Why liberalism needs Christian socialism

To counter populism, progressives must rediscover the transcendent

Today on Arguably, Renie Anjeh explains why a partnership between liberalism and ethical socialism is the right model for an age of crisis. This piece is paid but can you read it now by becoming a full subscriber or signing up for a seven-day free trial.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Liberalism, the ideology whose global victory once appeared assured, finds itself under siege. Democracy has been in retreat for most of the last decade. Culture wars convulse western politics, threatening established norms. And populist right parties, some with fascist origins, lead polls in Germany, France, Italy and, of course, the UK. How should liberals fight back?

Adrian Wooldridge’s Centrists Of The World Unite! is one recent attempt to answer this question. Far from being a cri de coeur in defence of a fading regime, the book is relentlessly critical of much of what has occurred in the name of liberalism: the excesses of free-market globalisation, uncontrolled immigration, identity politics on left and right and the prevalence of multiculturalism over integration. All of this, Wooldridge argues persuasively, undermines liberalism. His alternative – harnessing liberalism’s capaciousness – is a project which moves to the right culturally and to the left economically (mirroring Blue Labour and Red Toryism).

Patriotism, tighter controls on immigration, a greater insistence on cultural integration, a more combative approach to Islamism and even conservative Islam (while supporting liberal reformers), a more knowledge-rich education system and a greater emphasis on civic virtue are among the prescriptions that follow. At the same time, drawing inspiration from Theodore Roosevelt’s trust-busting, Wooldridge wants to tackle Big Tech, plutocracy and harmful concentrations of wealth and power. It’s an agenda that the US Democrats would certainly benefit from. Their embrace of identitarian liberalism and failures on immigration – as Bernie Sanders has recognised – unquestionably helped pave Donald Trump’s road to victory.

Wooldridge ultimately advances a pragmatic case for liberalism in our fractured era. But is that enough when this tradition is threatened to its very core? What are the moral and ethical arguments that underline it and why are they right? Why are objectors wrong? On what basis do we defend, from first principles, the dignity of the individual?