Review: ‘Why Liberalism Failed’ by Patrick Deneen
In recent years, the two most powerful liberal countries — America and Britain — have come under increasing strain with the rise of rampant populism on both the far left and right. Is this symptomatic of a broader crisis of liberalism? US academic Patrick Deneen thinks it is. In his widely popular book ‘Why Liberalism Failed’, Deneen seeks to attribute hyper-individualism, economic inequality, environmental degradation and loss of faith in democracy to the inherent flaws of the liberal creed. It is a bold claim.
Deneen starts by linking the birth of liberalism with a reconceptualization of liberty that occurred some 500 years ago. This new concept emphasised that liberty was the absence of external restraint, in contrast to the classical notion of liberty that was centred on cultivating virtue and self-restraint. In the classical and Christian tradition, we learn to be free — free from our base instincts and desires. The liberal version of liberty states that we are instead born free. Moreover, the free individual is abstracted from social ties or teachings of virtue.
The consequence of this is said to be a constant expansion of this flawed notion of individual liberty. This expansion is facilitated by a growing state apparatus; for it is the state that safeguards the individual from external restraint. The removal of external restraint however, sanctions attacks on the very things that hold our society together: shared cultural values, and the civic associations that uphold these values. The churches, trade unions, the traditional family unit and the values they promulgate such as respect for authority, solidarity and respect for the elderly are said to be in decline thanks to liberalism. Without the social cohesion that culture provides, liberalism cannot survive.
So, what to make of this argument? There are two salient points to bear in mind. Firstly, there is a long history of books that trumpet the fall of liberalism. All of them have thus far been wrong — or at least premature — in their conclusions, for the simple fact that liberalism has survived and flourished long after these books have passed out of popular memory. Secondly, there are many competing conceptions of liberalism, both in the present day and throughout the time period of liberal thought.
I would suggest the second point explains the first; namely, liberalism has endured because of its capacity to evolve and change, as opposed to the more concrete ideologies of communism or fascism. That Deneen makes little effort to address these two points is a serious flaw in this book.
From this flaw we can appreciate the true nature of ‘Why Liberalism Failed’. It is a polemic of the declinist variety; Deneen seeks to not only condemn liberalism as a failure, but also claims that this failure was inevitable. The ‘logic’ of liberalism — as Deneen is apt to say — means that we can trace back the seeds of its destruction to the reconceptualization of liberty undertaken by a few early (proto)liberal thinkers, such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Mill. Following this argument, there is little point acknowledging past periods of crisis and renewal in liberalism’s history, or questioning whether like past doomsayers, Deneen is also premature in his conclusions — because from the very beginning, liberalism was doomed anyway!
But is there really a ‘logic’ to liberalism? From history, can we draw precise predictions of the future? I doubt it, and so do most historians. Deterministic history of the kind Deneen preaches rarely fulfils its predictions, because historical contingency means we can conceive of millions of different futures. Moreover, by simply knowing of a prediction we can by our actions prevent it. Aware of the potency of the Marxist critique of Capitalism, liberal democracies introduced extensive welfare systems that significantly improved the conditions of the working class. In part at least, this forestalled the ‘inevitable’ workers revolution in Western countries. The perils of deterministic history are simply not acknowledged by Deneen. For him, liberalism has already failed, and future developments will simply confirm this.
By seeking to run with his rather narrow historical narrative, Deneen is forced to make countless simplifications and generalisations. Locke is the undisputed ‘father of liberalism’, while ‘we live today in the world Mill proposed’. By attributing liberalism to a few key thinkers, Deneen makes his task much easier. But his critique is also weaker as a result. No mention is made for example of the British New Liberal thinkers whose work helped inspire the welfare state. Indeed, no real mention is made of the welfare state; if there was, Deneen may have had to moderate his claim that the progressive ‘appeal to economic justice and taming of the market’ was ‘never realised’. I suspect this omission is symptomatic of another flaw in this book: it is frustratingly US-centric. This I think partly reflect the author’s area of expertise; the best sections are on American constitutionalism, a subject Deneen teaches on. But the failure to undertake comparative analysis of the Australian, Canadian, British or Scandinavian experience of liberalism — where welfare provision is far more extensive than the US — is a major weakness of this book.
Deneen is also prone to distort empirical evidence to fit into his historical narrative. This is partly a feature of declinist literature, which tends to emphasise the problems of the present while downplaying those of the past. For example, Deneen laments the decline in sexual norms such as courtship and abstinence before marriage as leading to ‘utilitarian sexual encounters’ and a ‘rape culture’. No real evidence is made to back up this link, but what I find more interesting is the implication he makes that prior to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Western societies were far less licentious. No mention is made of the fact that rape was legal in marriage, or that sexual norms contained a fundamental power imbalance between men and women. Indeed, the cultural norms that Deneen exalts and claims are being eroded by liberalism, were far from universally good. Such norms can often be oppressive and the notion that a society organised on cultural norms benefits the ordinary — as Deneen claims — is deeply simplistic.
Nevertheless, despite all these criticisms, ‘Why Liberalism Fails’ contains some compelling insights. Deneen is right to be concerned that the contemporary conception of individual liberty is inadequate for leading a virtuous, meaningful life. Civil society has been seriously undermined by hyper-individualism, and when as citizens we share less and less of the same values, social cohesion is also undermined. The result, as Deneen observes, may be social anarchy or increased statism in the form of a strongman ruler — Brexit or Trump. Neither is desirable. Deneen is also acute in observing the trade-off between meaningful participation in democracy, and the rule of technocratic elites who seek to safeguard living standards with continuous economic growth. The smooth functioning of contemporary liberalism is dependent on this growth. Is it sustainable?
Ultimately, ‘Why Liberalism Failed’ is a flawed polemic. Deneen’s case for liberalism’s failure is unconvincing and based on a simplistic account of history. But like many polemics, it also has redeeming features. It contains important insights into the trends that genuinely do threaten liberalism. This includes the decline of cultural norms and civic associations; the attendant loss of social cohesion and growing social isolation; the degradation of the environment; and the decline in meaningful democratic participation by ordinary citizens. Whether these trends can all be attributed to liberalism is highly questionable. But they are all trends that every liberal should be concerned about. If Deneen’s work raises awareness of the challenges facing liberalism, then it has served a useful purpose.
Connor Harvey is the deputy-editor of this publication and an avid reader. His interests include political history, history of political thought, and the philosophy of the welfare state.
