Washington Monthly - September/October 2023 - 127

on political books
tral state. If this take sounds familiar,
it's because Deneen is basically retelling
Karl Marx's account of the rise of
bourgeois democratic capitalism without
giving Marx credit.
Deneen's next move is to describe
how the " classical " liberalism of Locke
and the Founding Fathers combined in
the 19th century with the " experimental
social libertarianism of progressive
liberalism " championed by John
Stuart Mill. In his 1859 essay " On Liberty, "
Mill famously argued that " the
only purpose for which power can be
rightfully
exercised over
any member
of a civilized community, against
his will, is to prevent harm to others. "
This principle, says Deneen, committed
liberalism to a relativist concept of
truth and therefore to a moral order in
which " individuals would be maximally
free from the judgment of society altogether. "
Consistent with his views on
liberty, Mill was a bravely outspoken
critic of slavery, yet Deneen uses out-ofcontext
quotes to suggest the opposite
and then goes on to lay Western imperialism
on the door of structural liberalism
as well.
Next, Deneen tells a story about how
early-20th-century
progressives
like
Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson
were also part of the plot. " Like their
classical liberal forebears, progressive
liberals greatly feared and even loathed
the people, " he writes. Only instead
of fearing that the masses might be
too revolutionary, progressive liberals
feared that the people would frustrate
progress by clinging to the old ways.
And so liberals fought off populism by
favoring rule by experts and an expansion
of big imperial government. Curiously,
Deneen doesn't mention other
great Progressive Era causes like the
popular election of senators, government
through referendum and initiative,
and women's suffrage.
W
hich brings us to today. By now,
says Deneen, all the different
strains of structural
liberalism have
fused into " Woke Capitalism, " which
he describes as " the perfect wedding
of the 'progressivist' economic right
and social left. " It's a presumably samesex
marriage that, he concludes, " aims
to produce a populace that is satisfied
with diversion, consumption, and hedonism,
and, above all, does not disturb
the blessings of progress. And, if
that doesn't work, there remains the
use of levers of political and corporate
power to suppress populist threats. "
At this point you might expect Deneen
to make a spirited defense of
populism, and he does at one point
praise the superior judgment of common
folks. " The wisdom of the multitude
arises, " he says, " ... because they
have the benefit of 'common sense' and
experience-everyday interaction with
the objects or practices of the world
that are so often lacking in the theoretical
evaluations by experts. "
But Deneen also believes that the
" demos, " as he puts it, cannot handle
much individual liberty. Without
strong cultural and religious constraints
on their behavior, ordinary
people fall prey to all manner of degeneracy,
he says, citing the breakdown
in moral order he sees everywhere in
America. " We have the freedom to marry,
but fewer people wed, " he observes.
" We have the freedom to have children,
but birth rates plummet. We have the
freedom to practice religion, but people
abandon the faiths of their fathers
and mothers. "
And so what's needed, he concludes,
is not populism or direct democracy,
but " an elite cadre skilled at directing
and elevating popular resentments "
and at getting the people " to adopt a
wider understanding of what constitutes
their own good. " To restore the
once pervasive human flourishing that
structural liberalism has destroyed, we
need to bring back, he says, " common
good conservativism " lead by a virtuous
elite. As a model, Deneen evokes
John Winthrop's Puritanical vision of a
shining city on a hill.
What would Deneen have these new
moral guardians do? He's clear that he
wants them to focus their energies on
ensuring that the commoners don't deviate
from the wisdom of ancient customs,
particularly those having to do
with marriage, gender roles, childrearing,
and religious observance. He
also hints at a few specific policy proposals
that he thinks aristopopulists
should insist on, like mandatory national
service and a restoration of blue
laws to honor " a day of rest on the Sabbath "
(presumably meaning Sunday,
not Saturday).
But he evades the hard questions that
would inevitable accompany any such
regime change. Who gets to be among
the new elect, and how is that decided?
How do we ensure that the new power
elites don't abuse their power, and
who is " we, " anyway? And if aristopopulists
are to be responsible for guiding
the masses back to the customs of the
past, does that mean all the customs-
primogeniture, arranged marriages, divine
rights of kings? And how do the
nobles get the hoi polloi to go along?
After centuries of religious wars in
Europe, some people, like John Locke
and the Founding Fathers, came up
with at least partial answers to some of
these kinds of questions. The answers
broadly included a constitutional order
that promised expanding equality of
opportunity along with checks on concentrated
political and economic power.
And they included calls for religious
freedom and tolerance, which became
encoded in the First Amendment. Subsequently,
though it has gone through
periods of religious awakening and decline,
America has remained a place
marked by much higher rates of churchgoing
and other forms of religious observance
than any other modern nation,
no doubt in large measure because
no sect in America enjoys the kind of
state-chartered dominion over civic
life that Deneen seems to favor.
If Deneen thinks he has answers to
the hard, practical questions of statecraft
needed to put America on the
right course in these fraught times, he
should say what they are out loud. Otherwise,
it's time to move on to more serious
thinkers.
Phillip Longman is senior editor at the
Washington Monthly and policy director at
the Open Markets Institute.
Washington Monthly
127
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