Liberalism Created the Inequality It Now Fails to Solve
I’ve felt for the past few years that phrases like “the failure of capitalism” and “the collapse of democracy” have become trends discussed everywhere. I wanted to get a firm grasp on the subject.
I dug through several books, and this one struck me as the most reasonable and rationally written, so I liked it. Here’s a summary I put together as a memo for myself.
Why Liberalism Failed
The author is Patrick J. Deneen. He is a professor in the political science department at the University of Notre Dame. He has also taught at Princeton University and Georgetown University in the past.
The content is dense and this will run long, so I’ll split it into several parts.
The argument
Liberalism (or liberal democracy) emerged after the medieval aristocratic order and swallowed the world. In the 19th century a current opposed to liberalism explored various alternative systems of rule (communism was one of them), but liberalism defeated all of them and seized what looked like hegemony as the world’s sole political system. Yet several distortions have recently surfaced one after another, and a time has come once again when liberalism is being shaken. The main points are “ever-widening inequality,” “individuals growing ever weaker while the state grows ever stronger,” and “moral decline.” And there is a deeply serious concern here: these are not outcomes brought about because liberalism failed, but outcomes that arose precisely because liberalism succeeded. Liberalism was destined from the start to end up this way, yet the world has arrived here without discarding it or building a sufficient alternative, and left alone, it will surely continue as it is.
Here I’ll organize things around the point of “ever-widening inequality.”
Inequality
John Locke, “Two Treatises of Government” He divides human beings into the “industrious and rational” and the “quarrelsome and contentious.” Aristocratic rule wasn’t so bad when those at the top were the former, but when they became the latter, war invariably followed. Liberalism was thought to raise the probability that the former would rise to the top. The assumption was that in a society where the industrious and rational rise to the top, the whole of society grows materially rich, and even if inequality doesn’t disappear, everyone gets along peacefully enough. In other words, it affirms inequality while still claiming people can be happy. President Kennedy quoted Locke when he said “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
Tyler Cowen, “Average Is Over” The majority get pushed into areas like Texas. Cheaply built housing, so-so employment, administrative services that don’t reach far enough. But the ending Cowen envisions has something like hope in it. A utopia in a different form from what Marx imagined might come true. For example, with free internet access and an abundance of free entertainment, the poor immerse themselves in it and are satisfied being kept alive but no more.
John Stuart Mill (19th century) The midwife of the innovative liberalism that designed and argued for the very world we live in now. A society where a handful of unpredictable geniuses unbound by convention accomplish innovative things. Jobs, Bezos, Gates, Elon Musk, and so on — the world has actually turned out that way.
Marx Discontent arises not from inequality but from exclusion. Even the advance of the global economy produces a division between those who benefit from it and those who don’t.
Liberalocracy A new aristocratic class. The family collapsed, but various capitalist solutions were brought in. Gardeners, housekeepers, tutors, nannies — occupations arose that would be unnecessary if the family were functioning. The conditions for success in capitalist society are loose family ties, mobility, skills that stay valuable even when jobs change, and transferable inherited wealth.
The winners of liberal society They become rootless, cut off from home, pursue materialism by taking risks, and stall social change while affirming inequality as acceptable.
Liberalism is rooted in human nature
Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince” Recognize the deep-rooted selfishness and material desire in human beings, and think of ways to make use of it rather than suppress it.
Selfishness A byproduct of the elimination of traditional virtue. It undermines the public good, brings zero-sum thinking, and directs attention toward material things.
Humans cannot be happy unless they cultivate self-restraint. Human desire is limitless while the world is limited.
Changes in the market
Consumerism It makes people believe that their only place of belonging is not a narrow, limited culture but a broad, inclusive market. A kind of brainwashing. To that end, it detached the market from morality and pushed it to treat labor and natural resources as commodities. Concretely: the dismantling of medieval guilds, the industrialization of agriculture, and support for employers over unionized workers.
Hollowing-out through redefinition rather than exclusion. Commercialized crafts. Music mass-produced for the general public. The more choice retail provides, the more culture declines. It’s a story full of things that feel painfully familiar.
Daniel Boorstin Technological development carries the risk of gradually pulling the world together into sameness. Liberalism promotes homogenization, and the exclusion of subcultures proceeds through economic rationality. Calls to promote diversity end up producing the worldview of advanced liberalism instead: independent individuals rise with the state’s support, and the state uses that rise to strengthen its own control.
Competitive market principles push agriculture toward irresponsible, short-term solutions. Administering antibiotics to cattle causes bacterial mutation, and those bacteria become resistant to antibiotics meant for humans. Genetically modified crops resistant to pesticides have, as a result, led to massive amounts of pesticide being sprayed over vast areas.
The bottleneck for the expansion of capitalist markets is the depletion of resources. But that in turn drives further the opening up of new markets among the poor and the reduction of labor through mechanization.
Subprime Traditionally, mortgage lending carried major risk and wasn’t done in areas without a loan officer who knew the region well (you don’t sell where you have no branch). That wasn’t law but custom. Banks profited because the region itself profited. In short, the subprime problem is like turning a university campus into an anything-goes free-for-all — that’s the kind of story it is. When something like this happens, the public demands stronger regulation and the power of the state grows. Here too, individualism ends up advancing statism. Bubbles, too, actually contribute to the advance of liberalism.
The future liberalism brings
Friedrich Hayek Liberalism fosters inequality. Its survival requires accelerating economic growth. Inequality keeps widening, and even if it eventually grows wider than the gap between king and peasant in the age of aristocracy, liberalism will keep being supported because economic growth is guaranteed.
Tocqueville The gap between rich and poor creates a new aristocracy. But the medieval aristocratic class was obligated to support its retainers. The new ruling class does nothing but exploit workers.
Socrates “Every person seems to live as if in a cave.” No political ideology lasts forever. The best rulers of antiquity knew how to build systems of continuous training in virtue, and knew that no system built by human beings lasts forever.
Conclusion: liberalism’s lie is being exposed
The ruling class follows it enthusiastically, but the classes newly created by liberalism are beginning to see through the lie. The next stage may be the birth of a stronger, more coercive dark state, one that forcibly imposes liberal order whether people like it or not.
But even if the system does collapse, what comes after is difficult. Historically, Germany moved from the collapse of the Weimar Republic into fascism, and Russia, after a brief period of liberalism, moved by force into communism. What should be done? First, affirm what liberalism has achieved (this isn’t a call to return to some pastoral age). Second, think about how to cultivate a polis-like life without returning to an age of ideology (liberalism only appears to have won because of the enormous sacrifices it exacted). Third, hope that new thought will emerge from that great cauldron.
The ideals liberalism raised have been betrayed, but liberalism has evolved so that the betrayal isn’t visible. Freedom is quite limited. Few people vote believing they can actually take part in government. The motivation is casting an opposition vote as an expression of discontent. You can choose which car to buy, but you have almost no choice over whether to escape the current state of a life that’s boring to death.
Better not to hold a comprehensive debate as a challenge to liberalism. To begin with, everyone believes that liberalism and other ideologies emerged from the end of comprehensive debate already, and that a conclusion has already been reached. Naturally, if you try to open up such a debate, you’ll be met with suspicion and crushed.
Czechoslovak dissident Václav Havel: Improving the system does not improve people’s guarantee of a good life. Only once life itself begins to improve can an improved system develop. One should patiently work at building a refuge from impersonal order, a new form of community.
Originally published in Japanese at https://clazytech.com/2020/10/375/. Translated with LLM assistance and reviewed before publication.