4 Postliberalism

Field turns attention to post-liberal Patrick Deneen, a political philosopher at Notre Dame, with Catholic Integralist framing. Click here for an earlier DIT framed Review of Deneen’s most well-known work, Why Liberalism Failed (2018) ?? (which it actually did not, at least not completely).  But, some more here.  Field points to how Deneen became ever more extreme, as in a period of about 10 years --- 2012 - 2022 --- going to “… naming the American elite ‘one of the worst of its kind produced in history,’ calling to ‘replace’ them, and advocating for ‘regime change.’ In 2012 he was keen to identify modern idols; by 2022 he was, along with some friends, smashing them down and casting about, around the world, for something new. The latter included jaunts to illiberal Poland and Hungary (Field 2025, p. 79).”  

As Field points out, Deneen is a key figure among the Postliberals, another group working in consort with the Claremonters, to give substance to the MAGA New Right.  Using the frame in Hanson and Kopstein, it seems Deneen fits within the general category of the Christian Nationalists, with Catholic Integralism the push. Field (2025, p. 79) believes the Deneen story is “… appealing to anyone who cares about culture and community, or about the environment, or who has suffered the vicissitudes of late modern capitalism in their own lives.” Perhaps, although DIT addresses such concerns with empirical evidence and true science, not the cargo-cult science (and humanities) guided by Catholic Integralism “Theory” used by Deneen. DIT might be more appealing to anyone who wants to use serious and systematic inquiry using science & humanities.

Postliberal Assault on the Failures of Classical Liberalism

Intriguingly, Deneen has a laudable frame and then, a goal, to fix it, as characterized by Field (2025, p. 80)… “…  (Deneen) had been anticipating a crisis of liberalism for many years (he was once a proponent of “peak oil” theory), and the economic collapse of 2008 seemed to ratify his contention that modern neoliberal economics—based on ceaseless competition and growth and a profit-motive detached from real value—was unsustainable in the long term.”  Yes. Said frame is also found in Ecological Economics, and, DIT can be used to make sense of it, as in the Ethic must temper the arrogance that drives the Incentive driven ceaseless competition and growth without regard for the Spaceship Earth system within which it is embedded.  The problem is how to solve it, and Deneen wants to turn to old religious claims and books to do so. Deneen claims an overlap with Wendel Berry, who would very much likely connect with DIT, and the need to bring the Ethic back into play.  Berry was all about “affection”, which in DIT terms is all about the empathy-based shared other-interest which evolves and holds the Ethic. Again, it is the matter of how said reconsideration, reintroduction of the Ethic into the economy would be accomplished.

Unfortunately, in contrast to DIT which is non-partisan, meaning it can be used to search for the shared other-interest that works best, Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed, and subsequent writing about the need for regime change in the pursuit of a certain kind of common good modeled on Catholic Integralism, chose “ to attack ‘liberalism’ and the so-called liberalocracy—words that in an American context point left—Deneen’s partisanship shone right through (Field 2025, p. 81).” Yes, it did:  Just more political ideology in disguise, just like the neoliberalism (which leaves out all ethical reflection) that Deneen is critiquing. Ironically, Deneen chose a different kind of right-wing ideology (laced with theology) to replace the right-wing ideology of neoliberalism (which Deneen incorrectly labels as liberal, and sometimes as classical liberalism, confusing the two frames) abhorred in the writing. 

Deneen Really Want to Tamp Down Individual Autonomy with Heteronomy

DIT points to the human dilemma, in preference autonomy -- do as you please, free to choose self-interest --- which is preferred but it generally needs some homonomy and/or heteronomy to make it work. Homonomy is a kind of nudging, a kind of influence from the widely shared other-interest represented in the community (on some road 0M) within which the individual lives and works. The individual still voluntarily chooses to opt in or out, like in voluntarily paying some attention to road 0M in moving from autonomous road 0G to road 0Z, so, under influence from road 0M but individual autonomy is still in play, as in autonomy & homonomy. Heteronomy is outside control, coercion and even force, imposing the shared interest of the wider community on the individual. Deneen leans toward said heteronomy, imposing Christian Integralism frames represented in coercive path 0M, moving everyone toward that road. As DIT makes clear, the real world generally involves all three, as in autonomy & homonomy & heteronomy in varying degrees.

As Field (2025, p. 82) points out, Deneen claims modern economy and culture is “based on the destabilizing philosophical premises of individual autonomy and the conquest of nature, which together act as solvents on the social fabric and culture at large.”  Well, DIT could be used to actually do robust, empirical research into that claim.  In fact, DIT is based in robust empirical tests of the Null Hypothesis that the shared other-interest held in the social fabric, in the culture, to include the shared other-interest with Spaceship Earth systems is of no accord in economic choice.  That Null has been rejected over and over and over, lending support to the Deneen concern, but not the Deneen solution to it.

