A thread about whether the global – and American – center-left needs a different kind of liberalism. These are thoughts triggered by Trump’s victory in the United States and the swing against mainstream incumbents in many other elections around the world.
Thoughtful, thank you @dacemoglumit.bsky.social! An additional hypothesis: Liberalism today lacks of a clear enemy. The threat of communism disciplined income inequality, apartheid laws fuelled civil rights, etc. Today's liberals use academic jargon to explain their enemy. Thoughts?
Think the core problem is the decline in trust in government, what you don't trust, you won't support. Solution is to repair institutions, make government more efficient and more responsive to citizens. Evidence based, not wish list. Proposing programs is easy, design and implementation is hard.
Liberalism hasn't failed yet in Europe. The way I see it, american problem is two-party winner-takes-all system. While in Europe 20% of far-right radicals are just absorbed into mainstream and mitigated by it. See The Netherlands for example.
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Not sure I agree with all this but good to see that you acknowledge this debate is still where much of the political theory action is - a worthwhile long thread 👆👆👆
@unrollplease.bsky.social
By liberalism, I mean a political philosophy based on individual rights, constraints on power, equality before the law and some willingness to help the weakest and the discriminated members of society (though this last one is not part of some classic liberal philosophies).
A warning: this thread is sharing ideas in real time, and my views on many of these questions are likely to change over the coming months. In fact, what I am sharing here should be thought of as a hypothesis.
HYPOTHESIS: Liberalism in the way that it has been conceived in the US and much of Europe has failed, but for very different reasons than Patrick Deneen’s Catholic-conservative criticism in his bestseller Why Liberalism Failed (which argues that liberal ideas were flawed). shorturl.at/fYbvy
A better starting point may be a less discussed book: The Lost History of Liberalism by Helena Rosenblatt: www.amazon.com/Lost-History...
Thinkers in the liberal tradition used to have a much more expansive view, emphasizing human fallibility, community and ethical responsibilities – not just radical individualism and an overarching emphasis on autonomy.
They were also diverse: Hayek, for example, should be thought of as a liberal (something today’s progressive would vehemently deny). More important perhaps, though less emphasized by Rosenblatt: they were typically in opposition.
They were in a position of speaking truth to power in the 18th and 19th centuries. Liberalism was thus, in part, a philosophy of a criticism of how power was exercised by traditional economic and political elites.
So my hypothesis is that liberalism failed because it came to power and it did not adjust to this new reality. It became too dominant and not sufficiently self-critical. Let me explain this point using the US case, though I believe the story is similar in many other parts of the world...
... (including Turkey, though in most of the developing world, liberalism never became completely dominant and it often merged with globalism, so creating some similar and some different tensions).
For the US, in a 1965 book, M. Stanton Evans wrote: “the chief point about the Liberal Establishment is that it is in control.” He was referring to New Deal liberalism.
Republicans have slashed bureaucracy, allowing corporations to grow in power unimpeded. Democrats failed to respond by not creating greater inclusion and representation within our bureaucracy. Instead, Democrats have relied on a technocracy that means well but does not reflect the people’s will.
The Democratic Party needs to embrace more democratic and inclusive systems. Embrace mechanisms that allow for greater input within our bureaucracy; and create barriers to the powerful and wealthy special interest groups that dominate.
Daron Acemoglulla hyvää pohdiskelua mitä soisi vasemmistossa ja vihreissäkin mietittäväksi @atteharjanne.bsky.social @liandersson.bsky.social
Excellent and very interesting thread! You touch on a question, if liberalism has failed to deliver a good economy and good life or not? Or if the failure rather is that the voters are looking for other values?
Today, Swedish Social Democrats lead the polls due to their strong stance on crime and a strong advocacy for migrant integration, a trend also seen with Denmark's ruling centre-left party since 2019. To succeed, centre-left parties must be tough on crime.