Postliberalism

Postliberalism is an emergent political philosophy that critiques and seeks to move beyond the dominant liberal paradigm of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Proponents argue that liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights, free markets, and limited government, has failed to adequately address societal challenges such as economic inequality, environmental degradation, social alienation, family breakdown, and a perceived loss of community and social cohesion.

Postliberals advocate for a more communitarian approach that prioritizes the common good, social solidarity, and the cultivation of virtue, often drawing on traditional moral and religious frameworks. They tend to be skeptical of unconstrained individualism, instead seeing individuals as more tightly bound up in networks of obligations in families, communities, tribes, and faiths, arguing for a greater role for the state in shaping culture and promoting shared values. Postliberal thinkers come from both the left and the right, and the movement is associated with a diverse range of ideas, including economic nationalism, localism, and a critique of liberal democracy itself.

History

Postliberalism has adherents on both the political left and right. It first developed in the United Kingdom out of a movement within the Labour Party called Blue Labour. Early British theorists included John Gray, Maurice Glasman, Phillip Blond, Adrian Pabst, John Milbank, and Jon Cruddas. British postliberalism remains a broadly centre-left ideology that grew out of Christian socialism. In the 2020s, some factions within the Conservative Party have adopted elements of postliberalism and national conservatism. In the United States, postliberalism has been more influential among conservatives critical of the fusionist synthesis of free markets and traditional values that developed in the 1950s such as Patrick Deneen, Rod Dreher, and Adrian Vermeule, as well as the Israeli conservative philosopher Yoram Hazony.

Ideology

Communitarianism

The postliberal critique contends that liberalism, in both its economic and cultural forms, undermines the social and communal bonds on which human flourishing depends. Central to postliberal thought is the idea that human beings are not purely autonomous individuals but are shaped by their social and cultural contexts. Postliberals argue that the liberal focus on individual rights and freedoms has undermined the importance of community, family, and tradition in providing a sense of meaning and belonging. They maintain that a healthy society requires a shared sense of purpose and a commitment to the common good, which liberalism has failed to provide.

Drawing on a reading of social contract theorists like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, as well as J. S. Mill and John Rawls, postliberals argue liberalism promotes an atomized individualism at odds with human sociability. Patrick Deneen argues that liberalism, while claiming neutrality, influences people to approach commitments and relationships with flexibility, treating them as interchangeable and open to renegotiation, thereby encouraging loose connections.

Some postliberal feminists such as Louise Perry, Nina Power, Christine Emba, and Mary Harrington argue that the sexual revolution of the 1960s gave rise to a set of sexual ethics and norms that prioritized individual autonomy, reproductive rights, and sexual libertinism and that this has proved harmful to women.

Pluralism

Postliberals also challenge the liberal conception of the state as a neutral arbiter between competing interests. They argue that the state should actively promote a particular vision of the good life, based on the values and traditions of the community it serves. This may involve measures to protect and promote traditional institutions such as the family, religion, and local associations, as well as a more restrictive approach to issues such as immigration and cultural diversity. "Postliberals reject the fiction of a purely neutral state, instead suggesting that the state should play an active role in promoting the common good and ensuring social cohesion."

Liberal philosophers such as John Rawls have characterized liberalism as a political regime in which the state is (or should seek to be) neutral with regard to personal values and conceptions of the good life. Criticizing this claim, Patrick Deneen argues that any society "ultimately can't be neutral on questions about what it is we value as a society. If we're going to be a society in any sense, if we're going to be a kind of order in any sense, there are always going to be fundamental beliefs and fundamental commitments that are going to be predominant."

As an alternative, postliberals advocate a politics oriented towards the common good, seeking to balance individual rights with social responsibilities. Others focus on economic issues, critiquing the outcomes of liberal capitalism and proposing alternative models that are more regulated and socially embedded. Some postliberals also emphasize the importance of cultural traditions, national identity, and environmental conservation.

Free market

In the economic realm, postliberals criticize the liberal commitment to free markets, arguing that it has led to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, while leaving many people behind, fostering stratification between cosmopolitan elites and rooted working classes. They advocate for a more interventionist role for the state in managing the economy, including protectionist policies, and measures to reduce economic inequality, protect workers' rights, and promote the development of local communities.

English philosopher John Gray has argued that "the unfettered free market and globalization undermined the very foundations of a modern open market economy". Patrick Deneen similarly argued:

The expansion of liberalism rests upon a vicious and reinforcing cycle in which state expansion secures the end of individual fragmentation, in turn requiring further state expansion to control a society without shared norms, practices, or beliefs. Liberalism thus increasingly requires a legal and administrative regime, driven by the imperative of replacing all nonliberal forms of support for human flourishing (such as schools, medicine, and charity), and hollowing any deeply held sense of shared future or fate among the citizenry.

