Post-Liberalism as Working Class Conservatism: A Conversation with Patrick Deneen
Political philosopher Patrick Deneen’s conversation with Russian political philosopher Boris Mezhuev offers valuable insights into post-liberalism, its meaning and future prospects. It was our colleague Boris Mezhuev at the Russian e-zine Russkaya Idea who first suggested this dialogue, and Russkaya Idea was also first to publish it. Here are Mezhuev’s introductory remarks to this landmark conversation which is published in full, below:
“As we have written in a number of previous publications on our website, Patrick Deneen, author of the 2018 bestselling book Why Liberalism Failed, is considered the intellectual leader of so-called post-liberalism, a movement that challenges the principles of the liberal philosophy of the Enlightenment, the system of thought on which the political system of the United States and other Western democracies is formally based. The liberal understanding of freedom as freedom from external obligations, as the severing of social ties not only with one’s fellow citizens, but also with past and future generations, inevitably leads to the moral and, subsequently, the political alienation of the elites and the common man. As for its ideological design, it offers, on the one hand, the philosophy of the free market and, on the other, a philosophy of freely choosing one’s own identity. To both these individualisms Deneen counterposes what he calls in the interview we have published ‘working class conservatism.’ Professor Deneen hopes that Russian and American proponents of a socially oriented conservatism will be able, through dialogue, to find a common language. We hope so too, and we thank our colleagues from the Simone Weil Center, Susannah Black and Paul Grenier, for their help in organizing this conversation.”
Russkaya Idea: From what we know in Russia, in the US you are considered to be one of the leaders of an intellectual movement known as post-liberalism. Would you agree with this and if yes, can you, please, describe the key points of post-liberalism? Does it really base itself on refusing the liberal legacy of John Locke and to a certain extent that of the Founding Fathers? What relationship does it have with conservatism, as it has been understood in the US, and conservatism as it has been understood in Europe and elsewhere?
Patrick Deneen: I am often identified as one of a number of more conservative thinkers who support moving toward “post-liberalism.” These include a number of thinkers in the U.S., England, and Europe who have recently risen to prominence. My book, Why Liberalism Failed, provided a relatively early diagnosis of the crisis of liberalism that is now evident to every observer of politics in the West. Many of us agree on the nature of liberalism’s failures, though we tend to differ on how best to address liberalism’s failure.
What we all generally agree upon is that liberalism is premised on a false understanding of human nature, and hence, the human social and political order. The main goal of liberalism is “equal liberty” of every human – autonomy, freedom from arbitrary identities, a world in which liberal openness is the only real formative social ecology. In its political, social, and economic form, it leads to a hostility to culture and religion; the active undermining of identities grounded in tradition and generational continuity; borderlessness of the self and polity; and the transformation of all human relations into the transactional, market-based model of “utility maximization.” The result is the flattening of cultures and traditions – transforming them into marketable goods; the weakening of all associations, including the family; the strengthening of the liberal state and liberalized global market as the main engines of individual liberation; and growing and radical inequality of winners and losers under this system.
This was the philosophy that formed Western political views coming out of the Enlightenment, and was mainly operative at the time of the American founding. Thus, many of us are critics of both. However, it is also necessary to recognize that philosophical and theological views during these periods were not monolithic, and much of the practice of these eras remained deeply informed by a pre-liberal, particularly Christian inheritance. Those of us who seek to move beyond liberalism thus do not think we must foment a revolution to overturn every last element of the Enlightenment inheritance, but revive – in new form – the existing inheritance that also played a powerful part in the development of these Western societies.
A main difference in how different thinkers propose to resist and even overturn the liberal model ranges from arguments for “The Benedict Option,” that is, strengthening local communal forms in the face of liberal political hegemony; or for anti-liberals to capture and use the power of the state to support a different view of human nature and, hence, political and social order. I tend to think that, at some level, and in different national contexts, both are needed.
Russkaya Idea: What emerges from your discussion with Michael Lind (very interesting, by the way) is that you hold liberalism responsible for the current class confrontation in the USA, and that you do not see any way out except for a religious renaissance. Who could then replace the secular elites? Do you deem possible the “re-christianisation” of the US and the West in general? How do you assess the possibility of a Christian renaissance in the Catholic and Orthodox worlds?
Patrick Deneen: I am deeply indebted to Michael Lind’s recent book The New Class War, which I think is a forceful and accurate analysis of how and why the current class inequalities have emerged across the Western world. He appreciates not only the material reasons for this growing inequality, but also the social grounds – and rightly notes how a toxic combination of managerialism, “woke” egalitarianism, and geographic sorting have contributed to a self-congratulatory ruling class that is actually negligent toward the plight of the lower class.
I differ with Lind (to some extent at least) that the solution lies in the political reinvigoration of the working class in order to force today’s elites into concessions like those they enjoyed in the 1950s, during a period of a strong labor movement. I think this solution is necessary but not sufficient. What is actually needed is either the replacement or thorough reformation of the elite, formed by values and vistas more in keeping with those of the working class. That is, rather than seeking to “check” their power – which will not ultimately work – instead, the nature and even personnel of the elite itself must be changed.
