Liberalism

Is America becoming a developing country? We’re seeing increasing evidence of reverse convergence. We used to think that the developing world would in time become like America, but it now seems that the United States has developed an emulation complex of its own. What has not been explained are the reasons. In some fundamental areas America does resemble a traditional society, with its belief in transcendence and its quaint ways of enforcing justice and delivering public goods. The US executes prisoners on a scale matched only by China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Guns are more readily available than in Pakistan and more than half of Americans pray every single day. No other state spends so much money on health care, yet Americans’ life expectancy keeps falling.

We’re entering the post-liberal moment. From Trump to Brexit, Ireland to Brazil, we’ve seen a number of revolts at the ballot box that point to a mass vote of no-confidence in the economic and cultural status quo — in other words, in 21st-century liberalism. The liberals aren’t taking it lying down. They’re doing their best to define post-liberalism in language they are most comfortable with, calling it ‘fascist’ or ‘communist’ — and sometimes the criticism is spot-on. But other times it is wholly inaccurate. One of the glaring paradoxes of the post-liberal moment is that many of the people involved in it want to rescue liberalism from itself.