Needed: a liberalism that ceases to fear itself.
Leftist critics of liberalism tend to take one of two positions: Either liberalism is a necessary but insufficient condition for achieving justice and fairness, or else liberalism is an active impediment to these aims, an “ideology,” in Marx’s sense, whose chimerical aspirations naturalize and perpetuate the status quo.
To the annoyance of my friends (liberal and radical alike), I often find myself flitting between these two propositions in my writings and commitments. To be frank, I hope the former is true: that universal rights and dignity not only are compatible with but require a scheme of material redistribution to be realized. But in my darker moments, I fear the latter is more true: that individual liberty will always be, first and foremost, the handmaiden of property, that exceptions to liberalism’s universal pretensions can always be found when they imperil the privileges of the propertied class. In like manner, I want very much to believe that something like socialist democracy can be achieved in this country through democratic means, i.e., without violent upheaval or the suspension of liberal norms; historical experience is not altogether encouraging.
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