You know that you’re in for an intellectual treat when the first two pages of the introduction to The Revolutionary Center make a connection between the World Economic Forum and Thomas Mann’s 1924 classic book, The Magic Mountain.
Mann’s book was set in Davos, Switzerland, which, ironically, is also where the WEF holds its annual confab for the shameless, shallow and aloof rulers of the world.
Two characters in Mann’s book argue about the pros and cons of liberalism and illiberalism, an argument that reflected the politics of the time. When the book was published in 1924, the illiberalism of communism had already subjugated Russia, the illiberalism of Mussolini’s fascism had taken seed in Italy, and, unbeknown to the characters (and Mann), the illiberalism of Nazism would soon consume Germany.
Adrian Wooldridge, the author of The Revolutionary Center, goes on to criticize today’s left-liberals and MAGA populists for undermining the classical-liberal foundations of America. His criticisms are nonpartisan, and he attacks the sacred cows of both the left and right and both Democrats and Republicans. My preferred political philosophy of libertarianism isn’t spared his rod, either—not because it is illiberal but because it is too doctrinaire about limited government.
Given that the vast majority of Americans are on one side or the other and aren’t prone to buy books critical of them, that doesn’t leave a large market for the book. It doesn’t help that the book is very cerebral and is thus an outlier in today’s world of vacuous tweets, soundbites and buzzwords.
Wooldridge deserves credit for tempering his biases. He’s a Brit with a PhD in history from Oxford but is an American at heart, having worked as a bureau chief in Washington and having two daughters who were born in the US. Another book of his, Capitalism in America, co-authored with Alan Greenspan, praises American-style capitalism (but not crony capitalism) and was acclaimed by the Financial Times as a best book of the year. Still another book, The Aristocracy of Talent, is an acclaimed defense of meritocracy.
He feels that Great Britain has lost its way and fears that the US is following close behind.
Being neither a dogmatist nor an absolutist, Wooldridge doesn’t provide an all-encompassing definition of classical liberalism, preferring to look at it broadly instead of narrowly. But he does summarize the thinking of the great historical figures who would come to define it through their political, moral and economic philosophies, such as John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Benjamin Constant, John Stuart Mill, and too many others to list here.
The reader is reminded that liberalism was a reaction to what had preceded it throughout human history, when a king, emperor, strong man, the church, or some sort of collective was at the top of the political and social order and the individual was at the bottom.
Liberalism reversed this order through the concepts of individualism and freedom. That didn’t mean an individualism of selfishness, greed, or unconcern for the downtrodden and the common good. And it didn’t mean freedom disconnected from responsibility.
Related tenets of liberalism are pluralism, the rule of law, property rights, free trade, and free speech, but free speech with a tolerance for different views and a willingness to compromise.
Threats today to liberalism are both external and internal. The external threats are China, Russia, N. Korea, Iran, and other illiberal nations. The internal threats are the aforementioned illiberalism of left-liberals and MAGA populists.
Left-liberals manifest their affection for illiberalism by their obsession with group identities, by their cancelling of speech they disagree with, by their embrace of cultures and immigrant groups that disdain liberalism and want to overthrow it, by their promulgation of racist and unjust policies under the guise of anti-racism and social justice, by their favoring of collectivism and statism over markets, by their furtherance of dependency over independency, by their preference for equal outcomes over merit, and by their hypocrisy of pretending to care for working stiffs while tending to be in professions and jobs with sinecure that are insulated from the disastrous results of their socioeconomic policies.
MAGA populists are so joined at the hip with Trump that it is difficult to distinguish their beliefs from the behavior and actions of their leader. Trump is a strong man with authoritarian tendences who gravitates toward likeminded men; who pits groups against groups as the left does, but for different groups in different ways; who embraces mercantilism over free trade; who has upended the liberal order by driving wedges between the US and its Western allies and trading partners; who seems to operate on whims and revenge instead of reasoned principles; who uses government power to reward friends and punish enemies, including perceived and actual enemies in the press; and who hypocritically pretends to care for working stiffs while enabling family business deals with uber-wealthy authoritarians and shady characters in what smacks of grifting.
Liberalism was revolutionary when it first came on the world scene. As the book’s title suggests, it would be revolutionary again for classical liberalism to retake the center and prevail against the extremes of illiberalism on the left and right.
As Wooldridge concludes, classical liberalism isn’t utopia but is the best safeguard against terrible things happening.
There is enough to fight over in politics without fighting over liberalism. In a constitutional republic based on liberal values, it is dangerous to allow politics to undermine what keeps us free as individuals. Americans who vote for illiberalism do so at their own peril.
Mr. Cantoni is an author, activist and retired business executive living in Tucson. Contact: [email protected]
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