Lind seems to think that you can have a balance between a more “liberal” ruling class and a “Conservative” working class, with the latter preventing the former’s efforts to maintain their oligarchy. I don’t think this proposal is feasible, and instead will argue in my next book that what is needed is an entire reformulation of what constitutes the purpose, goals, and formation of the ruling elite in the West.
Russkaya Idea: How do you see the political legacy of Trump and of Trumpism? Do you consider Trumpism to be a positive phenomenon? If yes/no, why? Did it play a role in destroying the remaining bits of religious conservatism in the US? What might its future be, whether Trump wins or loses?
Patrick Deneen: It will take some time to assess the deeper meaning of the past four years, even of the last several decades that mark the rise and (mostly) fall of neo-liberalism. With Trump having lost the election, both left and right liberals are eager to define his time in office as an aberration, and are eager to ensure that nothing like it can happen again. Rumblings about the need for compilation of enemy “lists” and the “re-education” of Trump voters reflects the intention by some that any re-occurrence of “Trumpism” be avoided at all costs.
My own view about Trump in particular is that Trump’s election had both positive and negative features – with the two being intimately related. Trump exposed that both the main parties had become the parties of liberalism – right liberalism (libertarian markets) and left liberalism (libertarian social ethics). In 2016, Trump first overcame right liberalism (free market fundamentalism combined with foreign policy hubris) by defeating his Republican adversaries in the primaries, then defeated left liberalism (free market fundamentalism wedded with identity politics) in the general election. He exposed that there was a significant portion of the U.S. population that no longer supported either of these two false choices. It took someone of his “outsider” status and brashness to expose this fact, something that had wholly escaped the understanding of the mainstream of both parties.
However, the very features that made him the singular character to expose the existence of this segment of the electorate to the DC-insiders – his outsider status, his boorishness, his “devil-may-care” attitude – also made him a poor leader once in office. He did not have any well-developed major policy commitments that he sought to advance, and allowed Congress to push through the one main policy that had been the primary commitment of Republicans for a generation – tax cuts. These cuts juiced the stock market, and did contribute to bottom-line growth of corporations and thus improve the economy, but it didn’t address major structural issues that had been harming the working class for decades. He seemed mainly content for most of the past four years to infuriate the opposition through his taunting tweets, but did not develop an agenda that might have expanded his relatively narrow base into a majority coalition that could have governed for a generation.
Beyond Trump, I believe that his election marks not an end, but a beginning of a deeper realignment in American (and Western) politics. A Biden administration is already showing every intention of reinstalling the previous regime that gave rise to Trump – a neo-liberalism friendly to corporate interests, militarist liberal internationalism, a return to managing American decline by cozying to China, and a doubling down on identity politics. I believe nearly everyone except Joe Biden knows this to be a temporary pause in a tempestuous and changing political landscape. His efforts to return to “normal” are likely only to make matters worse, in fact, by pretending that the conditions developed under the neo-liberalism of Clinton/Bush/Obama, ones that gave rise to the populist uprising in 2016, will simply disappear.
Instead, neo-liberalism has no long-term constituency: the future looks to be increasingly defined by a divide between neo-Marxism and neo-Conservatism. With the decline of liberalism, the political divide in the West will move further left and further right. What is unfolding is a battle for the soul of the lower and working classes.
Marxism and conservatism arose as two distinct responses to liberalism. Both sought to align with “the people” against various forms of liberal elitism. Marxism offered a vision in which an “elite” would eventually wither away, ushering in a materialist egalitarian future (though, of course, this never happened, nor, I would submit, never can happen in reality). Conservatism held that an elite would always exist, but that its commitments should be aligned with the concerns and needs of the working classes and against a revolutionary liberalism in both the economic and social spheres. That debate – coming increasingly to the fore again – divides Marxists who see the working classes as a revolutionary force to be tapped, and conservatives who believe that the instinctive conservatism on the working class needs protection and support by those who govern the main institutions of society. I believe much of the debate in coming years will be between these two visions of society, reflecting a deeper realignment of the two main parties of the West.
Russkaya Idea: What do you think about Christian evangelicals, religious conservatism and its political influence? How important is it and do you see this movement as your potential ally?
Patrick Deneen: Religious conservatives – which, in the U.S., generally means, people who are active in their religious observance – have, of course, been strong supporters of Trump (and, are often aligned with more “populist” movements around the world). Such support is, in many ways, not a reflection of their political power, but of a growing weakness – both politically and socially. The number of active worshippers in the U.S. (as is the case across the developed world) has been steadily dropping for years. In the 1970s, religious worshippers believed that they constituted a “moral majority,” and sought to align a moral agenda with public policy – such as forbidding abortion, support for school prayer, bans on pornography, and so forth. Today, few religious believers hold out political hope that this is a likelihood in an increasingly secular nation. As a result, they have abandoned the idea that their favored political candidates should embody and represent Christian virtues, and instead have turned to someone whom they believe will fight to protect them – and, hence, why many religious voters supported Donald Trump in 2016. But a main driving force in their support is their hope that he will institute policies, and appoint judges, who will protect their religious liberty – that is, rights to worship and organize religious institutions in conformity with their beliefs, even if these exist in contradiction to the dominant commitments of the secular order. So, it is not clear whether religious believers constitute enough of a political force to resist, much less reverse, powerful secular forces in the Western world. While it’s certainly the case that they are today a significant political ally against the further advance of liberalism, it’s also the case that their power and influence appears (for the time being) to be waning in America and the West.
