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The Retreat of Western Liberalism
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In his widely acclaimed book Time to Start Thinking, Financial Times chief US columnist and commentator Edward Luce charted the course of America's relative decline, proving to be a prescient voice on our current social and political turmoil.
In The Retreat of Western Liberalism, Luce makes a larger statement about the weakening of western hegemony and the crisis of liberal democracy - of which Donald Trump and his European counterparts are not the cause, but a terrifying symptom. Luce argues that we are on a menacing trajectory brought about by ignorance of what it took to build the West, arrogance towards society's economic losers, and complacency about our system's durability - attitudes that have been emerging since the fall of the Berlin Wall. We cannot move forward without a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong.
Combining on-the-ground reporting with intelligent synthesis of the literature and economic analysis, Luce offers a detailed projection of the consequences of the Trump administration, the rise of European populism, and a forward-thinking analysis of what those who believe in enlightenment values must do to defend them from the multiple onslaughts they face in the coming years.
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Audible Audiobook
Listening Length: 5 hours and 3 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Audible.com Release Date: July 25, 2017
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English, English
ASIN: B073V5Y1PC
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
The Retreat of Western Liberalism is the book I've been waiting for. Its sweep takes in America, the UK and continental Europe and highlights the structural forces that's ailing the middle classes across all those countries. Other books focus only on America, or Brexit Britain, or the French far right. Luce's work stands back from the particularities and brings out what is threatening the west in general. The writing is pacy and engaging. The analysis is acute and the forecast is troubling. As Luce argues, western liberalism is in retreat but that does not mean that it has collapsed. It is up to us - the readers - to do something about it. I couldn't recommend this book more highly. Five stars.
Edward Luce is the Washington correspondent for the Financial Times. This is a short book, about 55,000 words. Luce summarizes what is ailing the West, and makes a few suggestions for the future. He is much better at identifying problems than finding solutions. I have enjoyed two of Luce’s earlier works, but I was a bit disappointed with this one. The book’s title is a little misleading. He is not referring to liberalism in an American sense, but liberal democracy.In the first part of the book he covers a lot of familiar ground. China and India are on the rise. The West is in relative decline. The American model has been successful in that more people are being lifted out of poverty than at a faster rate than at any time in human history. However, the American world order is starting to unravel. Most countries see the benefits of capitalism but they don’t necessarily want democracy. Many countries appear happy with their authoritarian leaders. Trump seems to have acknowledged that this is the reality. Luce believes that the “reckless†foreign wars of George Bush have damaged America’s influence abroad, and its ability to promote democracy. China is not democratic yet it has the world’s largest economy in PPP terms. China is unlikely to want to inherit America’s global role. Luce predicts that the result is likely to be chaos. Luce provides a long rant about Donald Trump and he suggests that a war with China may come about because Trump is an idiot.Mark Mazower, a professor at Columbia University, wrote “Dark Continent†in 1999. He argued that the 20th century in Europe was a battle between three rival ideologies: communism, fascism, and liberal democracy. He concluded that most of Europe did not have much experience with democracy prior to 1945, so it was not inevitable that liberal democracy would win out. It was a consequence of who won WW2. He believed that Europeans could have lived happily under authoritarian leaders and that it was democracy which was an aberration. He seems to have be proved right in Russia, Turkey, Hungary and Poland. Luce suggests that authoritarianism may be about to become the global norm. However, we have been here before. In 1980, half of Europe and much of Asia was communist.Luce writes about the decline of the Western middle class. Sending jobs overseas has benefited China, Mexico and Poland but it has reduced the standard of living of ordinary people in the West. The wages of Americans have stagnated since the 1970s and they have less job security. In an interview, Luce claimed that in 2000, 30% of Americans categorized themselves as lower class, but by 2016 that had reached 49%. Social mobility is now lower in the U.S. than it is in the UK. He suggests that when people don’t share in economic growth or are excluded from the affluence around them, this can become dangerous for societies and usually produces instability.Luce recognizes that globalization has created problems for ordinary people, but he also maintains that globalization is inevitable and resistance is futile. He discusses Brexit and accepts that the EU is undemocratic. Some of what it proposes, like the European Arrest Warrant, is at odds with ancient British liberties. However, most Europeans don't seem to mind. He also observes that poorer people often value democracy more than the rich and the elite. The main objective of the EU is to create a federal super state, a United States of Europe, without the democratic checks and balances. Some of its proposals have proved disastrous, like the single currency. The EU currently has a population of 508 million and it wants to expand to include Ukraine, the Balkans and perhaps Turkey. EU citizens can live and work anywhere in Europe and that became an issue in Britain. Britons eventually discovered that they were supposed to regard national sovereignty as a thing of the past. Many Britons began to object and Brexit became an attractive option for the growing number who did not like what the EU was becoming. Leaving became the only option because Britain could not find allies who shared its concerns. Luce works for an editor at the Financial Times who is a well known EU supporter, so he probably has to be careful what he says, but he does point out some of the EU's flaws.Luce believes that the rich and the left are starting to become disenchanted with democracy. He describes the extraordinary inequality levels and views it as a new Gilded Age. With growing inequality, the rich start to get nervous and begin to fear the mob. One New York billionaire suggested to Luce that there should be competence tests for voters, only well-informed people should have the right to vote. The left has also begun to despise the working classes. If you read the commentators in London’s left of center Guardian, many seem to believe that ordinary people are not qualified to vote on issues like Brexit.The left in the U.S. and the UK have created rainbow coalitions which have left out the traditional white working classes. The left