Why Liberalism Failed

by Patrick J. Deneen

“Progressives” thus have had little success reining in the expansion of the private realm devoted to increasing acquisition of property and economic power. “Conservatives” have likewise had little success thwarting the expansion of individual expressivism, especially thwarting the advance of the sexual revolution. If anyone wants to know why the Republicans have failed to make the federal government smaller and to devolve power back to the states in significant ways (as they have claimed they seek to do at least since Goldwater, if not since FDR), we should recognize that such a reversal would go against the logic and the grain of the regime. It was designed so that power would accumulate at the center, and especially designed to attract to the center the most ambitious—those who will endeavor by dint of their constitutional ambitiousness to ensure that power continues to accumulate at the center.