Patrick Deneen’s manifesto on Common-Good Conservatism.

Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future

“No sensible reader of the news could look at America and think it is flourishing,” sensibly writes Patrick Deneen in the first sentence of Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future.

Deneen’s sharp observations about the destabilizing tensions within liberal democracy in America and elsewhere in the West are illuminating. He restates the classical account of the mixed regime, highlighting the enduring political imperative to balance conflicting principles and interests. His astute reflections on the vices of expert knowledge and the virtues of custom and commonsense highlight freedom’s dependence on tradition and experience. His shrewd critique of identity politics and the diversity, equity, and inclusion industry exposes mechanisms by which the highly educated and prosperous divide and delegitimize the working class.

A Radical Critique of American Political Ideas and Institutions

Deneen’s new polemic takes up where the anti-liberal zealotry of his previous one left off. A University of Notre Dame political science professor, Deneen published Why Liberalism Failed in 2018 to acclaim, not least from Barack Obama. The former president admired the book’s “cogent insights into the loss of meaning and community that many in the West feel, issues that liberal democracies ignore at their own peril.”

Deneen argued in 2018 that nearly all the West’s troubles worth mentioning—and America’s in particular—derive from the “liberalism” in liberal democracy. By liberalism, he meant the roughly 400-year-old modern tradition of individual liberty, equality under the law, limited government, free markets, and extensive and diverse civil society—consisting of families, communities, religious institutions, and civic associations—that liberal democracy safeguards. Liberalism, Deneen charged, not only eroded “meaning and community” but also poisoned culture, education, the economy, the environment, moral and intellectual virtue, citizenship, family, religious faith, and just about every other human good under the sun.

A New and Better Political Theory

This time around, Deneen again scorns the American regime as “structurally liberal” and “exhausted.” To pursue reforms in the face of the nation’s formidable challenges is to miss the point, he contends, because America’s manifold ills stem from a pervasive evil: an “increasingly tyrannical liberalism.”

Adjusting Marx’s revolutionary formula in The Communist Manifesto to the demands of the moment, Deneen envisages fellow members of the educated and credentialed class joining him in emancipating themselves from modern freedom’s delusions and corruptions to embrace his sweeping plans for remaking the nation. Operating as “class traitors” to act on behalf of the broad working class, articulating the actual motives and effects of widespread elite actions, Deneen and his comrades will form a new “ruling class” that frees the people from false consciousness by understanding them better than they understand themselves.

How Deneen’s new ruling class will handle production, commerce, finance, diplomacy, and defense is anyone’s guess. He also leaves mysterious the extent to which his elite vanguard will protect liberty under the law while implementing its elevated conception of the common good. It would have been clarifying for the would-be revolutionary to examine why previous Marx-inspired efforts by self-appointed elites to manipulate popular resentments and reconstruct society based on comprehensive visions of the good have produced cruelty and death on an epic scale.

Instead, Deneen turns to the classical tradition of the mixed regime launched by Aristotle’s Politics to elaborate a grand theory that he calls “aristopopulism.” Deneen rightly maintains that the conflict between the people and the elites is an old one, but he fails to provide a humane and workable long-term remedy to what ails the nation.

• Deneen’s sharp observations about the destabilizing tensions within liberal democracy in America and elsewhere in the West are illuminating.
• His restatement of the classical account of the mixed regime underscores the enduring political imperative to balance conflicting principles and interests.
• His astute reflections on the vices of expert knowledge and the virtues of custom and commonsense highlight freedom’s dependence on tradition and experience.
• His shrewd critique of identity politics and the diversity, equity, and inclusion industry exposes mechanisms by which the highly educated and prosperous divide and delegitimize the working class.

Still, no sensible reader of Deneen’s book could think that the regime change he espouses provides humane and workable long-term remedies to what ails the nation.

Why Deneen’s Aristopopulism Falls Short of Aristotle’s Mixed Regime

The few and the many, to which the mixed regime is a response, persists in liberal democracy. Yet the new regime he sketches, which fuses aristocracy and populism by enlisting the elites to uphold custom and community on the people’s behalf, departs in ill-advised ways from Aristotle’s sober political science.

Patrick Deneen’s aristopopulism, which combines aristocracy and populism, may seem like a promising solution to the problems of liberal democracy. However, it falls short of Aristotle’s mixed regime in several ways.

Aristotle’s Caution Against Grand Theorizing

Aristotle warns against grand theorizing about politics, while Deneen revels in it. Aristotle examines political institutions and citizens’ character to identify incremental reforms for preserving the typically defective regimes within which self-interested and fallible human beings reside. Deneen, on the other hand, parodies American manners and mores and demonizes the U.S. political system in hopes of transforming the nation.

