1There is now wide agreement that liberalism, and by extension, the social and political order we call “liberal democracy,” are in crisis. The sources of this crisis are many, some essentially exogenous and others more endogenously tied to liberal thought and the way liberal democracies actually work. Recently, there have been quite a few attempts to understand this crisis by looking at the history of liberalism as an intellectual movement. This is more particularly the case of two 2023 books by prominent intellectual historians: Alan Kahan’s Freedom from Fear: An Incomplete History of Liberalism and Samuel Moyn’s Liberalism against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times. The two books differ in their historical scope and focus, but they share two central claims. First, both Kahan and Moyn argue that the current crisis of liberalism can be accounted for by looking at the history of this intellectual movement. Both locate the moment liberalism started to go off the track in the 20th century around World War II, a bit before or just after. Second, the two books speculate, with more or less details and arguments, that the only way out of this crisis is for liberalism to renew with its “utilitarian,” “perfectionist,” and “progressive” roots that go back to the 19th century.
2These two claims are deeply intertwined. According to Kahan and Moyn, liberalism lost its moral soul when it started to be disproportionally concerned with economic freedom and market efficiency on the one hand, and the imperial necessity to curb the totalitarian risk that was threatening Western democracies on the other hand. The consequence has been, according to our authors, that proponents of liberalism (being either intellectuals or economic and political actors) have ended up underestimating the importance of the “moral pillar” (Kahan’s expression) of liberalism and liberal societies. There is no free society without a commitment to justice as well as social and moral progress. Kahan’s and Moyn’s books narrate two versions of this same tale but take two different paths otherwise. Kahan’s book offers a broad, even if incomplete (as its subtitle states) history of liberalism from the proto-liberalism of the 18th century to contemporary debates on feminism and imperialism. By contrast, Moyn’s book focuses on “Cold War liberalism” and attempts to show how major intellectual figures of this strand of liberalism betrayed the liberal canon. I will first present Moyn’s (Section 1) and Kahan’s (Section 2) books separately. The last part of this discussion will assess whether their call for a return to the perfectionist and progressive roots of liberalism is justified and promising in light of the current crisis (Section 3).
3So-called “Cold War liberalism” emerged after the Second World War at a time when intellectuals and populations, in general, were still traumatized by the atrocities committed by totalitarian regimes and as an uncertain and threatening conflict between the West and the East was gaining momentum. In an influential article focusing on three major intellectual figures of the time (Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, and Karl Popper), the German political scientist Jan-Werner Müller (2008) argued that these figures contributed to a distinct strand of liberal thought largely captured by the notion of “liberalism of fear” as later conceptualized by the philosopher Judith Shklar (1989).
4Manifesting a resolute prudence and skepticism toward ambitious ideological programs, Cold War liberals warned against the dangers of pursuing ideals while disregarding the costs that this entails, and of sacrificing freedom in the name of superior values. For Cold War liberals, the justification of liberal principles and institutions is foremost to be found in the fear that such grand projects should inspire, but also in the insight that fear itself is the cause of most political evils. In a nutshell, Cold War liberalism was a “negative” form of liberalism, arguing for the primacy of freedom, not because of its intrinsic value or contribution to progress, but as the best way to minimize the risk of human suffering and humiliation.
5While Müller’s paper was essentially an appraisal of this strand of liberalism, Moyn takes a far more critical stance on it. Moyn’s main thesis is indeed that Cold War liberalism is a perversion of liberal ideas developed during the 19th century that deflected liberal thought from the progressive and perfectionist features that were then at its core. By giving up on progressivism and perfectionism, Cold War liberalism also indirectly favored the rise to dominance of Hayekian and Friedmanian “neoliberalism” as well as the emergence of neoconservatism. Moyn argues that we are seeing since the 1990s a resurgence of Cold War liberalism, as witnessed by the influence of prominent public intellectuals like Anne Applebaum or Timothy Garton Ash, in the context of the rise of populism, Islamist terrorism, and the so-called “wokism” from the left.
