cognitive dissident

Wolfe, Alan. The Future of Liberalism (New York: Knopf, 2009)

Alan Wolfe's The Future of Liberalism is a whirlwind tour through several hundred years of political philosophy, from Rousseau vs. Kant on human nature and Mill vs. Stephen on liberty and equality to the path leading from Herbert Spencer to Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The book's title brought to mind statements like "The future of liberalism is the future; the future of conservatism is the past," and Wolfe anticipated this when observing that "liberalism's future is our future." (p. 29) Indeed it is, and he notes early on that "liberalism offers the best guide not only to our own times, but to the future as well. It will be my task in this book to show why:"

It is liberalism's underlying philosophy--its understanding of human nature, its respect for both individualism and equality, its discovery of the social, its passion for justice, its preference for experience over theory, its intellectual openness, its commitment to fairness--that offers us the surest path toward both individual freedom and a collective sense of purpose. We need liberalism if we are to respect the integrity of human beings, design institutions that serve their needs, and enable them to shape their destinies. (p. 4)

In answer to the conservatives who call themselves "classical liberals" in an attempt to enhance their intellectual heritage by co-opting historical liberals, Wolfe writes:

...classical and modern liberalism are not nearly as distinct as those who insist on dividing them maintain. One, in fact, follows, if not logically, then certainly sociologically, from the other. [...] ...the liberal proposition, tested by long experience, is that whatever dependencies result from using public policy to address modern inequalities, the resulting gains in individual mobility, development of physical and mental capacity, and racial and gender equality far outweigh them. This is why Smith, writing in the eighteenth century in opposition to the regulation of business by government, and Keynes, writing in the twentieth century in support of it, were, substantively speaking, both liberals. Their disagreements were over the means by which large numbers of individuals could achieve control over their lives, not over whether they should. (p. 14)

Indeed, the interdependence of modern life renders the state an all-but-indispensable aid to its citizenry:

...states have grown over the past two centuries or so because it is impossible to realize the good life without them. States build roads and provide the infrastructure that makes society function. They insure people against the vagaries of sudden job loss. They have improved the living conditions of the elderly. They provide for the common defense. They make the streets safe. Without them, it would be difficult to have museums, schools, libraries, and concert halls. Government, in a nutshell, is a synonym for civilization. (p. 229)

Wolfe errs in his mention of "Grover Norquist's metaphor of washing the state down the bathroom drain--could finally become reality." (p. 241) Norquist's metaphor was actually more colorful than that, although apparently less memorable than I had expected. In this 2001 interview with Mara Liasson of NPR's "Morning Edition," Norquist insisted:

"I don't want to abolish government, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Speaking of drowning, Wolfe observes acidly that "The response to Hurricane Katrina became a test case for the conservative understanding of the role of government, and it was a test that conservatism failed:"

From that failure, we have learned that liberal approaches to governance, however flawed, nonetheless remain preferable to conservative ones that deny the legitimacy of the best management tool available for dealing with the uncertainties of modern life. (pp. 219-20)

He goes on to echo George Lakoff's criticism of the "Bush is incompetent" assessment:

To the degree the administration was incompetent, then, it was not because of errors of omission; on the contrary, the inability of the Bush administration to respond to the disaster was a form of planned incompetence, a direct result of its view of government's proper role in society. (p. 221)

There is much worth reading in Wolfe's book. His efforts--and those of other thoughtful and intellectually-inclined liberals--help to illuminate the way forward by clearly showing the ideas that have gotten us this far. The future of liberalism looks bright indeed.

links:
publisher's page
David Frum's WSJ review
Slate review