Anthology on postliberalism: Forward into the past?

Liberal democracies are in an existential crisis. The anti-liberals are advancing in astonishing synchronicity in all of the broader Western democracies, from the USA to Saxony-Anhalt, from Chile to Sweden. Right-wing populism and right-wing extremism politicize fermenting fears and longings to which cold, individualized liberal societies have no answers. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many considered liberal democracy to be the end of history. And now the stress fracture. Why now?

A school of thought from the USA has a sparkling answer. Liberalism, according to the post-liberal US intellectual Patrick J. Deneen, does not die because it falls victim to sinister forces or, as is believed in Germany, is strangled by fascist revenants. According to Deneen, liberalism is destroyed by its success.

The moment he triumphs culturally, politically and economically, his inexorable decline begins. Hubris is followed by decay. Social bonding forces are dwindling. At the top, an aloof, super-rich elite is isolating itself, while at the bottom there is despair over the broken promise that work and performance are worth it. Radicalized individualism releases centrifugal forces that undermine the legitimacy of the liberal system itself - this is the core thesis of postliberals. In addition, liberalism frees the ego from all kinds of constraints - but this emancipation has collateral damage. Only very stubborn supporters of wokeness believe that the goal of history is to have as much ego autonomy as possible for every member of a minority.

Too much me, too little we. Too much freedom, too little commitment, according to the analysis of the post-liberals. British Catholic post-liberal Adrian Pabst believes that “liberalism destroys the cultural and religious roots on which it depends” and “undermines trust and people’s participation in decision-making processes that are essential to the functioning of liberal institutions.”

Seen in this way, Trump and his colleagues are not the murderers, but rather the gravediggers of a rotten system that is failing on its own. This idea, like all dialectical turns, is initially brilliant. And definitely more stimulating than the mixture of head shaking and hand wringing that Trump or Weidel are often greeted with in this country.

The anthology “Postliberalism?”, edited by Veith Selk and Julian Nicolai Hofmann, traces the terrain of the somewhat confusing debate. US representatives like Deneen and Harvard lawyer Adrian Vermeule are conservatives who recycle much of US communitarians' criticism of John Rawls's concept of liberalism. The Briton Pabst advocates a Catholic-based image of society, which he combines with a social-democratic-looking praise of the contained Rhenish capitalism. The question mark in the title of the volume is therefore deliberately placed. Is postliberalism an independent political theory or school of thought? Or just a sleek new staging of older criticism of liberalism? What all post-liberals have in common is that they do not focus on freedom, like the liberals, but on the common good.

Occasionally, in post-liberal discourse, one has the impression that one has ended up at a family celebration where one does not understand the inside jokes. Some of the essays in this volume sound like this: “As author This in no way applies to the knowledgeable foreword by Selk and Hofmann, which provides a solid overview of the ramifications of the debate.

Veith Selk, Julian Nicolai Hofmann (ed.): “Postliberalism?

A transatlantic debate.” Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2026, 500 pages, 28 euros

Postliberalism relies on traditional bonds such as religion and family, which threaten to be erased by the fury of emancipation and flexibility of liberal modernity. The mixture of criticism of capitalism and skepticism towards promises of individual freedom is reminiscent of the analysis of the left-wing sociologist Nancy Fraser, who summarized the fusion of left-liberal identity politics and harsh neoliberal class struggle in the term progressive neoliberalism.

The post-liberals, however, have no analysis of class or interests to offer. Occasionally the working class appears as a group to be protected - but in the texts it seems like an incantation and not like a term that means real workers, digital crowd workers or migrant service workers. The common good also seems quite vague as the vanishing point of the post-liberal plan. Who defines it, who protects it, remains undetermined. The post-liberal thinkers don't waste a second on how their small-scale traditional bullpen will survive the storms of capitalism. That almost seems strangely naive.

This makes postliberalism a grateful target for cannonades critical of ideology. The German philosopher Elif Özmen dedicates a cutting general reckoning to Deneen and Pabst as a poorly disguised counter-enlightenment. Apart from the defense of natural orders and an unquestionable canon of virtues that revolve around family, neighborhood, discipline and religion, the post-liberals have nothing to offer. But these traditions are “bubbling sources of injustice” (Özmen), which thinkers like Deneen worship uncritically.

Postliberalism is thus driven by a peculiar dialectic. It is a sharp diagnostic tool, but understood as a political guide for action, it achieves exactly the opposite of what it aims for. The rhetoric of the common good evaporates, post-liberalism becomes the Sunday speeches of a right-wing libertarian authoritarianism. This is how the star lawyer Vermeule justifies Trump's campaign against the judiciary and Deneen has become J. D. Vance's keyword. Lately, Deneen has been speaking out about aristo-populism, an alliance of the aristocratic elite and workers that smells badly of anti-democratic ideas.

This development is not an accidental failure, but, according to the political scientist Ingolfur Blühdorn, the result of the postliberals' simple view of society. “Because the traditions that are invoked around the post-liberal campfire today only give off residual heat at best, they can only be enforced as real-political models by force,” said Blühdorn. Many post-liberals end up with Trumpism, which obviously mocks their ideal of the common good.

If you look at the matter from a sporting perspective, then the liberal critics of post-liberalism are on the winner's podium. As a theoretical alternative, postliberalism lacks everything: sociological precision, historical analysis, intellectual depth of justification. However, it would be a mistake to misunderstand this victory. The post-liberals' answers may be pitiful, but their criticism of liberalism's blind spots remains.