Do Liberal Countries Need A Regime Change?

Patrick J. Deneen's Postliberal Future

A review of Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future by Patrick J. Deneen, Sentinel/Penguin Random House (June 2023)

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According to some political commentators, the current liberal order is about to become a museum piece, appearing between the dinosaurs and the dodos. It’s on the way out. Other commentators are less sure of its demise, but point to its sundry and manifold calamities. In England, the “postliberal” commentators include John Gray, John Milbank, Philip Blond, and Adrian Pabst. In America, there is New Polity magazine, as well as the “national conservative” and Catholic “Integralist” movements. In Australia, there is… a group of us who read these English and American authors with great interest and edification.

One of these celebrated Americans is Patrick J. Deneen, but he doesn’t really fit into the “Integralist” or “national conservative” groups, despite their shared critiques of liberalism. Those groups are associated with “the right,” but Mr Deneen has a potentially huge audience on “the left.” He’s always been concerned with economic inequality, educational inequality, and even social inequality, often noting that richer and highly educated people seem to have an easier time maintaining families than those who aren’t rich and well educated.

His previous book How Liberalism Failed (the past tense is a stroke of brilliance) cheekily and persuasively argued that liberalism – the political system designed to protect individual and property rights, increase individual choices, and decrease unjust restrictions – failed because it succeeded: it was adopted so comprehensively that its contradictions and problems became widely felt.

And we still feel them. I have before outlined the sourness and anomie that epitomise the societies where social and economic liberalism are creeds: an inability to express – or even recognise – transcendent good, truth, and beauty in art, culture, and morals; a blank and pitiless view of nature that sees nothing of the sacral, mysterious, or enchanted, but only different material elements to be abused and sold; levels of greed and oppression not even a Roman emperor could imagine; universal surveillance, both voluntary and involuntary; the destruction of local and organic affiliations and the concomitant reduction of everyone to an individual. I could go on, but, really, only a novelist can fully capture the decay of this colossal wreck. The problem is most popular novels seem to be written for teenage girls.

In any case, one thing is clear: liberalism isn’t cosy.

“But William!” I hear you cry, “look around you! Our society isn’t full of liberals but two warring camps: Marxist progressives and Burkean conservatives!”

Fortunately, Mr Deneen doesn’t fall for such stereotypes. He recognises that there’s nothing Marxist about the progressive “left.” (If there were, there might still be a respectable labour movement.)

Most “progressives” are classical liberals devoted to social freedom. Most “conservatives” are classical liberals devoted to economic freedom. The first group doesn’t follow Karl Marx. The second group doesn’t follow Edmund Burke. Both groups follow John Locke and John Stuart Mill – a mixture perfectly demonstrated by Tony Blair’s Labour Party, which sought both social and economic freedom (and was preceded in this by the Australian Labor Party under Bob Hawke.)

In a world where traditional duties and customs have been discarded as “oppressive” or “outdated,” a new elite has emerged which has obligations only to itself. In Mr Deneen’s view, this creates a pernicious form of meritocracy, where success is measured by credentials and an ability to navigate a managerial workplace. Those who succeed deserve their status as elites. Those who don’t have only themselves to blame. Thus, the credentialled elites – who constantly remind us of their dedication to tolerance and social equality – feel perfectly justified in degrading the less fortunate.

Don’t have a job? Go to college! Learn to code! Move out of that backwater!

Mr Deneen argues that our elites are among the worst in history. They maintain power not in government or public entities but in quangos and institutions such as the media, universities, and Hollywood, which are less amenable to electoral control. These elites claim to scorn inherited wealth and hierarchies, but give their successors huge advantages: “access to elite private schools or their public school equivalents; family-supported international ‘volunteer’ activities; sports camps that elevate athletic prowess to gain scholarships; SAT prep courses; and pre-college summer education opportunities.”

As has been widely noted, our elites decry the unfairness of private schools but buy houses near the best public schools in the country. (And when the wife gets bored, she can run as a progressive political candidate with impeccable credentials.) Unlike the old aristocracy, they have no connection to place or society and can work almost anywhere while the nameless “essential workers” cater to their needs and desires. They protest social inequalities while attending the most exclusive universities in the world. (When I was a student at Cambridge, I heard a girl hijack a speech at a formal dinner to loudly complain that there were “no good men left.” She didn’t notice the blokes who were cooking and serving her food.)

Patrick J. Deneen (photo source)

Despite their accurate criticisms of the “elites,” “the people” themselves aren’t saints. Mr Deneen notes that they’re far more likely than the rich to be addicted to drugs and pornography, and are far less likely to be a part of social or religious communities: “The sense of meaning and support that such institutions might once have offered even people with diminished economic prospects has been largely replaced by the attractions of … social media, cheap imported products, or consciousness-altering and pain-diminishing controlled substances.” The “lower classes” are more likely to be crude and parochial, and harbour grudges against the upper class. Throughout history, “people power” has often been equated with mob rule.

