As histories of liberalism go, Liberalism: The Life of an Idea is a remarkable achievement, a history of liberalism over the past two centuries not only as theorized by philosophers and economists, but as practiced by politicians and activists. It’s also a real pleasure to read, with vivid prose.
In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating
The debate over housing policy cuts to the core of people’s lives. For many families it is their largest expense, and certainly losing one’s home is a disruption that few economic setbacks can match. Thus, the sheer ferocity of housing debates should come as no surprise: generally, on
I have long considered myself a liberal, in the following sense: I believe in liberal democracy. The ideal of a republic of free and equal citizens is my north star, guiding my own politics here in the messy mundane world. I believe that bodily autonomy is a fundamental right, and
“If we were to stand silently by and not have the courage to speak out against these proposals, then we could never look anyone in the eye again and say we support alternatives to abortion.” Wanda Franz, a staunch anti-abortion activist and then-president of the National Right to Life Committee,
Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael), who went from marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. as a member of SNCC to allying with the Black Panther Party, is widely credited with introducing the term “institutional racism.” He first mentioned it in a 1966 article, and, together with political scientist Charles V.
American liberalism is in crisis. The conservative movement in the US has turned against small-L liberalism and small-D democratic values, and America’s future as a liberal democracy is in question. To make matters worse, the alliance of progressives, social democrats and liberal moderates that make up the Democratic Party
A reading from the Book of Post-Liberalism: In the beginning there was order on heaven and earth. Between Church and laity, state and subject, virtuous and perverts there was reverence and submission. And it was good. Then Francis Bacon stretched forth his hand and said “Let there be progress!” and
The American federal system and the various Supreme Courts that have defended its boundaries impose firm limitations on what system-wide reforms are possible. To many it seems impossible to make any meaningful improvement to American governance without amending the Constitution, something that requires a massive supermajority. But American federalism need
Illiberalism is something of a fashion around the world today. Sometimes it goes explicitly by that name, such as with Viktor Orban’s self-declared “illiberal democracy.” In other instances, it has a more amorphous character, such as with American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher’s self-description as a post-liberal, which suggests
For a long time, the animosities of the Cold War ensured that Marx was treated by friend and foe alike as the unrepentant foe of liberal democracy. For his most scathing liberal critics, Marxism constituted a regression to a distinctly pre-liberal way of thinking: collectivist rather than individualistic, committed to
In part two of this series, here, I discuss the cases of Peter Boghossian and Beverly Gage, the final two academics discussed in the Twitter thread by the Economist on October 19, 2021. Part one discussed the controversy surrounding Kathleen Stock. During this discussion of academics silenced by a stifling