The Emptiness of Adam Gopnik’s Liberalism (David Sessions)

Gopnik's definition of reform is so wide as to be completely meaningless. We amended the Constitution after a civil war! Would he call Hitler a democratic reformer? When it comes to healthcare, education, defense, crime or the environment, incrementalism is absurd. If you simply compare our society to others, we have been well surpassed.

There are numerous examples, including Scandinavia and the Asian Tigers, that utterly embarrass American liberals and their tired reformism. Hong Kong lacks democracy; Singapore eschews liberalism; Finland has little diversity; South Korea is protectionist - and so on. Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland wage no drug wars. Crime rates in homogeneous Japan are low. Indonesia, with its Muslim majority, boasts some of the world's lowest homicide rates. Remarkably, what other nation spends over $1 trillion annually to combat risks less than lightning strikes? Cuba, despite an enviable literacy rate, can barely feed its populace. Observe that the “Miracle of Chile” transpired under a right-wing dictatorship and that Salazar inflicted little damage on Portugal. The “Bukele miracle” in El Salvador has markedly reduced violence. On the other hand, post-apartheid Africa leaves me unimpressed. Communist China embraced the protectionism of List, yet surpassed the size of America’s economy in purchasing power parity. Free trade has not lifted the most export-dependent economies in Latin America or Africa out of poverty, but rather the diffusion of inventions. With cratering productivity since the 1970s, computer technology largely enables surveillance and social sorting. Studies of early intervention, twins, sheepskin effects, signaling, skill transfer, IQ increases, memory and economic growth have largely debunked the impact of education on life outcomes.

Why America is NOT the greatest country in the world, anymore.

I know he can read French, so why doesn't he discuss Lasch?

"Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history."

[seandmoore]

Leave it to a foolish man to take the classic Liberal ideology and completely misinterpret it.