Whatever your worldview, I think you’ll agree with Mr Deneen when he says that no one could look at America (one might add Europe, Australia, or the United Kingdom) and think that it’s flourishing. He senses a backlash. “The consequences of unfettered progress” he writes (in italics, making sure we get the point) “are no longer acceptable to the demos.” What ordinary people want is “stability, order, continuity, and a sense of gratitude for the past and obligation toward the future.” They want “a form of liberty no longer abstracted from our places and people, but embedded within duties and mutual obligations; formative institutions in which all can and are expected to participate as shared ‘social utilities’; an elite that respects and supports the basic commitments and condition of the populace; and a populace that in turn renders its ruling class responsive and responsible to protection of the common good.”

How can such a world become reality? Mr Deneen’s answer: regime change.

His solution to the mutual acrimony between “the few” and “the many” is what he calls “common-good conservatism.” It has nothing to do with what passes for “conservatism” in the United States. It’s conservative insofar as it realises that it seeks guidance from the past; it acknowledges that we may have become more knowledgeable but less wise.

This “common-good conservatism” is pro-worker, pro-union, and pro-welfare state. It opposes “identity politics,” and a pornographic modern culture. Above all, it is not a species within liberalism: it privileges family and community, rather than the individual; it opposes the reduction of everything to the marketplace. In Mr Deneen’s view, the government must support the social institutions that a laissez-faire outlook consistently undermines.

One reason why this form of conservatism attracts scorn is because it rejects the outsize role of technocrats and “experts.” There are certain areas and disciplines that require expertise, but there are some areas in which average people are better judges because they must live with the consequences of expert decisions. Mr Deneen gives the example of a family who owns a house and realises the deficiencies – the misplaced power outlets, the awkward layout of the rooms – better than the one who planned it. (Have you noticed that modern architecture is never cosy?) As Aristotle put it: the diner, not the cook, is the better judge of a meal. To the chagrin of specialists and revolutionaries, a society that properly values the role of the diners and homeowners will generally be stable and predictable, with authoritative elders passing down knowledge and wisdom to younger generations.

The experts still control the colleges and universities, and these institutions exemplify the problem of disintegration. Academic disciplines are increasingly specialised, detached from each other and the rest of the community. Even academics working in the same department don’t understand each other’s work; the only thing they share is a grumble about the quality of coffee on campus. Only at the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge (think of the different houses at Hogwarts) is there a community of scholars from different disciplines. These colleges represent a different sort of society: one where people still have their various specialisations and idiosyncrasies but are encouraged to understand how their work and expertise fits with that of others. The aim is not to increase knowledge but wisdom.

So – what role should elites and experts play? Mr Deneen’s “common-good conservatism” will necessarily have elites – they’re the ones with the resources, the leisure, and are increasingly the only ones who are literate – whose duty is to articulate the cultural traditions and common good relative to their historical, geographic, and political context. This is why Mr Deneen wants to resurrect the ancient idea of a “mixed constitution,” in which one class interacts with and improves the other. It’s a paradoxical idea, calling for more democratic participation alongside a better understanding of tradition, hierarchy, and how a wise few might contribute to society.

“But William!” I hear you cry, “tradition? Hierarchy? Sound the alarm! Mr Deneen is using these abstractions to justify rule by toffs and fat cats! He’s a conservative because he wants to conserve the privileges of rich elites!”

Mr Deneen responds that his defence is not a call to oppress the people but to protect them from a destabilising and destructive revolutionary class, because the demolition of a long-standing way of life will fall hardest on society’s most vulnerable people. In fact, these revolutionaries are often wealthier than the people they claim to represent; it’s not for nothing that Rob Henderson coined the term “luxury beliefs.”

Another group that Mr Deneen thinks we need protection from are the shills of big business. As Karl Marx noted, nothing is more transformative, dynamic, and corrosive than modern capitalism. The people Edmund Burke called the “sophisters, economists, and calculators” want to transform the world into “one great playtable” by steadily transforming political and social orders to favour international urban financiers at the expense of local and rural economic systems. This aristocracy is hard-hearted not because of its cruelty but its indifference: it barely interacts with its neighbours.

The creation of a new elite is essential, argues Mr Deneen, but “a new elite can only arise with support of insistent political power exerted by an increasingly multiracial, multiethnic working-class party.” Mr Deneen calls this blend “aristopopulism,” a mixed regime where “the elite must govern for the benefit of the many, while the many must restrain the dangerous temptations of the elite.” A redistribution of wealth is not enough. We must also redistribute social power and influence; what we need is

“an economic order embedded within a broader context of the common good that especially seeks conditions for the flourishing of people of all classes, and especially a balancing of change and order that allows for strong families and encourages strong social and civic forms. This will require the development of national economic policies that will displace the primacy of economic wealth-creation for a small number of elites, instead with a concern for the national distribution of productive work, expectation of a family-supportive wage for at least one member of a family, and the redistribution of social capital.” (His italics.)