6According to Moyn, the distinctive feature of Cold War liberals (with the notable exception of Isaiah Berlin) is their twofold rejection of enlightenment and romanticism. The implications are significant. Compared to their liberal predecessors, Cold War liberals are more reluctant to consider that progress can be achieved by the use of reason, and they are more prone to emphasize the dangers involved by the hubris that results from overconfidence in it. They are dismissive of philosophy of history and all forms of historicism. They at the same time reject the idea that there is a path to progress that all societies can take but also that the ranking of values and appraisals of ways of life are specific to cultures, communities, or nations. They are skeptical toward any pronouncement about the highest forms of life and ideals that could justify restricting some people’s (negative) freedom to achieve nobler aims. Though they do not agree on every detail, what is uniting Cold War liberals is the general view that most of the apparent justifications for interfering with people’s freedom hide great dangers and contain the seeds for tyranny. Because of that, they essentially give up on any pretension to justify a political regime (including a liberal and democratic one) based on its ability to trigger progress and improve people’s lives.
7Moyn’s book is however not primarily a contribution in political theory or political philosophy. It is foremost a work in intellectual history. Besides the introduction and epilogue that develop most of the content I have just summarized, the book consists of a series of intellectual portraits of figures associated directly or indirectly with Cold War liberalism. Some of the choices regarding who is covered and how are at first sight disturbing. For instance, Raymond Aron—definitely a Cold War liberal—is not discussed while a chapter is dedicated to Hannah Arendt, clearly a major intellectual figure of the 20th century but not usually associated to this brand of liberalism. The chapter on Judith Shklar may surprise, as Moyn chooses to focus on her first book (based on her PhD thesis) where Shklar is critical of some liberals’ dismissive attitude toward enlightenment, but mostly ignores her subsequent writings where she progressively endorses the tenets of Cold War liberalism. The chapters on Popper and especially Berlin hardly bring new insights into the thoughts of these over-studied authors.
8The portraits are nonetheless interesting overall as they also cover less-known figures (Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lionel Trilling) and, put together, are conducive to a solid narrative. Moyn is especially good at pointing out the tensions and inconsistencies that emerge from the writing of Cold War liberals. For instance, Cold War liberals’ rejection of historicism and philosophy of history enters in tension with their underlying thesis that the Enlightenment carried in itself the seeds of tyranny. The latter is indeed a philosophy of history in its own right, appealing to the deterministic and unavoidable implications of endorsing some set of ideas. With respect to Berlin, in an otherwise slightly disappointing chapter, Moyn also highlights very well the tension between Berlin’s qualified endorsement of romanticism and the primacy he confers to negative liberty, arguing that ultimately Berlin relegates romantic ideas in the background. Overall, the historical material is new and interesting enough to make the book worth the read. More than previous historical work on Cold War liberalism, it advances a thesis about the role that this strand of liberalism played in the general direction taken by the liberal intellectual movement in the 20th century. Whether this thesis is convincing is left to the reader’s judgment. In any case, Kahan’s book brings additional and complementary arguments in its favor.
9Kahan’s ambitious Freedom from Fear. An Incomplete History of Liberalism adopts a similar approach and ultimately defends the same thesis as Moyn regarding how liberalism got lost. The comparison stops here however as Kahan’s book has a far broader scope and is also in general more convincing in defending the idea that the key to understanding liberalism’s failure but also to imagine how to revive it is to be found in its past, and more specifically in its utilitarian and perfectionist strands that were dominant in the 19th century.
10As its subtitle suggests, Kahan’s history of liberalism does not cover everything that can be meaningfully related to the liberal intellectual movement. In particular, it is explicitly Western-centered and skips authors and strands that certainly should figure in a complete history of liberalism. Incomplete as it is, the scope of Kahan’s history is nonetheless broad, starting with the “proto-liberals” of the 18th century (Montesquieu, Adam Smith) and ending with a discussion of the contemporary crisis of liberalism and its struggle against populism. In between, the book covers late 18th/early 19th-century pioneers of liberal thought (Immanuel Kant, James Madison, Benjamin Constant), 19th-century contributors whose writings have definitively established liberalism as a distinct intellectual movement (Tocqueville, Mill), important liberal thinkers of the 20th century (Walter Lippmann, Friedrich Hayek, Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, Milton Friedman, …), as well as many other more or less significant authors. Kahan does not only propose intellectual portraits of liberal figures, but he also discusses issues tackled by liberal thinkers that are essential to deal with to understand the trajectory of liberalism, especially in the transition from the “fin de siècle” to the 20th century (nationalism, feminism, imperialism). Even John Locke, who Kahan argues cannot be considered a (proto-) liberal author, is discussed in the first chapter.