International relations

Postliberal approaches to international relations and global politics have been most fully developed by John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, and Patrick J. Deneen. Postliberalism attributes the crisis in international relations to an intensifying liberalism that it argues undermines itself. Unlike John Ikenberry’s perspective, which posits that the liberal international order is threatened by illiberal forces and requires more liberalism to counteract this threat, postliberals perceive the rise of illiberal forces as a response to what they view as liberalism's inherent contradictions. Pabst suggests that the emergence of populism and civilization states reflects a reaction against global politics that, in their view, neglects national and local concerns, idealizes utopian visions over real places, and emphasizes individual identity at the expense of shared belonging. They argue that liberalism, which no longer promotes a substantive good, becomes ambiguous, fostering individual freedoms while failing to manage the resulting forces both internationally and nationally. According to this viewpoint, liberalism lacks an inherent, preordained purpose.

The United States-led liberal order established after World War II is seen by some scholars as mirroring the trajectory of domestic liberalism. Milbank and Pabst contend that US hegemony treats nation-states as large-scale liberal egos, grounded in American individualism and voluntarism, and disseminated through imperial means to achieve national goals. Since the 1970s, they argue, global governance has strengthened state power and expanded individual freedoms domestically, while diminishing local decision-making and distancing authority from national democratic forums. According to their analysis, "Enlightenment liberalism ironically threatens to turn war into an unlimited action against an enemy of civilization as such", which resonates with the ideas of German jurist Carl Schmitt. They believe this expansionist liberal universalism has contributed to the rise of civilizational blocs.

Criticism

Critics argue that specifying the content of the common good in presently pluralistic societies presents challenges. Liberal critics argue that more statist versions of postliberalism risk excessively curtailing individual liberty in their visions of using state power to enforce a substantive conception of the good, while other postliberals point to a more pluralistic understanding.

Critics on the left argue that postliberalism endorses socially reactionary attitudes and that this is morally objectionable. One critic observed that "because of its alleged interest in the public good but its conservative (Republican) orientation, postliberalism is ultimately incoherent." Socialist critic J. J. Porter has accused postliberalism of ultimately undermining its own conditions of possibility, saying that "it wants to preserve many of the fruits of liberalism while doing away with the structure from which they grow".

Critics on the free-market right argue that postliberalism’s embrace of economic planning and regulation and skepticism of the free market risks damaging economic growth. Other conservative critics observed that postliberalism undervalues the importance of individual freedom and the economic benefits of free market capitalism.

Relation to other ideologies

Elements of postliberal political ideas have been integral to the development of Blue Labour and, more recently, national conservatism and factions within the British Conservative Party. Many analysts have also identified the substantial influence of Catholic social teaching on postliberalism itself. Some scholars have noted the influence of American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch on postliberalism.

Impact on politics

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his political party, Fidesz, have been considered by many to be postliberal or national conservative in character. In a speech given by Orbán on 14 September 2023, he said: "The postliberal era we look forward to, which will replace the current progressive-liberal era, will not come automatically. Someone has to make it happen. And who will make it happen, if not us?"

In the United Kingdom, many members of the New Conservatives faction of the Conservative Party, such as Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, have either self-identified with postliberalism or been considered by others to be aligned with it. On the British left, the Blue Labour tradition has featured some members of Parliament or life peers in the House of Lords including Jon Cruddas and Lord Maurice Glasman, while postliberal writers Adrian Pabst and Sebastian Milbank have argued that the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, has shown some interest in policies advocated by Blue Labour thinkers. In the United States, several Republican politicians have been identified with postliberal and national conservative ideas, particularly Senators JD Vance, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio.

Prominent figures

Writers

• John Gray
• Patrick Deneen
• John Milbank
• Adrian Pabst
• Yoram Hazony
• Sohrab Ahmari
• Frank Furedi
• Adrian Vermeule
• Christine Emba
• Robert Heinlein

Politicians

• Viktor Orbán
• Balázs Orbán
• Jon Cruddas
• Maurice Glasman
• Danny Kruger
• Miriam Cates
• JD Vance
• Josh Hawley
• Marco Rubio
• Ryszard Legutko

See also

• Blue Labour
• National conservatism
• Illiberal democracy
• Syncretic politics
• Radical orthodoxy
• Integralism
• Common good constitutionalism