to "square the circle of wealth creation, social cohesion, and political freedom.” More than two decades later, most have not even attempted that feat.... The paradoxes of liberalism involve the incompatibility of social liberalism, political liberalism, and economic liberalism, in particular, a fundamental tension between accumulation and democracy. Enlightenment liberalism (not to be confused with enlightened liberalism) is bourgeois liberalism, the bourgeoisie being the owners of property.The particle is strong on analysis and weak on solutions.As Marx observed, the problem is property. Property is a social construct based on legal institutions. It can be addressed
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: liberalism
This could be interesting, too:
Matias Vernengo writes Was Keynes a Liberal or a Socialist?
Chris Blattman writes Up with international relations theory, down with the -isms, and down with the certainty
Matias Vernengo writes Was Keynes a Liberal or a Socialist?
Mike Norman writes Don’t Buy the “Marketplace of Ideas” — Terry Hathaway
In 1995, the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf argued that developed countries’ “overriding task” for the subsequent decade was to "square the circle of wealth creation, social cohesion, and political freedom.” More than two decades later, most have not even attempted that feat....The paradoxes of liberalism involve the incompatibility of social liberalism, political liberalism, and economic liberalism, in particular, a fundamental tension between accumulation and democracy. Enlightenment liberalism (not to be confused with enlightened liberalism) is bourgeois liberalism, the bourgeoisie being the owners of property.
The particle is strong on analysis and weak on solutions.
As Marx observed, the problem is property. Property is a social construct based on legal institutions. It can be addressed through institutional reforms that limit economic inequality, which leads to social and political inequality through status, networking and power. But that would involves modifying the concept of economic liberalism to bring it into balance with social and political liberalism. This requires more than surface alterations ("band-aids"), e.g., more progressive taxation. It requires revisiting the Enlightenment concept of liberalism, which was an advance at the time but an anchor to the past now.
Project Syndicate
The West’s Arrested Social Development