Russkaya Idea: How significant were (and are) the events of 2020 for cultural and social transformation of the US? Will pandemics, and the lockdown and restrictive measures that it brought, cause substantial change in the everyday life of the people (via wide spread of tele-working, e-learning, e-socialising)? Will this affect how people interact on the local level, i.e. will this affect the revival of localist Tocquevilleianism, which you see as so central to the US’s spirit and survival?
Patrick Deneen: People have been forced to live more locally – but that does not mean they generally like it. Many wish to “get back to normal,” meaning, travel, tourism, entertainment, and (especially for the more elite class) the predominance of work over home. Still, it is also clear that we are likely to see the acceleration of some structural changes that were already taking place before COVID, particularly the decline of the urban office building as the main place of business, the rise of tele-commuting and home offices. My fear is that if these structural changes are not accompanied by other changes to how we organize our social lives – ones that stress neighborhood and local community – then we are likely to see the acceleration of another feature of modern life, the growing isolation and fragmentation of people into narrowing cocoons. This was how Tocqueville described the trajectory of democracy – a form of individualism in which people withdraw from others into an ever-smaller circle of acquaintances and family, until they become isolated “in the solitude of their own hearts.” Without an accompanying revival in local forms of economic, social, and political association – which is a great challenge in an age of distance, “virtual” contact through electronic media, and massification – then Tocqueville’s fear seems to be the more likely result.
Russkaya Idea: As far as I can tell, you haven’t written a great deal about the idea of civilizations and their clashes – that is, of conflict between civilizational blocs. Do you think that while in Europe and the USA secular trends are getting stronger, in other blocs — India, China, Russia, the Islamic world, there is a religious renaissance? What might this portend for the future?
Patrick Deneen: The election will also tell us much about how U.S. relations in the international domain will shift. To echo my observations above, Trump has been inconsistent in his approach not only to domestic affairs, but international affairs as well. He has had to combat a foreign policy establishment, part of the “deep state,” that has not wished to shift the U.S. post World War II strategic commitments. If Trump had been re-elected, or a Republican succeeds him in four years (whether re-elected or not), I suspect we will see some major shifts in U.S. strategic foreign policy. A main shift will be to continue to view China as the singular threat to U.S. interests. It will move from its historic strategic partnership with Europe, with the likelihood being that it will form more of an alliance with an independent Britain and EU-skeptic nations like Poland and Hungary. Its main focus will be to build a strong alliance with India and other nations that have reason to fear a Chinese hegemon. Its relation with Russia will be transactional – working with Russia when necessary, opposing when their interests clash. But there will be no sense in which Russia poses an ideological threat to the U.S., and hence their relations can be wary but cordial.
Under a Biden presidency, as we are already seeing, the foreign policy establishment will quickly shift back to Obama-era commitments. The U.S. will renew its historic partnership with the EU, supporting the expansion of hegemonic liberalism. It will resume its project of liberal internationalism, one that has resulted in a series of catastrophic wars and damaging engagements. I suspect Russia will remain a “bogeyman” in a Biden administration, a convenient enemy to present to the American people while the establishment seeks to repair some ties to China. While there will be some criticisms of China that Biden will be obligated to air, nevertheless, I suspect that under the surface, there will be efforts to rebuild the trade alliance while downplaying China’s human rights abuses, returning to the fable that only by engaging China will it become a liberal democracy.
Russkaya Idea: How promising, in your opinion, could be the dialogue between Russian and American conservative intellectuals? Is it possible for the conservatism of today to be free of rigid nationalistic overtones which prevent rapprochement between conservative political leaders and intellectuals? Is it possible to get past the oddly persistent hostility between the US and Russia that is the legacy of the Twentieth Century, and the politicization of “Russia” as a Trumpist entity, to engage in truly fruitful dialogue? What would you hope for from such a dialogue?
Patrick Deneen: I would think this would be a fruitful area of dialogue. Already I am taking part in a number of trans-Atlantic dialogues premised on the idea that post-liberalism must be both sensitive to national differences, but also must be international in scope. Russia is a more “traditional” society than America, one with more religious homogeneity as well, and so there are likely limits to how we can offer to each other models and examples. But, Russia – having tested a possible move toward Western liberalism – seems to have recognized its pitfalls, and is now working on how it moves into a post-Communist, non-liberal political and social order. For those of us in the West similarly working on how to move into a post-liberal political order, there are fruitful areas of discussion – even recognizing the different starting points and different contexts with which we begin. I would think that we would have much to learn from each other, and I would welcome that opportunity.
Note: The above text differs slightly from the Russian version: it has been updated by Prof. Deneen to reflect that the results of the U.S. presidential election are now known. The order of the questions has also been slightly changed.