This sounds nice, and many of Mr Deneen’s practical suggestions are attractive: restricting Congressional districts and increasing the number of representatives, relocating federal government branches to different areas of the country, creating a national system for vocational education, giving workers’ councils a say in business decisions, forgiving the student loans of university graduates who become teachers or public servants, banning pornography, mandating domestic manufacturing in certain sectors, rewarding marriage, and increasing paid parental leave. (I’m less keen about his proposal for national military service.) Mr Deneen’s most controversial proposal is probably his call for a public celebration of Christianity. He says this will create in the elites the requisite spirit of service, nobility, and solidarity needed to govern well.

These proposals would disrupt the credentialled monopoly of elites, Mr Deneen argues, and – going beyond the “checks and balances” of the current American constitution – would aim to integrate different groups of people, rather than separate them. It would integrate the globe: the progressive worship of the nation destroys local and international communities – the “barren wasteland of globalist hegemony” (Mr Deneen’s words) would be replaced by partnerships of societies and countries. Mr Deneen’s mixed constitution would even integrate the generations, replacing the ideology of progress with the experience of continuity. Everyone would be united in an act requiring no special technology or credentials: prayer.

This radical view of the future is also looking to the past. The idea of a “mixed constitution” has a long history in ancient Greek thought. Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle all dealt with the concept in one way or another, but it’s most often associated with the historian Polybius, who had plenty of practical experience in politics and war. The Roman conquest of Greece encouraged him to write his history; he credits Rome’s mixed constitution for its success in conquering “virtually the entire world.”

Like his predecessors, when Polybius talked about a mixed constitution, he meant a mix of monarchy (rule by one), oligarchy (rule by a few) and democracy (rule by many).

Mr Deneen knows this, so why does he exclude monarchy from his mixed constitution? Don’t know.

What about the other Greeks? For Plato, effective compromise and voluntary cooperation can occur only when the city provides the right psychological and intellectual upbringing. The education system in the English-speaking world is amazingly inept. Most of our leaders can’t read a foreign language or even speak their own coherently.

What does Mr Deneen’s ideal education system look like? Don’t know.

The Greeks also pondered how decent, well-qualified men with good intentions became impulsive, self-glorifying sovereigns.

How would Mr Deneen’s postliberal regime prevent such corruption? Don’t know.

Saying that the people will restrain the elite isn’t a satisfying answer: the Covid-19 lockdowns showed that authoritarian surveillance and biomedical bullying can exist in countries that are formally democratic. Saying that the new elite will be Christian doesn’t inspire much confidence, either: professed Christians are capable of appalling acts (see Shakespeare’s Henry V) and our current liberalism, atheism, and nihilism emerged in largely Christian societies.

Notably, the mixed constitutions of the ancient world – Sparta, Rome – no longer exist. The Roman Republic ended after internal hostilities and then a series of civil wars.

Does this sound like a good model of continuity and stability? Don’t know.

What about Mr Deneen’s view of the present? I am mostly sympathetic to his proposals, but I know people who wouldn’t be. My friends in Sydney (to be fair, a capital famous for its corruption and depravity) aren’t interested in going to church, starting a family, or volunteering in their neighbourhood. (And it’s much harder to form a community when the neighbours in your apartment complex are foreign investors who spend most of their time overseas.)

In a recent paper for an Australian think tank, Adrian Pabst (whose book Postliberal Politics was unjustly neglected by reviewers) includes some research showing that a growing proportion of Americans under 30 rate the pursuit of wealth and “diversity, inclusion, and equality” above patriotism, religion, having children, and being involved in the local community. Other research suggests that the American population as a whole is becoming less religious.

This is also happening in Australia. As English-speaking society becomes less religious, it becomes more dependent on technology, a topic strikingly absent from Mr Deneen’s discussion. The law is largely unable to restrain the technological advances which increasingly determine how we think, remember, and communicate.

What role should modern communications – radio, television, social media – play in Mr Deneen’s postliberal regime? How will they be regulated to ensure the common good? Don’t know.

Finally, what is “post” about Mr Deneen’s postliberal future? Don’t know.

Yes, he has rightly pointed out the flaws of liberalism, but the parts of his programme that I suspect will gain the most support – obscenity laws, protections for local manufacturing, widespread vocational training, moral support for families – have all been a part of America’s liberal history.

I don’t know if Mr Deneen has fully transcended all liberal assumptions. In focusing on legal and cultural changes, he argues as a liberal would. Surely one of the most distinct characteristics of our modern liberal society is its moral scepticism, its refusal to admit knowledge about what is good. Mr Deneen could have emphasised that many of the moral beliefs we hold dear – the equal value of all people, the hatred of unjust coercion, the concern for the weak and the needy – are unstable unless they’re supported by metaphysical or spiritual principles.

By not pursuing this question, he’s going to have a hard time persuading those who disagree with him because they have a different view of what is real. Appealing to the common good assumes we share a common nature and participate in a shared order of reason, but the popular view today is that we are nothing but inert material to be endlessly re-fashioned and enhanced.

At their best, postliberal analyses attack the modern secular interpretation of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and affirm a worldview grounded in the Trinity, the revelation of goodness, and the mystery of creation. Without such an avowal, can Mr Deneen’s valuable contribution really transcend the liberal order he so rightly criticises? Don’t know.

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