11A strength of the book is its analytical framework. It gives the discussion of the many well-known authors and topics addressed a particular coherence and relevance. The framework reflects Kahan’s main thesis, which is that the history of liberalism can be interpreted as an intellectual and political struggle against a small number of “fears” that have successively emerged as Western societies were industrializing and modernizing. Kahan identifies four such fears, appearing in chronological order: the fear of despotism and religious fanaticism, the fear of revolution and reaction, the fear of poverty, and the fear of totalitarianism. The appearance of each of these fears is related to the emergence of a new stage in the development of liberal thought. Proto-liberals were concerned with the fear of despotism and religious fanaticism and 19th-century liberalism with the fear of revolution. The growing social significance of poverty at the end of the 19th century led to the schism between “classical liberals” viewing poverty as a minor issue and “modern liberals” making it the most important concern to be addressed. The fear of totalitarianism largely drove liberal reflections in the 20th century, from the “liberalism of fear” to the early developments of “neoliberalism.” The fact that the appearance of a new fear does not necessarily eliminate the previous ones largely explains why liberal thought essentially takes the shape of an “oyster” that grows by accretion, giving birth to a large diversity of strands whose ties may appear tenuous at the surface.
12I shall not discuss here a specific intellectual portrait or issue among the many that figure in the book. In general, they are very instructive and interesting, even when they concern a well-known author on which the literature is already more than abundant. More to the point here is the general claim that Kahan makes throughout the book according to which we can discern a trend seeing liberal authors increasingly relying on two or even only one economic or political “pillar,” while earlier liberals were embracing at the same time the economic, political, and moral dimensions of liberalism. This trend starts in the “short 19th century” with authors like Jeremy Bentham, Frédéric Bastiat, and Herbert Spencer. It is reinforced during the fin-de-siècle with authors like Dicey and Léon Bourgeois. According to Kahan, relying on one pillar at the exclusion of the other two became an established characteristic of liberalism in the 20th century with authors like Rawls, Robert Nozick, Friedman, and Judith Shklar.
13The last chapter, dedicated to liberalism’s contemporary crisis and the rise of populism, argues that this trend accounts for most of the troubles of liberal democracy. More specifically, Kahan argues that liberals went astray when they started to ignore the crucial role of the moral pillar in supporting political and economic liberal institutions. Kahan claims that the rise of 21st-century populism is mostly “the result of cultural alienation caused by changes in the mores at both the bottom and the top of Western and some non-Western societies (e.g., India)” (422). The decline of religion (or the emergence of new religious practices) and family solidarity, the economic impoverishment of rural areas, or a diminished sense of national belonging are all factors that contribute to a “sense of loss” (423) among (often geographically concentrated) parts of the population. More than the adverse effects in material terms, these are the social esteem and status of these portions of the population that are compromised.
14Populism grows from an “illiberal consensus” between the parties of society who are blaming liberalism for the fear and pain they have suffered. More than whether liberalism is really to blame, what matters here is that this perception is largely caused by liberals’ underestimation of the moral pillar. According to Kahan, the resurgence of nationalism, resentment due to a feeling of (cultural and economic) deprivation, or the rejection of meritocracy all have the same common origins in the effective dominance of an individualist and cosmopolitan form of liberalism that is oblivious to the fact that not all the members of society share the corresponding set of values. However, a liberal society needs a moral pillar that provides a common ground that does not exclude anyone and that does not feed the sentiment that some members of society consider themselves superior to the rest of the population. As I noted above, both the diagnostic and the remedy are therefore very similar to those advanced by Moyn. I shall now assess them from a philosophical, rather than historical, point of view.
