Liberalism and Its Discontents
In the past decade, liberalism has taken a beating from both sides of the political spectrum. Its critics to the left view its measured gradualism as incommensurate to the present’s multiple emergencies: climate change, inequality, the rise of an ethno-nationalist right. Conservatives, by contrast, paint liberalism as a cultural leviathan that has... See more
Populist movements — on both the right and left — argue that liberalism has failed to deliver on its lofty ideals. Instead of liberty, equality, and prosperity, it has brought about widening inequality, the breakdown of traditional communities, and unchecked power for an elite class that is increasingly detached from ordinary people.
Dylan Evans • Marx Saw It Coming
Deneen’s core argument in Why Liberalism Failed is that liberal democracy is doomed from the start because it is based on the destabilizing philosophical premises of individual autonomy and the conquest of nature, which together act as solvents on the social fabric and culture at large.