Managers and Liberals: The Roots of our Problems. Citizens and Laborers: The Solutions.

For almost a decade, many thoughtful people have agreed that something called “liberalism” is under assault in America without ever concretely explaining what liberalism is. Two weeks ago, John McGinnis brought unusual clarity to the discussion in these pages with a two-sentence summary of liberalism that was comprehensive and specific. Liberalism, he said, “has historically been marked by independent courts, free trade, protection of property rights, and a limited state, even if it incorporates social welfare programs” and could be linked to figures ranging from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to Lyndon Johnson and George Bush.

McGinnis is correct about liberalism’s historical features, but it is important to note that it can be divided into two very different approaches for how to achieve them, splitting figures like Reagan and Thatcher on one hand from Johnson and Bush on the other. We might call the two approaches “classical liberalism” and “managerial liberalism.”

Classical liberalism emphasizes representative government bolstered by associations close to the people; free markets with limited but flexible government adjustments; and non-interventionism abroad. Managerial liberalism emphasizes centralized government by large institutions; the use of administrators, judges, and university and philanthropic leaders to devise policies; and foreign wars to protect interests abroad.

These two competing approaches are the main shapers of America’s political development, and the extremes in our politics today come from a particular turn in their competition. Sometime between 1933 and 1969, managerial liberalism supplanted classical liberalism, which had been dominant before. This has given rise to our present discontents, which are not rebellions against liberalism per se but against one failed version of it. Tracing the assumptions and progress of these two versions of liberalism shows the triumphs of America under classical liberalism, and America’s slow decline under the managerial alternative. In drawing this sketch, I hope to suggest how to find our way back.

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