15Moyn’s and Kahan’s respective historical accounts converge toward the idea that 20th liberalism in general, Cold War liberalism in particular, may have been too much focused on the fear of totalitarianism to push economic (free markets) and political (liberal democracy) institutions that also require more morally grounded forms of justification. For both authors, the inability of contemporary liberal democracies to effectively counter the populist wave at least partially lies in the fact that liberals are still locked in the rhetoric and ideological one-dimensionality of 20th-century liberalism. This runs the risk of overemphasizing the threat of despotism, at the cost of neglecting to offer populations of Western countries positive reasons to maintain their trust in prevailing economic and political institutions. Hence, in his epilogue, Moyn writes:
There is no reason to trivialize the genuine threats that provoke liberal anxieties. What Alexis de Tocqueville called “salutary fear” is essential in appraising and counteracting risks, which include not just despotism abroad, managed badly over decades, but an ecological crisis that is entirely self-imposed. Yet liberals did not appear to learn the actual lesson Cold War liberalism teaches—or that a global “war on terror” declared against shadowy and “totalitarian” enemies. Exaggerating risks leads to overreaction, even as other threats are minimized or missed, and longstanding problems fester that exacerbate the challenges prompting overreaction in the first place. Warning in perpetuity that the alternatives to liberalism are worse has proved no more than a rationalization for avoiding thinking about how to save liberalism—which is to say, how to make it credible enough for salvation. (174-175)
16Whether we agree or not with Moyn’s historical thesis that the intellectual roots of the current prevailing “defense” of liberalism are to be found in the history of its Cold War precursor, we may eventually concur with the diagnosis. The bottom line is that fear and skepticism, while still rationally relevant, have less emotional appeal to justify the principles and institutions of liberal democracy. More exactly, fear has changed side. Populists of all sorts routinely use fear as a weapon to attract voters, sometimes by making disputable if not downright false claims. It has both cultural and economic origins. People are told by populists that they should fear that their traditions and values will disappear because of immigrants and globalization—e.g., some religious displays such as the traditional Christmas crèche in public buildings will no longer be allowed. They are told that new practices are conducive to criminality and dangers—e.g., that admitting non-heterosexual behavior will destroy the traditional family or even encourage illegal behavior. They are told that inequalities are increasing, that they will become poorer than the poor, and that the economic system if not the whole society will collapse. In the face of all these claims and supposed one-size-fits-all remedies to address them, skepticism should obviously remain the appropriate stance. The call for epistemic humility and awareness of the limits of what politics can achieve that we may find in the writings of Cold War liberals like Aron or Popper are more than ever relevant. But it crashes against the wall of the psychological reality. Asking for skepticism is asking too much from many, if not most, persons.
17The relative success of “illiberal” parties and programs in elections but also the results of multiple studies on the evolution of political attitudes definitely signal that the “negative” rhetoric of fear is no longer sufficient to convince citizens of Western democracies that they should not fall prey to the promises of extremists who explicitly reject the core principles of liberal democracy. The liberalism of fear’s key tenet that we should “fear a society of fearful people” (Shklar, 1989, 29) is still relevant. However, the roots of fear have changed. In the 1950s, the painful memories of the war and the progressive realization of the atrocities committed by totalitarian regimes could rightfully convince individuals that their freedom may be potentially threatened and must be preserved, even at a significant cost. Today, fear has economic and cultural origins. In a society where the living conditions of the many are no longer significantly improving, where climate risks are increasing, and where many persons believe (rightly or not) that their ways of life are threatened by cultural and social evolutions, fear is not directed toward the potential rise of an authoritarian regime. Quite the contrary, authoritarianism may be perceived as the last resort by many fearful persons.
18However, even if the diagnostic is correct, Moyn is not clear about the kind of “progressive” and “perfectionist” form of liberalism that could serve as a more effective substitute in the fight against populism. In general, there are good reasons for the growing importance taken by ideas of neutrality and restraint in the various strands of liberalism during the 20th century, not only in Cold War liberalism. As societies grow more diverse, finding a consensus on perfectionist values and a conception of progress becomes a daunting task. Moyn is right that we should not “exaggerate risks.” However, we should not minimize the difficulties of establishing a “comprehensive” (to use a Rawlsian expression) agreement on a conception of the good life either. The problem with progressivism and perfectionism is that they can quickly become inimical to multiple forms of life. It is far from clear—and indeed doubtful—that such liberalism could lessen the fear of many members of Western liberal democracies.
