The Threat from the Illiberal Left

Identity politics IS a demand for equality, based on the recognition that certain groups experience inequality in ways specific to them. For example, Black women are 3-4 times as likely to die from pregnancy related complications and twice as likely to lose an infant to premature death. A plea for that to be considered and rectified is not a desire for "special treatment," and in fact if it were to be changed that would almost certainly improve the United State's abysmal maternal healthcare FOR ALL WOMEN across the board. A rising tide lifts all boats, no?

> The fundamental problem of Liberalism is that it thinks the world is far more stateless than it actually is.

This is vague and untestable. You could literally make this claim against any ideology and we wouldn’t be able to ascertain a truth value.

What part? That liberalism assumes more statelessness than reality? Or that this is it's fundamental issue?

For the former, we have tons of evidence:

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/12/11/...

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28979/w289...

I recall something also about the persistence of Roman settlement patterns in France vs Britain proving to be a disadvantage in the early modern era when ocean-based commerce became so important.

Whether it's "equal opportunity vs equal outcome", liberalism assumes that the system will converge and the two will be brought into alignment mertiocratically. When there's an emphasis on rules-based systems, it assumes there is some sort of quorum of those playing by the rules and others will have to join the fold. When there's a belief that competition could sustain itself, we're simply requirements the needs of equilibrium theory back into our assumptions.

Rather than being elastic and in balance, the world is much more plastic and constantly rebalancing, with the former masking the latter. There is still much of liberalism to be admired, but it should be saved for the "victory lap". Perhaps liberalism works for worlds that are fixed, it does not work for worlds that need fixing.

>> The best way to navigate disruptive change in a divided world is through a universal commitment to individual dignity, open markets and limited government.

Woa, hold horses! "Open markets and limited government"? That's libertarianism not liberalism.

As sooome kind of liberal, I parse "open markets" as "no rights for workers, no-holds-barred environmental destruction by industry"; and whenever I read "limited government" I hear "less power to voters". That is not liberalism.

I don't know what liberalism is, though I know it when I see it, but I'm sure that the highest ideals associated with liberalism should be humanitarian ideals, not economic ideals. Human rights legislation, free education and healthcare, policies driven by quality of life indicators, that sounds like liberalism. Free market economics and industry deregulation? Not so much.

> Liberalism makes no such assumption. It simply makes the assumption that less liberal systems will be even worse at producing human flourishing.

I think that is a modern conservative widening of the goalposts. They were more confident in the past. Such week claims are not going to save liberalism so I suggest a different tack.

> Liberalism makes no such assumption. If you’re referring to the US expecting China to liberalize, that has nothing to do with an assumption of liberalism. It was just a misunderstanding of the nature of Maoism and the CCP.

I am not referring to that in particular. I am referring to the narrative behind 2nd-wave colonialism in general, and since then IMF / World Bank insisting on free trade, etc. In a domesticate setting, education is viewed similarly to clean up the bitter deluded masses, "science will defeat religion" type views. Liberalism has always been about taming the wild passions of a vast illiberal other.

And to be clear, I would be perfectly happy if education brought patience, science defeated religion, etc. etc., but again empirical reality doesn't make one so hopeful.

> The notion of “worlds that need fixing” is Utopianism by another name, and is the perennial justification for the authoritarianism.

Liberalism has always had a slight utopianist inclination, be it whig history, "the arc of history bends towards Justice", etc. Reform, not revolution, but certainly not accepting the world as it is either.

Again, I think you are imparting a modern conservative spin on the ideology. Again, it might better align liberalism with the reality of what it actually accomplishes, but that is is too tepid and will not save it.