Fixing it using MAGA New Right approaches, to include the Catholic Integralism of Deneen,  clearly is also not the solution. Deneen and supposedly many in the MAGA New Right are concerned with  bringing forward a greater “role of morality and values in the contemporary world… (Field 2025, p. 83).”  Well, that is also the focus in DIT, as it was with Adam Smith and the classical liberals, a point seemingly missed by Deneen.  The problem is, Deneen and the MAGA New Right have peculiar frames on how to bring that about, coming down to Caesarian Rule, and other kinds of Authoritarian Nationalism frames. Also, neofascism seeps into a lot of the MAGA New Right in that implementation.

Field (2025, p. 83) points out that Bloom in the Closing of the American Mind (who Deneen had studied under at one point, so, perhaps Deneen was in agreement) got one thing absolutely correct.  Universities have not paid enough attention to the moral and ethical dimension of both economy and society.  The same point is made using DIT in Metaeconomics:  The Ethic needs to be brought back into view in the typical Econ 101 university (and high school) economics class, through a Metaeconomics.  Doing so means drawing on (and encourage the evolution of) the Community of shared other-interest that works to give content to the culture, and context to the economy. 

It is about Economy & Culture, Market &  Community, Market & Government, the latter being inclusive of the widely shared other interest in Community. It is about the Ethic tempering the Incentive.  The huge difference is that DIT as an analytical system does not lay claim to the contention of Deneen that the only source of said Ethic  is some version of Catholic Integralism, which draws on old religious claims and books. 

Bloom Wanted to Solve the Problems from Downplaying the Moral (and Ethical) Dimension by Fixing the Current System:  Deneen Sees Claims Total Replacement is Essential

Field (2025, p. 86) clarifies, points to huge difference as between Bloom and Deneen:  “Deneen argues, the liberal desire for freedom leads, through paths of “deracination,” “depredation,” and “disintegration,” to despotism. It’s a vicious circle of individualism and statism, of political atomism that fuels state tyranny. And whereas Bloom presents his story as a warning, Deneen offers his as an inevitability.”   Well, DIT makes clear that attention to teaching in the humanities and religion to bring students to ponder the content of the shared other-interest is key, which Bloom would assuredly agree, DIT disagrees (empirically based) with Deneen.  Nothing is inevitable from an idea: Said idea needs to be continually subjected to empirical test, as DIT assures. 

Again, DIT has done so, with support for both Bloom and Deneen:  The test of the Null Hypothesis of no role for the Ethic, no role of the Moral Dimension, has been rejected over and over.  Again, the issue is not the role, it is the matter of how to evolve that moral and ethical dimension and  bring it into play in reasoned ways.  The classical liberals like Adam Smith got it correct, as DIT confirms.  It is the misrepresentation of said (classical) liberalism by self-interest only theorists and practitioners that have caused the problem to which both Bloom and Deneen ascribe.

The problem with the frame of Deneen, made clear in DIT and pointed to here by Field (2025, pp. 88-89) is the “mode of thought presupposes that there are specific truths and ways of seeing the world that must be left unchallenged; he wants to protect and cordon off moral and political living, even if that means sealing off critical thinking.”  Yes, Conservative Catholicism is getting in the way, as though it provided some immutable, timeless truth that can never be challenged. 

Several of the MAGA New Right Want to Replace the American Inclusive Democracy with an Autocracy

Field finishes out the chapter with short discussions of  views held by Vermeule, Sohrab Ahmari, and Yoram Hazony all of whom --- along with Deneen in more recent writing --- are into favoring a kind of Authoritarian Nationalism with religious overtones not unlike what Schmitt had in mind for 1930s-1945 Germany.   As DIT makes clear, the empirical justification using serious inquiry based in the sciences and humanities does not support such a road, which is another Road to Serfdom (see ??).  The philosopher Schmitt who supported the Authoritarian Nationalism of Germany in the 1930s-1945 got it wrong on how to fix the problem of inadequate attention to the moral and ethical dimension arising from the misapplied tenets of classical liberalism, just as do the Postliberal writers.   The Postliberal Order will not work:  The Metaeconomic Order --- which is in effect a modern version of The New Deal Order 1930-1980 --- will.  Empathy-based ethics --- arising out of a lot of talk, talk, talk in an inclusive Democracy --- are at the center, and, the reason it will work.

The Hazony and Deneen (and other Post-liberal) assault on the very core of classical liberalism --- liberty and freedom, dignity and opportunity for the ordinary person --- is unprecedented since the Founders installed said system with the 1787 Constitution. Said assault needs to be examined empirically not with ideology and theology but with rigorous analytical systems like that represented in DIT.