19Such concerns become more acute with Kahan’s own characterization of “perfectionist liberalism.” While Moyn is only alluding to it, Kahan’s historical account indicates the shape it has effectively taken in the past in the writings, for instance, of Montesquieu, Tocqueville, or Mill. Kahan also tries to sketch the form that 21st-century perfectionist liberalism could take. His main source of inspiration here is Joseph Raz’s (1986) account that makes individual autonomy the core value of the liberal moral pillar. This is a bold claim, but I do not think it will convince many. To start with, perfectionism, and especially Raz’s version, is unlikely to reconcile people who hold very different views about the good life. Raz himself acknowledges this point. He notes that the primacy given to autonomy can be either transcendental (i.e., it applies to all kinds of societies) or contextual (i.e., it is the case only in specific, “liberal” societies). Raz oscillates between the two interpretations but ultimately favors the latter as he is clear that the possibility of autonomy depends on conditions that “include the existence of a public culture which maintains and encourages the cultivation of certain tastes and the undertaking of certain pursuits” (Raz, 1986, 421-422). That is exactly the point at stake here. The rise of populism suggests that there is nowadays if not a war, at least tension concerning the social norms, values, and ideals that determine what is worth pursuing in life. Perfectionism is indeed perfectly compatible with illiberal views. The kind of national conservatism that largely feeds current right-wing populism also builds on a form of perfectionism. Kahan’s perfectionist liberalism can work only within a social morality that already endorses a broad set of liberal values.
20Even if we grant that Kahan is right about the cause of liberalism’s contemporary troubles, social morality is anyway not something that you can plan and change by decree. The fact of cultural alienation will not suddenly disappear because liberals realize that there is no liberal society without a shared conception of the good life. The relative success of liberalism in the 19th century has been made possible by the slow convergence of favorable economic, social, and cultural conditions. In the same way, liberalism’s current difficulties are explained by the fact that those conditions are nowadays less favorable, and it is unlikely that a return to perfectionism will change this. To put it in a more Hayekian way, to strive, liberalism needs a fertile moral soil that itself depends on a process of cultural evolution. But cultural evolution is mostly a spontaneous order that can hardly be directed.
21It is nonetheless sure that among the necessary conditions for liberalism to strive, figures a minimum degree of civility and moderation in political matters. One of the characteristics of America’s democracy that impressed Tocqueville in comparison with post-revolutionary France was indeed the peaceful way in which politics was conducted, largely thanks to shared moral and religious mores. As Cold War liberals have emphasized themselves, moderation is the trademark of liberal politics. However, civility and moderation are difficult to preserve in a context where the public political culture tolerates ruthless behavior, does not give any particular value to truth, and builds on a “them-versus-us” logic. The question is therefore to determine what favors the evolution of this culture inimical to liberal ideas and practices and, eventually, how to counter it.
22Reflecting on this question within Kahan’s framework, I would suggest that a new type of fear should be taken into consideration: the fear of resentment. The cultural alienation that Kahan is describing is associated with a feeling of resentment very often directed toward the so-called “elites.” More generally, resentment is directed toward all the categories of the population that the resentful individual considers to be responsible for his loss or unduly favored, especially by public authorities. Depending on the viewpoint, the rich, immigrants, or women are among those categories that can be the target of the resentful individual and used as leverage by populist politicians.
23Resentment is not in itself pathological, as it is one of the “reactive attitudes” that is triggered by the perceived transgression of moral rules. Every social morality function because individuals are prone to react against norm violators, and resentment is one of those emotions that trigger the reaction. The moral failure of contemporary liberalism is however located in its inability to appropriately account for the roots of a widely shared resentment toward the practices and attitudes of part of the population and its devastating effects on the political morality of liberal societies. In a society of resentful people, politics can hardly be civilized and moderate.