Aristotle’s Focus on Improving Small, Homogenous Cities

Aristotle focuses on improving small, homogenous cities, while Deneen decries and seeks to remake a transcontinental, religiously and ethnically diverse nation-state. Aristotle explores the benefits and disadvantages of a wide range of regimes, while Deneen considers only liberal democracy in America’s disadvantages while overlooking its many and varied benefits.

Deneen’s Dramatic Deviation from Aristotle’s Sober Assessment

Deneen’s dramatic deviation from Aristotle’s sober assessment of the few and the many deserves special attention. Aristotle observes that the few tend not to be the aristocrats endowed with moral and intellectual virtue for whom Deneen’s theory calls, but wealthy, keen to dominate, and prone to arrogance. Meanwhile, the many in Aristotle’s account are not defined by traditionalist predispositions and longings as in Deneen’s romantic rendition of the people, but by modest possessions, envy of the wealthy, and a desire not to be ruled.

Aristotle’s Mixed Regime Institutionalizes Moderation

Aristotle’s mixed regime, which institutionalizes moderation, constitutes a reproach to Deneen’s utopian aristopopulism. The best that is practicably attainable in politics, Aristotle argues, “depends on the middling sort” because “it is readiest to obey reason.” Aristotle recommends a middle class that “is superior to both of the other parts, but if not, superior to either of them; for when added to one it will tip the scale and prevent the opposing excesses from arising.” Aristotle argues that rule by the few over the many provides a recipe for instability.

Deneen’s Misuse of Language and Illusory Revisionist History

Deneen’s theorizing not only warps Aristotle but also misuses language, promulgates illusory revisionist history, and suppresses the varieties of the common good. Deneen turns conservatism on its head by contending that it demands upending the inherited political order. Deneen’s goals could well describe those of his sworn enemy, classical liberalism, provided that the modern tradition of freedom’s assumptions, aims, and arguments are not, as is Deneen’s wont, grossly oversimplified, caricatured, and ridiculed.

In conclusion, while Deneen’s aristopopulism may seem like a promising solution to the problems of liberal democracy, it falls short of Aristotle’s mixed regime in several ways. Aristotle’s mixed regime institutionalizes moderation and accommodates the opposing classes’ conflicting political claims, while Deneen’s aristopopulism idealizes the few and the many. Aristotle’s advice was to grasp actual regimes’ animating principles and tendency to absolutize them, while Deneen equates the common good and the greatest good. Aristotle’s political science provides a standard for reforming actual imperfect regimes, while Deneen’s theorizing misuses language, promulgates illusory revisionist history, and suppresses the varieties of the common good.

Why Constitutional Conservatism is the Answer to America’s Political Fractures

Patrick J. Deneen’s book, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future, has sparked a debate about the role of liberalism in American politics. Deneen argues that liberalism has failed to deliver on its promises of individual freedom and has eroded the common good. However, Peter Berkowitz, the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, disagrees with Deneen’s assessment. In his article, Berkowitz argues that constitutional conservatism, which is rooted in America’s founding principles, is the answer to the country’s political fractures.

“The modern tradition of freedom teaches that the securing of individual rights is the part of the objective good that citizens can achieve through government.”

The Moral Premise of American Politics

Berkowitz argues that Deneen is wrong to claim that liberalism denies the existence of an objective good for humans. The moral premise of American politics is that human beings are born free and equal in basic rights and fundamental freedoms. While individuals may have conflicting understandings of the greatest good, the common good is the establishment of democratic government that protects individual rights under the law.

Contrary to Deneen’s assertion that the American experiment in ordered liberty aims at “transformative progress,” the nation was formed against the backdrop of clashes over virtue and salvation that marked early modernity. It derived inspiration from biblical faith, the civic-republican school, and British common law.

The Reconciliation of Virtue and Individual Rights

Berkowitz argues that Deneen obfuscates the modern tradition of freedom’s reconciling and combining of virtue and individual rights. While Deneen maintains that good government must be based on an intergenerational capacity to develop virtues, Burke, the preeminent father of modern conservatism, affirms “the real rights of men,” which encompass the classically liberal freedom to be left alone under the law.

Burke’s love of freedom and of virtue fits well with the constitutional conservatism that grows out of America’s founding principles. Constitutional conservatism fosters government that secures rights equally for all, not least by providing for freedom’s material and moral preconditions. It takes the measure of America’s fractured institutions and fashions remedies for the ailments of liberal democracy in America that cohere with the principles of liberal democracy.

Conclusion

While Deneen’s book has sparked an important debate about the role of liberalism in American politics, Berkowitz argues that constitutional conservatism is the answer to the country’s political fractures. Rooted in respect for the nation’s many-layered moral and political inheritance, constitutional conservatism fosters government that secures rights equally for all and provides for freedom’s material and moral preconditions. It is the way forward for America.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.