Why Liberalism Failed
Has liberalism failed as a result of its success? Only liberalism survives from the three prominent ideologies of the twentieth century: fascism, communism, and liberalism. As a result, proponents of liberalism have a tendency to overlook that it is an ideology, not the inevitable end-state of human political progress. Liberalism, as Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, is built on a foundation of contradictions: it preaches equality while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy is based on consent, but it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and, in the pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Deneen warns that the centripetal forces currently at work on our political culture are not defects on the surface, but rather intrinsic aspects of a system whose success is causing its own collapse.
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