Tag Archives: liberalism

The title signals the strong liberal bias of the authors. The dialectic is actually about traditionalism, which appears negatively as authoritarianism to liberals, versus liberalism, which appears as libertinism to traditionalists. The tell is the admission that the wave of traditionalism is being led by "populism," as in what people actually want. But what the people actually want is supposed to be the hallmark of liberalism. The way liberals counter is this is that the majority...

Despite its claims to “open-ness,” liberalism in its late modern Western form becomes self-contained to the point of closure. Allied with such power constructs as the “liberal world order,” globalization (a word that came into common usage only after the fall of the Soviet Union) tends towards the homogenization of political space and the radical constriction of pluralism. Notice a trend toward closure? It's affected conventional economics in addition to politics. Plurism, the hallmark of...

Liberalism reveals its illiberal underbelly as "liberal democracies' seek to control the narrative by limiting freedom of expression and press freedom in the attempt to limit freedom of thought, which is of the essence of totalitarianism.This push is being led by the US and France, the birthplaces of the revolutions that brought liberalism onto the world stage, and Britain as well, the birthday of liberal philosophy led by John Locke.Ironic betrayal. This is likely not malicious but rather...

India has a different concept of democracy and liberalism than America and Indian traditions and values are different from America's. This is true of other democracies, such as Russia.  These differences are often not understood or appreciated by the US and this leads to disappointment, pressure and even conflict. There is more than one way to be free, and imposing a particular view of liberalism is illiberal. OUP BlogOur Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World...

Putin is taking a new tack politically positioning himself way from the unpopular liberals and toward the socialists. His most serious competition is from Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin. who is widely expected to place second. This is bad news for Western liberals looking for liberal populist regime change in Russia. Now they are looking at a return to socialist rule as the alternative to Putin. For Russ Putin's 2018 Election Campaign: A New Beginning?Eduard Popov -...

The tax-reform bill that US Republicans are attempting to implement is economically indefensible and blatantly unfair. But the US has a much deeper problem: the Anglo-Saxon model of representative government is in serious trouble, and nobody seems to know how to fix it. Project SyndicateAmerica’s Broken SystemBrad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Was Ayn Rand just the expression of a cultural syndrome and an amplification of the Horatio Alger myth? Have new cultural myths been born to suit the historical transition from feudalism to liberalism, in the West at least?  Are the conflicts between liberalism and traditionalism the conflict of different myths characteristic of incompatible worldview? How is it that many conservatives find no contradiction between economic liberalism and social and political traditionalism? Is...

Whitehead founded The Rutherford Institute to preserve and defend human rights and civil liberties in a non-partisan way. He issues a stark warning to Americans. Unless we can learn to live together as brothers and sisters and fellow citizens, we will perish as tools and prisoners of the American police state. CounterpunchAmerica Breaks Down: The Anatomy of a National Psychosis John W. Whitehead | President, The Rutherford Institute

The book is not an easy read but it is compelling. The last 80 pages are notes and bibliographies and the text is densely referenced. It is academic in its nature but determinedly so – as if MacLean knew that the neoliberals would come after her (as indeed they have) when it was published, attempting to undermine her thesis and destroy her reputation; and that providing links to all the background material and quotes was a vital defence against such future attempts to trash her work. A...

You can't make this stuff up.If this is not snark, then the West is in for an ass-whipping, administered by themselves. If true, the entire West has caught the Hillary Clinton syndrome. They simply cannot see that their major problems are of their own creation. Deep in denial. PoliticoHow to tame Putin Maura ReynoldsSee also The first communist revolution had almost as many consequences for the rest of the world as it did for Russia itself. Its demise has brought about another type of...