The Crisis of the Liberal-Democratic Model

According to many political analysts, the nightmare hovering over Europe these days reflects the demise of the political forces of the center. The problems encountered by many liberal-democratic governments stem from the difficulty of coming to terms with a rapidly changing world. The political categories of the past no longer seem to be valid, neither in their ability to offer an accurate interpretation of events, nor in developing new projects.

“Liberal-democracy” essentially refers to the system that combines the liberal principle of individual rights with the democratic principle of the sovereignty of the people. The 30-year period of the “boomers,” that is, the period of the population explosion (the baby boom) and the economic boom recorded between 1946 and 1964, was the liberal-democratic era par excellence. It was marked by two poles, the liberal and the democratic, and the ability to hold them together, linking them in a vision that was able to take both into account. European social democracies ended up adhering to this vision, moving toward an inclusive, extended welfare state. In the liberal-democratic and social-democratic era, social guarantees and individual rights were held together, with the welfare state replacing the earlier stance of laissez faire, a theory that had been advanced by the Physiocrats of the 18th century and early Liberals to achieve the abolition of all constraints on economic activity.

It is the liberal-democratic tension – where democracy is identified with the welfare state – that is in crisis. The question, therefore, cannot be posed in terms of the political abilities of the leaders, or the existence of adequate political opportunities whether called “the third pole” or by any other name. To grasp the reasons why liberal-democratic governments are experiencing difficulty, it is necessary to start not from ideas, but from how reality is changing. What is the nature of this change?

Crisis of the liberal-democratic balance

Our reality is no longer that of the years of the boomers, the years of liberal-democratic triumph. That reality has been photographed by Andrea Graziosi, who in Occidenti e Modernità. Vedere un mondo nuovo [The Wests and Modernity. Seeing a New World] (Bologna, il Mulino, 2023) asserts that the Europe of the economic boom was marked by some key factors in addition to the demographic explosion and the consequent increase in youth and energy. There was rapid economic growth, sustained by demographic changes, including large numbers moving from countryside to city; a rapid increase in industrialization, urbanization and education; the growth of the rights of individuals particularly women; lively ideological debates and the economic dominance of Europe and the West over the rest of the world.

The recent protests in France against the pension reforms sought by Macron, which shifts the retirement age from 62 to 64 – with exemptions for those in heavy-duty jobs – clearly indicates that the heart of the Mitterrand-style socialist model, retirement at 60, is still a powerful factor. However, there is no longer a population boom: rather, numbers are dwindling. Meanwhile, the growth of individual rights has been accompanied by the gradual decline of social rights, in areas such as long-term employment, retirement at 60, health care, to name a few.

The pattern of continuous growth emerged as part of a series of other well-known problems, including environmental ones. Some experts have also detected a psychological fear of an environmental apocalypse among Europeans. At the same time, however, because of the new increased life expectancy, there is a tendency to reject one’s own limitedness and a reluctance to have children, two of the most interesting points in Graziosi’s text. Longer life expectancy and reduced fertility are the most relevant causes of the crisis of the liberal-democratic model. A possible remedy is immigration. There is a considerable number of migrants available, but problems arise with their integration, as shown by current failures in assimilation. Thus, gradually Europeans have become closed in on themselves; their diminishing social rights have led to the demand for new individual rights. The vital tension between the two poles of the liberal-democratic vision has failed to preserve the balance.

Neoliberalism and fear

Nevertheless, the appeal of the liberal-democratic model – a job for life and retirement at 60 – remains very much alive, even though it is not sustainable under current social conditions, as Macron pointed out. Relevant factors include population decline, longer life expectancy, and the movement of industry offshore which allows production at lower cost. These are the seemingly separate causes of the emergence of a new world, essentially no longer liberal-democratic, but neoliberal. In a world in which both the old and the new sources of labor are in short supply, retirement at the age of 60 becomes problematic, and offshoring a necessity. One can therefore see in neoliberalism – embodied in the slogan “Society does not exist, only the individual exists” – the principle that has kept Europeans on the march. It no longer involves only the struggles of the destitute but the rage and also the fear of those who see themselves as victims. Dominique Moïsi, in his interesting Geopolitica delle emozioni (Geopolitics of the Emotions [Doubleday, New York, 2009]) has captured the importance of fear in the new geopolitics. He has summarized its emergence at the beginning of the new millennium as follows: Asia, the land of hope, still had the certainty that its future would be better than its past and present. Islamic countries, feeling humiliated, wanted to get rid of the present; the West, the sphere of affluence, feared that its privileges and its advantages were fading away. The year 2011 came with the overflow of the Arab hope that they could shake off the oppressive weight of despotic, plundering regimes and thus join the rest of the world. But European fear prevented it from grasping how this Middle Eastern phenomenon was a product of its own model and, after the “betrayal” of the Arab Spring, it feared that those fleeing oppressive regimes might further shrink their residual prosperity.

The struggle of the destitute is different from the rage of those who see themselves as victims and the liberal-democratic model has changed into that of a besieged fortress, promoting a culture of fear. That is why fearful Europeans cannot see in migrants the workforce their welfare state needs in order to avoid collapse. If you are unwilling to have more children, you adopt them; but, to adopt, you must have an inclusive, expansive vision, not a neoliberal one. Obsession with fading privileges accentuates rather than alleviates the difficulties which confront society.

Fear may well be a radical problem for the liberal-democratic model.