11 - Legitimate Populism and Liberal Overreach

Summary

Notwithstanding financial crises and pandemics, never have people living in Western societies enjoyed such an extraordinary combination of health, wealth, and freedom. But while liberal democracy has provided the framework for the largely peaceful management of power in Western societies, it has been supplemented in recent decades by what might be called a “liberal overreach.” The chapter identifies three policy areas of liberal overreach. First, the over-enthusiastic embrace of change and openness, from liberals of the left the embrace of mass immigration is emblematic and for liberals of the right it is the free market’s destruction of settled ways of life. Second, the promotion of cognitive-professional employment and academic training as the main route to a successful life. Third, the devaluation of family life and domesticity and the implicit rejection of any gender division of labor. This liberal overreach has provided the fuel for much of mainstream populism in the West. The chapter discusses the rise of populism as a reaction to liberal overreach and asks whether there can be a legitimate form of populism.