The religion of post-liberalism, in search of new ‘virtuous’ elites

It is fashionable to say that liberalism is in crisis, if not outright failed. But this is nothing new. It is a recurring theme amongst many – indeed, the vast majority – of intellectuals. As for why they dislike it, well, one can read what Robert Nozick or Raymond Boudon have written on the subject. In short, liberal theory does not assign any privileged role to the intellectual class, who would instead like to guide society according to some ethical-political vision. This is legitimate, of course. Just as it is, for that matter, to doubt the soundness of these intentions. History is littered with political and economic failures backed by ‘thinking’ elites, who are rather reluctant to critically examine their own ideas. It is easier to find a carnivorous rabbit than an intellectual who observes reality without dreamy eyes and ideological fervour. A bit like the protagonist of Milan Kundera’s Life Elsewhere: Jaromil yearns for ‘a monistic paradise of unity and harmony’, and daydreams, but sooner or later reality comes knocking.

The same applies to that group of authors who would like to do away with liberalism, the ‘post-liberals’. Thinkers who are diverse in their educational backgrounds and tendencies, as well as having (in part) different cultural tastes – certainly ranging from the Americans Patrick J. Deneen and Adrian Vermeule to the Europeans John Milbank and Adrian Pabst. Vita e Pensiero has just published a useful and interesting translation of a text by the latter: "Thinking the Post-Liberal Era". Whilst Deneen has asserted that liberalism has failed and must be discarded in favour of a conservative sensibility that restores the common good, Pabst argues instead that we must move beyond liberalism. The terminology changes – though not all that much, really – but the aim is the same. We need new ‘virtuous’ (!) elites to steer the state and guide the people in the pursuit of the common good. But what is this common good that everyone – far too many people – keeps talking about? It is not clear. Broadly speaking, it seems like a monolith that God would impose upon humankind – the recurring religious references are characteristic of post-liberalism – only that people would be unable to recognise it, and that is why new elites are needed. What is clear is that the individual is incapable of grasping it, at least not the caricature painted by these authors: according to them, liberalism posits the idea of an individual severed from the communities to which they belong and detached from the primary contexts of their existence, entirely focused on their own economic interests – the spectre of *homo economicus* has never gone away.

Pabst insists – as, indeed, does Deneen, whom he criticises – on the revival of a certain tradition and of authors such as Simone Weil and Christopher Lasch, who criticise a degenerate form of individualism; we might even call it a certain ‘narcissistic’ tendency. However, this has very little to do with the liberal tradition: while it is a diverse school of thought, it cannot in the slightest be traced back to the theorisation of that caricatured figure known as ‘homo economicus’. From the pages of Adam Smith right through to twentieth-century authors such as Friedrich von Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke, this fetish does not emerge, except in the eyes of those who project their own biases onto the outside world. Rather than blaming freedom and liberalism for the tendency to erode the space and role of communities, perhaps we should look elsewhere. As Robert Nisbet said, it is the state that is the greatest disruptor of the community spirit, since it absorbs into itself the functions previously the preserve of natural, pre-political communities.