|
December 7, 2004
I have noticed this happening in Australia, though it is nowhere as pronounced as in the US. This is a move way from liberal and liberalism. Liberal is in the process of becoming defined as a political negative, with liberalism becoming something of whipping boy for conservatives.
In the US this process is generally seen as liberalism being in decline. I'm not sure what means. Does it mean New Deal liberalism? Or the liberal values of secular modernity that defined and animated western culture over the last century of social and economic progress? Or is it liberalism in general? Or is it the defend the legacy of the liberal Enlightenment?
In Australia it is social liberalism that is in decline. Social liberalism in Australia meant support for the welfare state. It is contrasted with market liberalism, which by and large means economic individualism, the deregulated market, an emphasis on liberty more than equality, and a reduction and limitation of the powers of government.
It is the social liberals who have their backs up to the wall, and who are fighting the hegemony of conservatism+market liberalism of the Howard Government.
The growing anti-liberalism is a conservatism based on nationalist populism, patriotism and tradition. It is a religious, nationalist conservatism of Australia first. Conservatism in the US? does it mean a religious conservatism that puts America first in the form of empire?
In the article linked above John Lukacs says that:
"We must now understand that the collapse or near collapse of liberalism has not been merely an American phenomenon. Worldwide, we are in the presence of a dual historical development."
His dual historical development is one of the decline of liberalism and the rise of conservatism.
I find this too simplistic.
Lukacs' claim of the 'near collapse of liberalism' is too extreme. Market liberalism is still going strong in the US and in Australia.
Secondly, the 'decline of liberalism and the rise of conservatism' can also mean that the United States is torn about about what America should do and what America should be. Though that tear in the political and cultural fabric is far more pronounced in the US than in Australia, it means a divided nation.
Thirdly, the recoil from liberalism is a recoil from a statist form of liberalism, in which democratic citizenship has come to mean eligibility for social services and welfare benefits. It is not a recoil from liberalism per se. Paul Gottfried offers a good account of this along the lines of new Deal Liberalism as social engineering, the managerial state, and the new regimes of social engineers. This statist liberalism is opposed to the 19th liberalism of distributed powers, bourgeois moral standards, the need to protect civil society from an encroaching state, and the virtues of vigorous self-government.
|
Gary
I read the article that this post referenced. I thought it was interesting, particularly the following passage:
"What may matter in the future is a division between conservatives who love liberty more than they hate liberals and conservatives who don't -- or between conservatives who believe in patriotism and tradition and other conservatives who believe in nationalism and technological progress." What I think this points out is the coming conflict within the conservative movement, at least in the United States. Old fashioned conservatives, if you will, are concerned about the activist nature, both domestically and overseas, of the Bush administration. It will be interesting to see how far Bush pushes his agenda in the second term. If he is successful, this might actually create a wedge within the conservative movement and open an opportunity for other points of view to be heard.