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 accepted many important tenets of liberalism, from Dwight Eisenhower (who described himself as a “moderate Republican” meaning that he accepted the New Deal) to Nixon (who, despite his conservatism, signed many of the iconic regulations of the era). www.amazon.com/liberal-esta...
True, the Goldwater-Reagan revolution rolled back some of the New Deal era regulations, reduced taxes, and favored large corporations, but three tenets of New Deal liberalism survived and gradually became stronger:
(1) cultural liberalism, with emphasis on individualism, autonomy and progressive cultural attitudes (which was weaker in the United States when Democrats were the party of the Deep South and became dominant later);
(2) the empowerment of educated elites, in the form of both technocracy and meritocracy, but going beyond just technical matters and extending to issues such as moral values; (3) an emphasis on establishing procedures for predictable implementation of laws and regulations.
Each one of these three tenets had positives and negatives. The problem was that there was little balance of power. These tenets were not seriously questioned from within the Democratic Party in the United States and many center-left parties in Europe after the 1980s.
Any criticism from the outside were not powerful or coherent enough. The hypothesis I am entertaining is that the ascendance of these three tenets – without adequate opposition – is the source of liberalism’s failure.
Cultural liberalism: first we have to admit it has paid off in many respects. Civil Rights is one of the most important achievements of 20th-century America, and ethnic, religious and sexual minorities face much less discrimination today than they did before. But the balance here is a delicate one.
It is one thing to defend minorities (and this is very consistent with liberalism as an opposition movement); it’s an entirely different thing to impose values on people who do not hold them (for example, telling people what language they can and cannot use).