Francis Fukuyama “Liberalism and Its Disadvantages”

A short book from the author of the bestselling Origins of Political Order about the challenges to liberalism from the right and left.

Classical liberalism is in a state of crisis. Developed as a result of the religious and nationalist wars in Europe, liberalism is a system of governing various societies based on the fundamental principles of equality and the rule of law. He emphasizes the right of a person to achieve his own happiness without encroachment by the state.

In the United States, many people for a long time did not recognize equality before the law and were excluded from the category of full-fledged people worthy of universal rights. As the famous political philosopher Fukuyama shows, in recent decades the principles of liberalism have also been taken to new extremes by both right and left: neoliberals have elevated economic freedom to the cult, and progressives have emphasized identity rather than the universality of the human person as a central element of their political vision . The result, according to Fukuyama, has been a fragmentation of our civil society and a growing danger to our democracy.

Francis Fukuyama is a senior fellow at the Institute of International Studies at Stanford University.