has been taken over by people from elite universities. They have little in common with the often socially conservative white working classes, whose views on immigration are often regarded as racist by liberals. Politicians like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair chose to abandon poor white people in the 1990s. Obama bailed out Wall Street but not the ordinary people who had their houses foreclosed. The Democrats now receive large donations from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, so their interests have changed.Luce has fun with Hillary's clueless election campaign. The Democrats believed that they had demographics on their side. They forgot that immigrants become like everybody else once they stay long enough. They can even morph into Republicans. Luce believes that by abandoning the politics of solidarity with the white working classes Democrats have shot themselves in the foot. Poor whites have turned to people like Trump because he is the only person who will listen to them. Luce does not see Trump or populist nationalists in Europe, like Marine Le Pen, as the causes of today’s crisis in democratic liberalism but rather as symptoms. Luce does not believe that Trump and Brexit are one-offs, they represent dissatisfaction with the status quo. He argues that Washington is out of touch, since 91% of D.C. voted for Hillary.What is to be done? Luce’s solutions are underwhelming. He calls for a Marshall Plan for the middle classes. This mostly involves retraining the people who lose their jobs because of globalization. He uses Denmark (population 6 million) as an example. He wants an increase in investment in education. He argues for a stronger safety net and universal health care. He complains about inequality but does not want to increase wealth distribution because that would be bad for growth. However, the thirty years after WW2 were great for America and its middle class. The top tax rate during the Eisenhower era was 91%, while the economy grew by 37% during the 1950s. If ordinary workers have more money to spend on goods and services that will generate economic growth, the very rich tend to stash their money offshore.Where the U.S. differs from Denmark is that it is big enough to change the rules of the game. It can make things happen rather than just react, like Denmark. These days, getting agreement on what needs to be done is a serious issue. Luce wants to look at gerrymandering because he argues that House representatives choose their voters. However, not enough people in the major parties seems to care enough about the white working class to resolve their problems. The growth of AI and the rise of the robots are likely to make things worse. He mentions that over 50% of current jobs can soon be done by machines. If we want to avoid becoming a feudal society, we need to first admit we have a problem.
Mr. Luce identifies disappearance of the middle and working classes as the chief driver of overall decline. While this position is inextricably linked to classical Marxist economics, the author seems to consider that perspective irrelevant. I'd have to disagree; Marx is today the elephant in the room. Glancing back fifty years, the author sees decline originating with the 'sixties counter-culture. Apart from the goofy fashion statements, silly hi jinx, and bad poetry, I'm inclined to grant the hippies a "not proven." It was with the Carter administration ten years afterward that things went awry: It was during his watch that the deregulation which gained momentum under his successors began. This is a root cause of a lot of suffering today. The author is also drawn off the scent by a red herring - opioid addiction. It is alcohol addiction that is (still) the prime source of social and economic misery, disease, disability, and lethal accidents. And it's legal.Income inequality is a subject Mr. Luce discusses at length: He cautiously endorses education as a vital element in reducing it, and he sensibly suggests that the trades be encouraged as education goals alongside traditional degrees. There are problems with this prescription.The political correctness which began to influence higher education back in the 1990s now dominates it. Thought and inquiry are straitjacketed. If evidence is required to substantiate this, one need only page through college course offerings and requirements. Most undergraduates today are obliged to navigate curricula that are orthodox, perverse, and jaundiced. If they dissent, they are in trouble. Largely to blame for this is invertebrate and opportunistic management. When journalist Philip Delves Broughton described American campuses "...as places where young people struggle rather than thrive", he was vastly understating the case. The price paid by students and their families for a degree whose quality wouldn't have passed muster even twenty years ago is crippling and unjust. Drug abuse, prescription and otherwise, binge drinking, sexual assault and homicides have always existed on campus, it's just that now it's gotten a lot worse, especially for women. Much of this is enabled by image-conscious management which keeps most of it secret. This despite legislation requiring full disclosure of crime statistics.On average, it takes six years for an undergraduate to complete a bachelor's degree. For many students that means six years of living with Mom and Dad, working low-skill jobs, and commuting long distances to campus. During this time, calamitous debt is frequently established while employment, experience, opportunities, and earnings are sacrificed. Is the college campus a supportive learning environment? And can what's taught there help in narrowing income inequality? In the great majority of cases, I think notWith respect to global politics, the near-future scenario Mr. Luce offers his readers strikes me as credible: Vladimir Putin brokering a ceasefire between the US and China might at first glance seem a little far-fetched. But when one considers conditions in the South China Sea, and Mr. Trump's belligerent tirades, it becomes more convincing. Which leads one to consider the merits of democracy. Presidents Erdogan, Trump, Orban and Duterte make for a pretty scary quartet, and that's not the worst of it. Like he says, the future's not what it used to be.Mr. Luce maintains that President Trump channels anger. Mr. Luce channels despair. It's seldom one reads a book that is so unrelenting in its pessimism. Highly recommended.
I thought Mr. Luce's previous book, "Time to Start Thinking" was disturbing. Then I began this one and it made the previous volume seem positively Pollyannaish. His dissection of the American and general Western political climate is spot on, and his extrapolation of the possible outcome of Mr. Trump's "leadership"is frighteningly plausible. And then he points out that, "...as Winter follows Autumn...", he fears what and whom follows Trump even more.And I'll be damned if I can come up with any sort of argument to refute his reasoning. It's a good reminder that good people of conscience must remain vigilant and prepared to take peaceful action to both resist the creep of autocracy, but also to rebuild the social compact that binds a nation together. It is our responsibility to be brave, to be strong, and to foster the trust that is the foundation of a free society.
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