Patrick J. Deneen

Has liberalism failed because it has succeeded?

Why Liberalism Failed

Luke Stamps

Sobering account of how Western Liberalism (the lifeblood of both contemporary political parties) failed precisely because it succeeded. The isolation of the individual from mediating institutions and the corollary (and necessary) expansion of the state were baked in from the beginning. His gestures toward what might come after Liberalism in the conclusion are worth serious reflection.

Max Bodach

Deneen's work is hyped up for several reasons, so I went in with high expectations. However, I'm just not convinced that liberalism as he defines it has as much agency as he ascribes to it. Additionally, the Dreher-like conclusion at the end doesn't necessarily follow. If the only solution to creeping individualism and liberalism is intentional, isolated communities of virtue, how will that hasten the downfall of liberalism? What comes after that? Is the only alternative to "liberalism" the confessional state, beginning with the isolated confessional tribe? 

However, highly entertaining read and a thought-provoking argument.

"One of the most important political books of 2018."—Rod Dreher, American Conservative Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.

Why Liberalism Failed

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