4/2/2023 0 Comments Warlike society![]() First, high-trust countries’ institutions are much less corrupt, and so they are less wasteful. High-trust societies do demand larger welfare states, but from a classical liberal perspective there are two mitigating factors. High-trust societies are freer because they demand less control of their members and are better able to resist it. State power becomes total because communities and local institutions that could resist state power disintegrate. Propaganda and secret police constantly encourage neighbors to turn on one another. But when market liberals in the United States propose similar policies, they are met with furious denunciations and accusations that they are the servants of corporate power. The Swedish market liberals who proposed these policies in the 1980s and ‘90s were often greeted as acting in good faith. It has been much easier for Sweden to move from democratic socialism to a capitalist welfare state, with large privatizations, deregulation, and tax cuts, because Sweden is one of the world’s most trusting nations. High-trust societies are also more amenable to deregulation and privatizations because they are less concerned that private persons and firms will misbehave. It leads people to form new associations because they feel safe around strangers. Social trust encourages higher economic growth by making people more willing to exchange and helping them to become more economically productive. Social trust lowers corruption in the legal system it discourages legal officials from violating the informal norms that prohibit bribery, theft, fraud, and self-interested decisionmaking. The decline is worrisome because social trust produces many great goods, such as lower corruption, higher economic growth, and a more robust and active civil society. Social trust-faith that strangers will abide by established norms-has been in gradual decline in the United States since the early 1960s. But to do this, we must understand the dynamics of trust and polarization. We must also reformulate classical liberal ideas to create a new antiwar movement, one that aims at resisting the political war raging within the United States. ![]() ![]() ![]() Instead of choosing a side, we classical liberals must take on a new role in American society as a movement that can reduce political polarization and restore social trust through the limitation and decentralization of political power.įalling trust and rising polarization pose a grave but ignored threat to liberty. Too many of us care more about the red or blue team than about preserving liberalism from them both. And classical liberals have joined the conflict, taking sides rather than defending freedom. Politics is more warlike than at any time in living memory. Illiberalisms, both left and right, grow bold, spurring one another on with outrage, censorship, and tribalism. Classical liberalism, the political movement to which I belong, is in decline. ![]()
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