What is post-liberalism, and what does it look like in practice?
Last week, Oren Cass - founder of American Compass, a new think tank that promotes the economic policies of the New Right - sat down with Notre Dame political science professor and author of Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen, to discuss the future of post-liberalism, a nascent ideology with an unclear definition.
Deneen started by defining liberalism.
These are the four ideological pillars he articulated:
1. Open borders, or, the free movement of peoples.
2. Laissez faire economics.
3. The belief that liberal democracy ought to be disseminated widely (i.e. the Fukuyama thesis).
4. The legacy of the sexual revolution.
Phillip Blond, post-liberal political theorist and author of Red Tory, often alludes to point 2 and 4 as encapsulating the Left-Right liberal paradigm. That is, conservatives (especially in the American context, though less so these days), extol the virtues of deregulation and free markets, while liberals promote a sort of individual autonomy, particularly concerning sexual expression and the jettisoning of gender norms. According to Blond, both belief systems are actually two sides of the same liberal coin.
Blond, an Englishman, articulated this paradigm at an Institute of Art and Ideas event in 2019:
We have been governed by extreme liberalism since the time of Margaret Thatcher. We have extreme economic liberalism on the Right, and extreme social liberalism on the Left, and they're a common project, and I always think it's incoherent to hear people on the Left denouncing neoliberalism economically, but essentially upholding it socially, and vice versa.
This same sentiment can be found in Compact Magazine's mission statement:
Our editorial choices are shaped by our desire for a strong social-democratic state that defends community—local and national, familial and religious—against a libertine left and a libertarian right.
Weirdly, though, it appears that Compact has since changed that language on the 'About' section of their site. See here.
Deneen, like Blond and the folks at Compact, argues that the "limitlessness" of unbounded liberalism - that is, the belief that individuals should be left to their own devices in all realms of life - does, in fact, have limits.
Both Deneen and Cass believe that we are already seeing the germ of a reaction to liberalism, as described in the aforementioned four pillars.
That much is pretty hard to dispute. The Bernie movement, as well as MAGA, are both pretty obvious reactions to the liberal order. New York assemblyman and probable next mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, represents a far-Left rejection of liberalism.
We are, it certainly appears, entering into a post-liberal era. This, though, begs two stubborn questions: 1. We know what post-liberalism is against, but what is it for? 2. What would post-liberalism look like in practice?
While Cass asked Deneen several times what a "positive version" of post-liberalism might look like, Deneen struggled to offer anything concrete, reiterating that people today are disaffected by liberalism. At one point, he attempts to make a parallel between post-liberalism and libertarianism. This was totally mystifying, as the former is frequently described as a critique of the latter.
To be sure, Deneen is brilliant. Why Liberalism Failed was an awesome contribution to the national conversation. His normative view of a post-liberal future, though, at least as articulated in this podcast, is underwhelming.
Personally, I struggle to see any kind of real difference between post-liberalism and social conservatism, à la Rick Santorum.
Thus, it would make far more sense for post-liberals to simply advocate for a return to social conservative thinking, instead of attempting to build an entirely new ideology from the ground up.
So, what is post-liberalism? As of right now, nothing...
But, perhaps I'm missing something. If you have the time, listen to the podcast here. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
As always, have a great week!
