Postliberal Politics: The Coming Era of Renewal

Democratic corporatism, underpinned by a pluralism that focuses on the dignity of the person, can help chart a new settlement: a politics and an economics of the common good.

Both the EU and the US under President Biden will have to break with the technocratic centrism that created the conditions for the populist insurgency while also fending off the revolutionary left.

The same should apply to capital, so that national companies are safe from takeovers by multinationals which strip assets by outsourcing operations, load debt onto balance sheets and further empower shareholders at the expense of workers, suppliers and the communities where businesses operate.

To build such a model, the EU requires a radical rethink, which must shift its core purpose away from predominantly serving the interests of capital aided and abetted by a regulatory state that seeks to maximize consumer welfare instead of pursuing the common good.

A good start would be to expand corporatist bargaining at national levels between the state, business, trade unions and the charitable sector.

Yet faced with the forces of global capitalism and technology, no country can do this on its own. Democratic and plural associations are also needed internationally to enable workers to resist the dehumanization and exploitation of the world economy. The alternative to hyper-capitalism and authoritarian nationalism is a renewed democratic corporati

Today many of these institutions are needed to help with Britain’s national renewal anchored in the political and civic inheritance of self-governing institutions. The impact of the pandemic shows how both the body politic and the national economy require a transformation that links growth and productivity to the skill, knowledge and character of t

Second, the practice of reciprocity characterized relations both within and across countries.

Accordingly, welfare benefits rested on the notion of rewards received for contribution to society