24The identification of the fear of resentment is only a tiny step toward finding the appropriate liberal response to populism. Individuals can be resentful for wrong reasons (e.g., they resent the fact that what they view as “inferior races” are treated in the same way as they are), and to those, no concession should be made. Part of the resentment that is feeding populist politics cannot be disqualified in such a way, however. “Post-liberal” intellectuals like Patrick Deneen (2019) forcefully argue that liberal institutions have been slowly destroying the cultural traditions that the liberal civic society and economy need to flourish. There are solid reasons to doubt that this is actually the case in general, or at least to consider that liberal institutions do not systematically destroy the social fabric (e.g., Bowles, 2011). It might nonetheless be true that some of the members of liberal democracies are less in capacity to fully benefit from the opportunities offered by a liberal society. This feeds a sentiment of injustice that is not entirely accounted for by the rise of economic inequalities.
25Resentment can also be caused by the tension, well-diagnosed by Alexis de Tocqueville ([1835] 2003), between the democratic “passion for equality” and the liberal priority given to what Benjamin Constant identified as the “liberty of the moderns.” Tocqueville noted that as equality progresses, the democratic individual is encouraged to retreat into their private sphere, i.e., to mind his own business and nothing else:
As social equality spreads, a greater number of individuals are no longer rich or powerful enough to exercise great influence upon the fate of their fellows, but have acquired or have preserved sufficient understanding and wealth to be able to satisfy their own needs. Such people owe nothing to anyone and, as it were, expect nothing from anyone. They are used to considering themselves in isolation and quite willingly imagine their destiny as entirely in their own hands. (Tocqueville, [1835] 2003, 589)
26Even more in complex modern societies, the fate of each and every individual is tied to decisions made by an incalculable number of people, most of them they will never encounter. This realization creates unease because, as Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek have acknowledged in their accounts of the open (or great) society, this goes against our intuitive understanding of the world. As modern society grows in complexity, tension keeps on strengthening. Individuals realize that their destiny is related in an indecipherable way to the destiny of others. They understand that they hardly have any control over this, their agency counting for barely anything within the mass effects of modern society. This clashes with the “passion for equality” that is fed by democratic institutions. In particular, members of the population who no longer enjoy the benefits of the equalization of conditions may start to feel resentment toward an impersonal and complex society that deprives them at the same time of improving living conditions and of the ability to directly alter this state of affairs. Resentment is then more specifically directed toward other categories of the population that are seen as responsible (elites, immigrants) and is ready to be exploited by populist political leaders. In this sense, the populists’ illiberal democracy is the logical conclusion of the process where a majority of individuals come to regain control over the course of their lives by controlling others’ lives through politics. From this perspective, populism is a version of the tragic outcome of democratic equality that Tocqueville foresaw:
I think that democratic nations have a natural taste for freedom; left to themselves, they seek it out, become attached to it, and view any departure from it with distress. But they have a burning, insatiable, constant, and invincible passion for equality; they want equality in freedom and, if they cannot have it, they want it in slavery. They will endure poverty, subjection, barbarism but they will not endure aristocracy. (Tocqueville, [1835] 2003, 587)
27The growth of resentment may reflect what the philosopher Gerald Gaus (2011; 2017) identified as the “sectarian” nature of liberal thought and society. The crisis of liberalism may come from the fact that the liberal society is increasingly seen as a society made for (and by) some at the exclusion of others. In contradiction to what liberals have claimed, the “open” society may be inimical to too many ways of life, such as those that demand a widespread adhesion to a religious cult in the public sphere or that build on strong family solidarity. As I noted above, it is unlikely that perfectionism can overcome this sectarian problem. As a final and more subjective note, I cannot but remark that, ironically, Kahan’s incomplete history of liberalism does not mention at all the strand of liberalism that has tried over the last couple of decades to tackle the most directly the issue of sectarianism, i.e., public reason liberalism, especially in its so-called “diversity” variant (Vallier and Muldoon, 2021). Public reason liberalism offers however an alternative approach to address the fear of resentment and understand how reconciliation is possible based on the three political, economic, and moral pillars. Rather than looking backward at an arguably fantasized liberal past, I would contend that this is the right direction to look forward. This is however not the place to substantiate this claim.